General Awareness

NATIONAL AFFAIRS - October 2015

Oct 2015

Aug 30, 2021

M. K. Bhardwaj is President of Jammu Chapter of J&K HC Bar Association

The Jammu chapter of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court Bar Association got a new body with advocate M. K. Bhardwaj elected as president following an election that took place after a delay of two years.
Mohinder Pal Singh (Palli) was elected as the vice president, Surjeet Singh Andotra as general secretary, Aditya Sharma as joint secretary and Amandeep Singh as treasurer.

President Unveils Statue of Former CM Sampurnanand

President Ram Nath Kovind unveiled the statue of Sampurnanand, former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, and likewise inaugurated an auditorium named after him on the U.P. Sainik School in Lucknow.
Addressing the concluding ceremony of the Diamond Jubilee celebrations of the Sainik School named after Param Vir Chakra awardee Captain Manoj Kumar Pandey, Mr. Kovind mentioned Sampurnanand and Pandey shared the widespread thought of dedicating all the pieces to nationwide delight.
Sampooranand was CM of Uttar Pradesh from 1954 to 1960.

Prime Minister Inaugurates Renovated Complex of Jallianwala Bagh Memorial

Prime Minister Narendra Modi virtually inaugurated the renovated complex of Jallianwala Bagh memorial.
A wreath-laying ceremony was held and a two-minute silence observed in the memory of martyrs of the Jallianwala massacre.
Museum galleries have been developed at the memorial and the event showcased multiple development initiatives taken by the government to upgrade the complex.
A sound and light show has been set up to display the events that happened on April 13, 1919 when the British forces fired indiscriminately on a large and peaceful gathering of protesters, killing over 1,000 people and wounding hundreds of them.
Four museum galleries have been created through adaptive reuse of redundant and underutilised buildings.

India Elected to CA and POC of Universal Postal Union

India has won the elections for membership of two key bodies of the Universal Postal Union (UPU), during the 27th UPU Congress in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire. India got elected to the Council of Administration (CA) with 134 votes, out of 156 countries. The country received the highest votes in CA elections from South Asia and the Oceania region.
Apart from this, India has also been elected to the Postal Operations Council (POC) with 106 votes. India will now work with all to strengthen cooperation in the Universal Postal Union.
The Universal Postal Union, established by the Treaty of Bern of 1874, is a specialised agency of the United Nations (UN) that coordinates postal policies among member nations, in addition to the worldwide postal system. The UPU contains four bodies consisting of the Congress, the Council of Administration (CA), the Postal Operations Council (POC) and the International Bureau (IB). It also oversees the Telematics and Express Mail Service (EMS) cooperatives. Each member agrees to the same terms for conducting international postal duties. The UPU's headquarters are located in Bern, Switzerland.

Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik Inaugurates Eastern India's Largest ECMO Facility

Odisha got eastern India's largest ECMO (Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation) unit at SCB Medical College and Hospital, Cuttack. While inaugurating the service, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik announces free ECMO treatment to all.
As per Naveen Patnaik, the service with nine ECMO units will be very helpful to treat the critical patients affected by Covid.
Stating ECMO services in the premier health institute a historical decision, Panchayati Raj Minister Pratap Jena thanked CM Naveen Patnaik and suggested people take the advantage of service in the state itself.

Justice Kothari is Acting Gujarat High Court Chief Justice

Justice Vineet Kothari was appointed the acting Chief Justice of the Gujarat High Court by President Ram Nath Kovind.
Justice Kothari, the senior-most judge of the Gujarat HC, was appointed to the top post in the state judiciary following the elevation of incumbent Chief Justice Vikram Nath to the Supreme Court a few days back.
Justice Kothari is expected to take over as the acting CJ on September 1.

Aug 29, 2021

Rajavelou is Puducherry Deputy Speaker

Four-time legislator P. Rajavelou was elected unopposed as the deputy Speaker of the 15th Legislative Assembly.
Speaker R. Selvam made the announcement appointing Mr. Rajavelou, a legislator representing Nettapakkam (reserved) constituency as the Deputy Speaker. Mr. Rajavelou's was the lone nomination received for the post, Mr. Selvam said. Mr. Rajavelou, who got elected to the Assembly first from the Bahour Assembly constituency in 1990, had also represented Embalam constituency.
In his more than 20-year-long political career, he had served as Minister twice under Chief Minister N. Rangasamy.

