1) World Senior Citizen Day 2022 celebrates on 21st August
•World Senior Citizens’ Day is celebrated on August 21 every year. It is also known as National Senior Citizens’ Day in the United States (US). The day is observed with the intent to highlight the contributions of elderly people in human society and honour them. The day is also celebrated to bring attention to various issues that affect the elderly, such as health issues and abuse by younger people, whether family or outsiders.
2) International Day Commemorating the Victims of Acts of Violence Based on Religion or Belief
•International Day Commemorating the Victims of Acts of Violence Based on Religion or Belief, observed on August 22. On this day, the international community honours the survivors and victims of religious-based violence. The day aims to remember the victims and survivors of evil acts on the basis of or in the name of religion or belief.
3) 17th Pravasi Bhartiya Divas 2023 to be held at Indore
•According to External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi, the 17th Pravasi Bhartiya Divas 2023 will be held at Indore in January next year. Pravasi Bharatiya Divas is celebrated every year on the 9th of January to mark the contribution of the overseas Indian community to the development of India. It also commemorates the return of Mahatma Gandhi from South Africa to India on 9th January 1915.
•Since 2015, its format has been revised to celebrate the Pravasi Bhartiya Divas(PBD) once every two years and to hold theme-based Pravasi Bhartiya Divas Conferences during the intervening period with participation from overseas diaspora experts, policymakers, and stakeholders. The 16th Pravasi Bharatiya Divas was held during 21–23 January 2019 at Varanasi, India. The Prime Minister of Mauritius, Pravind Jugnauth, was the guest of honour.
4) International Day of Remembrance and Tribute to the Victims of Terrorism
•International Day of Remembrance of and Tribute to the Victims of Terrorism is observed on August 21 each year in memory of the victims of terrorism. The day is observed to show the victims of terrorism that they are not forgotten and they are respected and recognised across the world.
5) Rajnath Singh inaugurates national seminar “Introspection: Armed Forces Tribunal”
•Raksha Mantri (Defence Minister) Shri Rajnath Singh will open a national seminar entitled “Introspection: Armed Forces Tribunal” that the Armed Forces Tribunal (Principal Bench) Bar Association is hosting in New Delhi. In addition to serving members of the armed forces, the Introspection: Armed Forces Tribunal seminar is being held to evaluate how the Armed Forces Tribunal, which was formed to assure prompt and affordable justice for veterans, their families, and war widows, operates.
6) NASA’s Artemis III mission: Moon landing locations
•The 13 prospective landing locations for NASA’s Artemis III mission, which would bring the first woman and person of colour to the Moon, have been revealed, as promised. The following 13 areas have been chosen by NASA as potential landing sites for the NASA’s Artemis III mission: Peak Near Shackleton, Connecting Ridge, Connecting Ridge Extension, Haworth, Malapert Massif, Leibnitz Beta Plateau, Nobile Rim 1, Nobile Rim 2, and Amundsen Rim are some of the features that make up the Faustini Rim A.
7) Geothermal energy to be used to supply energy to Ladakh
•At 14,000 feet in Ladakh, ONGC is getting ready to pump geothermal energy. State-run explorer ONGC has set out on a mission to harness the steam streaming from the earth’s core at Puga, a lonely valley off the road to Chumar on the de facto boundary with China, at a height of more than 14,000 feet. In India, geothermal energy is nothing new. The Indian government first provided a report on the nation’s geothermal hotspots in 1973. This occurred after shallow drilling exploration by the Geological Survey of India (GSI) revealed prospective hot spring and geothermal areas. According to estimates, India has the ability to produce 10 gigawatts of geothermal energy.
8) NPCI International Signs MoU with PayXpert as UK’s first acquirer for UPI and RuPay
•National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), which is the world’s largest real-time payment solution, the Unified Payments Interface, and the RuPay card scheme has signed an MoU through their subsidiary corporation NPCI International Payments Limited (NIPL), with the PayXpert, the payment solutions to establish and internationalize the acceptance of its payment solutions in the UK.
•The collaboration between NIPL and PayXpert will promote Indian payment solutions on the PayXpert in the UK. The payment method will be available on PayXpert’s Android point-of-sale (POS) devices for in-store payments, along with the availability of UPI-based QR code payments and RuPay card payments.
9) Indian Army Set to Possess Quantum Communication Technology
•India is all set to join the elite global club, and the Indian Army will soon possess indigenous and more advanced quantum communication technology with equipped troops and a high-end secured defense system. With the support of Innovation for Defence Excellence (iDEX), Defence Innovation Organisation, the QNu Labs which is a Bengaluru-based deep tech startup has innovated advanced secured communication through Quantum Key Distribution (QKD). The Defence Ministry has initiated the procurement process of QNu Labs developed QKD systems by issuing a commercial Request for Proposal (REF) after the successful trials.
•The leading countries in the QKD systems are China, the US, Canada, and other European countries. A QKD system allows the creation of a quantum secure secret pair of symmetric keys between two points that are separated by a certain distance in terrestrial optical fiber infrastructure. Indian Defence officials also considered this Innovation as a milestone in the Azadi ka Amrit Kaal. The Ministry of Defence explained that QKD helps to create a non-hackable quantum channel for creating un-hackable encryption keys, which are used to encrypt critical data.
10) Mandla becomes India’s first fully ‘functionally literate’ district
•Madhya Pradesh’s tribal-dominated Mandla region has become the first fully “functionally literate” district in the country. Another report of 2020 highlights that, more than 2.25 lakh people in this district were not literate, most of them were tribals from forest areas. Tribals frequently complained to the authorities about money being taken from their bank accounts by fraudsters and the root cause of this was that they were not functionally literate.
11) GoI grants GI Tag to Bihar’s Mithila Makhana
•The Central government has awarded Geographical Indication (GI) tag to Mithila Makhana. With this move, growers will get the maximum price for their premium produce. Over five lakh farmers of the Mithila region of Bihar will be benefitted from this decision. Makhana registered with GI Tag, farmers will get profit and it will be easier to earn.
