NATIONAL NEWS
Rajasthan Govt to set up 100 Nursery Sports Academies to give opportunity to ChildrenThe Rajasthan government will set up 100 nursery sports academies to give an opportunity to children to play in their districts in the academies, Minister of State for Youth Affairs and Sports Ashok Chandna said.
- Mr Ashok Chandna informed that a large number of private sports academies are running in the state, and complaints of charging arbitrary fees is common.
- To curb such activities, now rules and provisions will also be made by the Sports Department for private sports academies so that there is no injustice to the players.
The cabinet has approved a detailed proposal for setting up the developmental finance institution (DFI) that was announced in the budget last month, clearing the decks for a dedicated government-owned infrastructure financier.
- The National Bank for Financing Infrastructure and Development (NaBFID) will be set up with a corpus of ₹20,000 crore and an initial grant of ₹5,000 crore from the government.
- Initially, it will be wholly owned but the government stake will be lowered to a quarter.
Up to 60 per cent of water used for sugarcane, banana, okra, papaya, bittergourd and few other crops could be saved if a drip irrigation system is employed for cultivation. But only four States — Sikkim, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra — have more than half of the net cultivated farmlands under micro-irrigation.
- 27 States (including UTs) in India have less than 30 per cent micro-irrigation system out of which 23 have less than 15 per cent micro-irrigation.
- The data provided by the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare to the Lok Sabha last month show that the net irrigated area in the country is 68,649 thousand ha. The agriculture land covered under micro-irrigation is 12,908.44 thousand ha in which drip irrigation is 6,112.05 thousand ha and sprinkler irrigation is 6,796.39 thousand ha.
- This means that out of total irrigated land in the country only 19 per cent is under micro-irrigation. These figures are from 2005-06 to 2020-21(as on February 3, 2021).
Centre has deployed a three-member high-level central team to review Medical Care and Public Health arrangements for Kumbh Mela at Haridwar in Uttarakhand.
- The team is being led by Dr SK Singh, Director, National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC). Dr SK Jain, Additional Director and Dr Meera Dhuria, Deputy Director, both from NCDC are the team members.
- The team will focus on the status of implementation of the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for the Kumbh Mela issued by it in the context of implementing preventive measures to contain spread of COVID-19.
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Delhi, 21 Indian cities in World's 30 most polluted placesTwenty-two of the world's 30 most polluted cities are in India, with Delhi being ranked as the most polluted capital city globally, a new report said. The report is prepared by Swiss organisation, IQAir, in the form of the 'World Air Quality Report, 2020', which has released globally.
- The report, however, shows that Delhi's air quality improved by approximately 15 per cent from 2019 to 2020. It said that despite the improvement, Delhi ranked as the 10th most polluted city and the top polluted capital city in the world.
- Besides Delhi, the 21 other Indian cities among the 30 most polluted cities in the world are Ghaziabad, Bulandshahar, Bisrakh Jalalpur, Noida, Greater Noida, Kanpur, Lucknow, Meerut, Agra and Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh, Bhiwari in Rajasthan, Faridabad, Jind, Hisar, Fatehabad, Bandhwari, Gurugram, Yamuna Nagar, Rohtak and Dharuhera in Haryana, and Muzaffarpur in Bihar.
- As per the report, the top most polluted city is Xinjiang in China followed by nine Indian cities. Ghaziabad is the second most polluted city in the world followed by Bulandshahar, Bisrakh Jalalpur, Noida, Greater Noida, Kanpur, Lucknow and Bhiwari.
BANKING & FINANCE
Reserve Bank Imposes Rs 2 Crore Penalty on SBIReserve Bank of India imposed a penalty of Rs 2 crore on State Bank of India (SBI) for contravention of norms, including specific directions to the lender on remuneration to its employees in the form of commission.
- The penalty has been imposed for contravention of certain sections of Banking Regulation Act and its specific directions of RBI issued to the bank on payment of remuneration to employees in the form of commission.
SBI was the top remitter on the UPI platform in February, while Paytm Payments Bank led the chart in the beneficiary segment, as per data published by the National Payments Corporation of India. PhonePe topped the app category on the UPI platform in terms of volume and amount involved in the transactions that it facilitated.