Delhi has the Highest No of CCTVs in the World

Delhi is in the list of most surveilled cities in the world, the national capital is only the second Indian city to be awarded this distinction among other major international hubs like US' New York city, China's Shanghai and UK's London.
As per a data for the world's most surveilled cities compiled by Forbes India, New Delhi ranks first among a list of 20 other cities. Delhi reportedly has 1,826.6 CCTVs covering per square mile.
The other Indian city featuring in the list in Tamil Nadu's capital city of Chennai with 609.9 cameras per square miles ranking third in the world. London ranks second, is just behind Delhi - with 1138.5 CCTVs per square mile.

Education Ministry's Innovation Cells, AICTE, BPRD Launch MANTHAN 2021

Ministry of Education's innovation cells, All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) and Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPR&D) have jointly launched the MANTHAN 2021 hackathon, a unique national initiative to identify innovative concepts and technology solutions for addressing the security challenges of the 21st century faced by the intelligence agencies.
MANTHAN 2021 will have two phases. In the first phase, participants would submit their concepts against the problem statements which they wish to solve on the portal. These submitted ideas will be evaluated by group of experts in the field and only the innovative ideas will be selected for the Grand Finale or 2nd round scheduled from 28 November 2021. During the grand finale, selected participants are expected to build the solution to demonstrate their concepts and prove to the juries that their ideas are technically feasible and more importantly implementable. Best ideas will be declared winners.

Aug 28, 2021

NERDSD Goal Index Report & Dashboard Launched

NITI Aayog and Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER) launched the first edition of the North Eastern Region District Sustainable Development (NERDSD) Goal Index Report and Dashboard 2021-22.
This is the first of its kind region-wide district SDG index in India.
Launch of NERDSD goal index report is also a milestone in the efforts towards localising Sustainable Development Goals across 120 Districts of the north-eastern states of India namely Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Manipur, Meghalaya, Sikkim, Nagaland and Tripura.
This index has been prepared by collaborative efforts of NITI Aayog and DoNER Ministry.
The index was launched in order to facilitate a platform to identify crucial gaps and inform interventions in order to fast track progress towards achieving the SDGs. It measures the performance of the districts across eight States.

PM Modi Chairs 37th PRAGATI Meeting

Prime Minister Narendra Modi chaired the meeting of 37th edition of PRAGATI (Pro-Active Governance and Timely Implementation).
During the meeting, nine agenda items comprising of eight projects and one scheme were taken for review.
PRAGATI meeting is held once every month on the fourth Wednesday. The day is dubbed as PRAGATI Day.
PRAGATI is a platform, enabling the Prime Minister to discuss issues with concerned Central and State officials with full information and visuals of ground-level situation. This platform was launched in 2015. It has been designed by the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) team in collaboration with National Informatics Center (NIC). Platform is a three-tier system namely PMO, Union Government Secretaries and Chief Secretaries of States.
Three objectives of PRAGATI are Grievance Redressal, Programme Implementation and Project Monitoring.

Mansukh Mandaviya Takes Charge as Chairperson of Stop TB Partnership Board

Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare, Shri Mansukh Mandaviya, took charge as the Chairperson of Stop TB Partnership Board on August 26, 2021.
He will hold the position until 2024.
He will now lead the efforts of Stop TB Partnership Secretariat, partners, and TB community in order to reach towards reaching United Nations TB targets by 2022. Thus, it is a milestone moment in the effort of ending TB by 2030.
This partnership was established in the year 2000 in a bid to eliminate tuberculosis (TB) as a public health problem. It comprises of 1500 partner organizations including international organizations, nongovernmental & governmental organizations as well as patient groups. Its secretariat is located in Geneva, Switzerland. It is administered by UNOPS since 2015. Earlier, it was hosted by the World Health Organization.
Stop TB Initiative was established after the meeting of the First Session of Ad Hoc Committee on Tuberculosis Epidemic. It was held in London in March 1998.
Stop TB Partnership came up with the Amsterdam Declaration in March 2000 in order to Stop TB.

Aug 27, 2021

Vincent Pala to Head Congress Unit in Meghalaya, Rajesh Thakur in Jharkhand

The Congress changed the guards in the Meghalaya and Jharkhand units of the party. Party MP Vincent Pala was appointed as chief of the Meghalaya unit of the party and MLA Rajesh Thakur was appointed Jharkhand Pradesh Congress Committee (JPCC) chief.
Pala replaced Celestine Lyngdoh while Thakur replaced Rameshwar Oraon for the state presidential post in Meghalaya and Jharkhand units of the party, respectively.
The party has also appointed four working presidents of JPCC - Geeta Kora, Bandhu Tirkey, Jaleshwar Mahato and Shahzada Anwar.

