VISION

Why in news?

The Delhi University (DU) has approved a 4-year undergraduate (UG) programme as part of the reforms under the new National Education Policy.

What are the key features of the NEP?

Multidisciplinarity

• Higher education in India is focused on producing disciplinary experts.
• But the new NEP proposes to break disciplinary boundaries.
• E.g., B Tech students, beyond their core subject limits, will have significant component of arts and humanities. And arts and humanities students will learn more science too.

4-year Undergrad Programme

1)  Niti Aayog releases NER District SDG Index report

•NITI Aayog and Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region have launched the North Eastern Region District SDG Index Report and Dashboard 2021–22, with technical support from UNDP. The index is based on NITI Aayog’s SDG India Index.

•According to the report, the East Sikkim district of Sikkim has topped the North Eastern Region (NER) District SDG Index 2021-22 while the Kiphire district of Nagaland was ranked last amongst 103 districts in the ranking. Gomati, North Tripura is second, West Tripura is third in the ranking.

2)  G20 Ministerial Conference on Women’s Empowerment held in Italy

•The First-ever G20 Ministerial Conference on Women’s Empowerment was held at Santa Margherita Ligure, Italy. It was held in mixed format i.e people participated in physical form and via video conference also. The Union Minister of Women & Child Development, Smt. Smriti Irani addressed the meet on behalf of India. The Union Minister reaffirmed India’s commitment towards addressing gender and women-centric issues through mutual cooperation.

3)  BPR&D collaborates with AICTE to launch India’s first hackathon “MANTHAN 2021”

•The Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPR&D) in collaboration with the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) have launched a unique national Hackathon named ‘MANTHAN 2021’. The basic objective of this hackathon is to identify innovative concepts and technology solutions for addressing the security challenges of the 21st century faced by the intelligence agencies of the country and empower these enforcement agencies.

4)  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.

5)  Ministry of Labour & Employment launches e-Shram Portal

•Ministry of Labour & Employment has launched e-Shram Portal to link Unorganised Workers with social security schemes being implemented by the Central and State Governments. Minister for Labour and Employment, Bhupender Yadav has launched the portal where 38 crore Unorganised Workers can register themselves and in turn benefit from various social security schemes.

6)  Mansukh Mandaviya appointed Chairperson of Stop TB Partnership Board

•Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare, Mansukh Mandaviya has taken over charge as the Chairperson of Stop TB Partnership Board. He has replaced Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare, Dr Harsh Vardhan as the chairman. India aims to end TB by 2025 while the UN aims to end TB by 2030.

•The Stop TB Partnership is a United Nations-hosted partnership program that aims to fight against tuberculosis collectively. The Stop TB Partnership also welcomed the incoming Board Vice-Chair Austin Arinze Obiefuna. He will take over as the Board Vice-Chair from 1 January 2022 for a period of three years.

7)  China, Pakistan, Thailand, Mongolia to hold military exercise “Shared Destiny-2021”

•The armed force of the country China, Pakistan, Mongolia and Thailand will take part in a multinational peacekeeping exercise named “Shared Destiny-2021”. The exercise will be held in China in the month of September 2021. The four countries will take part in the first multinational peacekeeping live exercise “Shared Destiny-2021” at the combined-arms tactical training base of the PLA in Henan’s Queshan county.

•All the four countries will dispatch more than 1,000 troops to participate in the drills, involving units of infantry, fast response, security, helicopter, engineering, transportation and medical services. The scenario of the exercise is joint operations of multinational peacekeeping forces and the exercise will be held in a close-to-real battlefield environment set in accordance with the international, professional and realistic combat standards.

8)  NSG commandos undertake counter-terrorist drills ‘Gandiv’

•The third edition of the week-long annual exercise called ‘Gandiv’ was launched at these locations by the NSG from August 22 and it will continue till August 28. Multiple cities in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and the National Capital Region are hosting synchronised commando drills as part of a national mock exercise being carried out by the counter-terrorism force National Security Guard (NSG) to check its response time and reaction to hostage and hijack-like situations. Gandiv was the name of Arjuna’s bow in Mahabharata.

•The drills are aimed to “validate the planning parameters” of the commando force in the event of a terrorist attack, hijack of an aircraft or hostage situation. The NSG was raised as a federal counter-terrorism force in 1984 to undertake surgical commando operations in order to neutralise terrorist and hijack threats. It also has a special squad that provides armed security cover to at least 13 high-risk VVIPs at present.

9)  Sonu Sood to be brand ambassador by Delhi govt for ‘Desh ke Mentors’ Programme

•Chief Minister of Delhi, Arvind Kejriwal has announced that Bollywood actor Sonu Sood will be the brand ambassador of the Delhi government’s ‘Desh Ke Mentors’ programme. The programme will be soon launched by Delhi Government. The programme entails “adopting” one to ten government school students who can be mentored by citizens who are successful in their respective fields.

•Mentors will take out 10 minutes every week to guide students over the phone. Interested citizens can adopt between one to ten children studying in the city’s government schools as part of the initiative.