- According to the data published by NPCI, State Bank of India (SBI) recorded 656.92 million remittance transactions in February, that is money was sent out from the bank using the UPI platform.
- It was followed by HDFC Bank with 207.27 million remittance transactions, Axis Bank (164.27 million), Paytm Payments Bank (149.32 million) and ICICI Bank (148.98 million).
Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has approved IPO application requests via Paytm UPI handle. This will help enable fast and seamless applications for the IPO, Paytm Payments Bank Ltd said.
- Paytm Payments Bank (PPBL) has also entered into a partnership with Paytm Money to enable payment mandates for IPO applications. Paytm Money has the aim to bring 10 million Indians to equity markets by the financial year 2022.
The Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) of India has launched Bachat Plus, a non-linked, participating, individual life assurance savings plan.
- The applicants may either pay the premium in lump sum (single premium) or may avail the 5-year limited premium paying option.
- This plan provides financial support for the family of the deceased policyholder any time before maturity and lump sum amount at the time of maturity for the surviving policyholders.
- The minimum basic sum assured is ₹1 lakh with no upper limit.
The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) launched the ‘UPI-Help’ feature on BHIM app as a part of Digi-Help stack by NPCI in order to address issues and resolve complaints of users while conducting UPI transactions.
- With the help of UPI-Help, users can register complaints online using their BHIM UPI app for UPI transactions as well as resolve complaints online for person-to-person transactions.
BUSINESS & ECONOMY
India's import of arms decreases by 33%, says SIPRIIndia’s import of arms decreased by 33 pe cent between 2011-2015 and 2016-2020 and Russia was the most affected supplier, although India’s imports of US arms also fell, by 46 percent, according to a report released Stockholm-based defence think-tank SIPRI.
- It said the drop in Indian arms imports seemed to have been the result of the country’s complex procurement processes combined with an attempt to reduce its dependence on Russian arms.
- The SIPRI said the US remained the largest arms exporter, increasing its global share of arms exports from 32 to 37 percent between 2011-2015 and 2016-2020, adding it supplied major arms to 96 states in 201620, far more than any other supplier.
- The SIPRI report said Russia and China both saw their arms exports falling. Arms exports by Russia, which accounted for 20 percent of all exports of major arms in 2016-2020, dropped by 22 percent to roughly the same level as in 2006-2010.
SPORTS
S Dhanalakshmi beats Dutee Chand to win 100m GoldThe 22-year-old Dhanalakshmi of Tamil Nadu took the gold by clocking 11.39 seconds ahead of Dutee (11.58) of Odisha to become the fastest woman of the championships on the second day of competitions at the NIS Campus. Another Tamil Nadu runner Archana Suseendran was third in 11.76
- Gurindervir Singh of Punjab won the men’s 100m final in 10.32 seconds, while Elakkiyadasan Kannada of Tamil Nadu (10.43) and Maharashtra’s Satish Krishnakumar (10.56) were second and third respectively.
- Veteran M R Poovamma, representing Karnataka, took the gold in women’s 400m, winning the final race in 53.57 seconds. Tamil Nadu’s Subha Venkatesan (54.48) and Kiran Pahal of Haryana took the silver and bronze respectively.
International Boxing Association (AIBA) announced that Asian Boxing Championships 2021 will be hosted by New Delhi, India from May 21-31.
- It will be the first boxing tournament in Asia to be held in 2021. In the AIBA Asian Forum which took place virtually, 32 countries participated, Asian Boxing Confederation (ASBC) president Anas Al Otaiba delivered a report about the upcoming Asian Elite Men & Women Boxing Championships 2021.
BOOKS & AUTHORS
Former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi's memoir to hit stands in SeptemberFormer PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi has a memoir, titled 'My Life in Full,' will hit the stands on September 28 and will be published by Hachette India.
- This book will offers insight and a call-to-action from Nooyi on how a society can really blend work and family – and advance women – in the 21st century.
Bengaluru-based Jahnavi Barua’s latest book Undertow was recently longlisted for the JCB Prize 2020.
- Undertow is a book about the emotions of people in an estranged family. Twenty five year old Loya knocks on the door of the house whose doors have been closed for her mother, Rukmini ever since she marries an "outsider".
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