Govt. Clears Names of 9 Judges for Elevation to Supreme Court

The Narendra Modi-led NDA government has approved all the nine names of judges recommended by the collegium for elevation to the Supreme Court.
Three women are among the 9 names recommended by the Supreme Court Collegium for appointments as judges of the top court.
Justice B. V. Nagarathna of the Karnataka High Court, who is also among the three women judges recommended by the Collegium, is in line to become the first Chief Justice of India.
The nine nominated by the collegiums were four High Court Chief Justices —Vikram Nath (Gujarat), A. S. Oka (Karnataka), Hima Kohli (Telangana) and J. K. Maheshwari (Sikkim) — four High Court judges Justices B. V. Nagarathna (Karnataka), M. M. Sundresh (Madras), C. T. Ravikumar (Kerala) and Bela M. Trivedi (Gujarat), and Senior Advocate P. S. Narasimha.

Punjab 2022 Polls to be Fought under Amarinder's Helm

Just ahead of meeting four Congress dissident Cabinet ministers and three legislators, Punjab affairs in charge and AICC general secretary Harish Rawat clarified that the 2022 Punjab Assembly election would be fought under the leadership of Amarinder Singh amid signs of revolt by the Navjot Singh Sidhu faction.
The legislators reached Dehradun to apprise Rawat about the mood of the public against the Amarinder Singh-led government in the state. They, among 20-odd party legislators, have been demanding replacement of Amarinder Singh as he failed to fulfill the 2017 poll promises.

Assam Inks Pact to Waive Loans of 1.4 m Women Borrowers

As promised in its assembly poll manifesto, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government in Assam inked a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with 38 microfinance institutions and banks to waive off loans taken by poor women in the state.
Signing of the MoU will lead to implementation of the Assam Micro Finance Incentive and Relief Scheme, 2021, prepared earlier by the government and benefit nearly 1.4 million borrowers.
Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said that the scheme will have a Rs. 12,000 crore credit portfolio, including about Rs. 7,200 crore to be spent by the government.
The relief scheme will ensure continuity of micro-finance for supporting economic activities of poor households and help eligible customers in overcoming stress in the microfinance sector due to various operational reasons.

Aug 26, 2021

Siva Made Convener of DMK in Puducherry

Opposition leader R. Siva has been made convener of the Puducherry unit of the DMK after the south and north wings of the party were merged.
Former Minister S.P. Sivakumar has been made presidium chairman. The party leadership has also made K.M.P. Logayyan treasurer and appointed eight deputy conveners.
Earlier, Mr. Siva and Mr. Sivakumar were conveners of south and north wings, respectively.

NITI Aayog, WRI Launch Forum for Decarbonisation of Transport Sector

Indian government's think-tank NITI Aayog, in collaboration with World Resources Institute (WRI), launched the Forum for Decarbonising Transport in the country.
Through this forum, the WRI India team, along with NITI Aayog and other project partners, will work in close coordination with all the stakeholders to formulate strategies and develop appropriate business models to accelerate electric mobility in India.
The forum aims to create a platform to initiate dialogues for the development of uniform policies and help achieve specific results in reducing carbon emissions from the transport sector.

Govt. to Launch e-SHRAM Portal

The government launched the e-SHRAM portal to maintain a database of workers in the unorganised sector.
Yadav launched the logo of the e-SHRAM portal, through which the government aims to register 38 crore unorganised workers such as construction labourers, migrant workforce, street vendors, and domestic workers, among others.
On the day of launch of the portal, a national toll free number 14434 was launched to assist and address the queries of the workers seeking registration on the portal.
As part of the initiative, the workers will be issued an e-SHRAM card containing a 12 digit unique number.
The objective behind the move is integration of social security schemes of the government.

Share on

TCY Analytics (View Subscription Plans)

Subscribe to GK Updates

I want to receive

GK Tags

September GK, August GK, July GK, INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS, ENVIRONMENT, BUSINESS AND ECONOMY, SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY, SPORTS, NATIONAL AFFAIRS, DEFENCE, PERSONS IN NEWS, DAYS AND EVENTS, AWARDS AND HONOURS, GOVERNMENT POLICIES AND SCHEMES, GENDER/ HEALTH/ EDUCATION, ART AND CULTURE, BOOKS AND AUTHORS, TOURISM AND HOTEL INDUSTRY AWARENESS, ART AND CULTURE, LAW AND CONSTITUTIONAL AFFAIRS

Start Discussion

On any topic

Take Tests

Compiled from GK updates

Login

Sign Up

Forgot Password

Download TCY App

Unlock All Services And Enjoy The Premium Benefits

US$ 10

US$ 13

US$ 15

US$ 17

US$ 19

US$ 20

US$ 21

US$ 22

US$ 23

US$ 24

US$ 25

US$ 26