📰 Ministries reach consensus on hydropower projects in Himalayas

Insight IAS Prelims 2021 Subject wise Test 25 with Solution PDF

GS SCORE Prelims 2021 Test 62 With Solution PDF

 What is the issue?

There have been concerns regarding the information gap growing between the state and citizens with reports of missing data

What are the gaps in data-based policymaking?

Why in news?

The government has notified the Drone Rules 2021 that is expected to make drone operations simpler for civilian drone operators.

What are the key features of Drone Rules 2021?

1)  India & Maldives inks pact on mega Greater Male Connectivity Project

•The Government of India and Maldives inked the contract for the mega Greater Male Connectivity project (GMCP). The Greater Male Connectivity project (GMCP) is the largest-ever civilian infrastructure project in the Maldives. The Government of India is funding the implementation of GMCP through a USD 400 million Line of Credit (LoC) and USD 100 million grant. The USD 400 million LoC will be provided by the Export-Import Bank of India (Exim Bank).

2)  India Pavilion inaugurated at ‘ARMY-2021’

•The International Military and Technical Forum ‘ARMY 2021’ has been organised in Moscow, Russia from August 22 to 28, 2021, at Patriot Expo, Kubinka Air Base and Alabino military training grounds. The ARMY 2021 is the 7th edition of the annual International Military-Technical Forum.

3)  Nirmala Sitharaman unveils Public Sector Bank Reforms Agenda (EASE 4.0)

•Union Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs, Nirmala Sitharaman has unveiled the fourth edition of the Public Sector Bank (PSB) Reforms Agenda ‘EASE 4.0’ for 2021-22. The major theme for EASE 4.0 is “Technology-enabled, simplified, and collaborative banking.” EASE stands for Enhanced Access & Service Excellence (EASE).

4)  Govt replaces Unmanned Aircraft Systems Rules 2021

•Ministry of Civil Aviation has repealed the Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Rules, 2021 and replace the same with the liberalized Drone Rules, 2021. The step has been taken as the earlier UAS Rules 2021 was perceived by academia, Startups, end-users and other stakeholders as being restrictive in nature as they involved considerable paperwork, required permissions for every drone flight and very few “free to fly” green zones were available.

5)  Government approves increase of Bank Employees Family Pension to 30%

•Central Government has approved the Indian Banks’ Association’s (IBA) proposal to increase the family pension to 30% of the last salary drawn. The immediate benefit of this approval will be an increase of 30,000 to 35,000 in the family pension of public sector bank employees from a maximum of 9,284 per month, depending on the last drawn salary of the deceased bank employee.

•The other big announcement is an increase in the employer banks’ contribution to the pension fund of employees under the NPS (National Pension System) from the existing 10 per cent to 14 per cent. Approximately 60% of public sector bank employees are covered under NPS

6)  NITI Aayog and Cisco launches “WEP Nxt” Women Entrepreneurship Platform

•NITI Aayog in partnership with Cisco has launched the next phase of the Women Entrepreneurship Platform (WEP) titled “WEP Nxt” to foster women entrepreneurship in India. WEP, which was launched by NITI Aayog in 2017, is a first-of-its-kind, unified portal that brings together women from diverse backgrounds and offers them access to a multitude of resources, support, and learning.

7)  RBI includes PM SVANidhi Scheme beneficiaries under PIDF Scheme

•The Reserve Bank of India has announced to include street vendors of tier-1 and tier-2 centres, identified as part of the PM Street Vendor’s AtmaNirbhar Nidhi (PM SVANidhi Scheme) as beneficiaries under the Payments Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF) Scheme. Payments Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF) Scheme was launched by RBI to encourage deployment of Points of Sale (PoS) infrastructure (both physical and digital modes) in tier-3 to tier-6 centres and northeastern states.

•So now RBI has specifically allowed street vendors of Tier-1 and Tier-2 centres, to be part of PIDF Scheme. The street vendors in tier-3 to tier-6 centres will continue to be covered under the Scheme by default. PIDF presently has a corpus of Rs. 345 crore.

8)  RBI approves appointment of Hitendra Dave as CEO of HSBC India

•The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has approved the appointment of Hitendra Dave as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of HSBC Bank (India). RBI has accorded the approval for a period of three years with effect from August 24, 2021. In June 2021, HSBC had announced the appointment of Hitendra Dave as the Chief Executive Officer of HSBC India.

•Dave succeeds Surendra Rosha who, after three years, is moving to Hong Kong as the Co-Chief Executive of HSBC, Asia-Pacific. Hitendra Dave, formerly Head of Global Banking & Markets of HSBC India.

9)  A book title ‘Accelerating India: 7 Years of Modi Government’ by K J Alphons

•Prime Minister Narendra Modi has received a book titled ‘Accelerating India: 7 Years of Modi Government’ by former Union Minister, K J Alphons. The book is about all the areas of India’s reform journey, written by Mr Alphons. K J Alphons is the former Minister of State for Culture and Tourism (Independent Charge), in office from 3 September 2017 to May 2019.

 RRB NTPC 2019 CBT-1 Question Papers PDF Download