NATIONAL UPDATES:
1. Delhi
government collaborates with the UNDP, builts oxygen production facility: To supplement oxygen supply capacities, the Delhi Government, in
collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) India, has
built an oxygen producing facility at G. B. Pant Hospital in New Delhi. Kanni
Wignaraja, UN Assistant Secretary General and UNDP Regional Director for Asia
and the Pacific, inaugrated the oxygen plant in the presence of G. B. Pant
Hospital Medical Director Dr. Anil Agarwal. The oxygen plant produces about
1,000 litres of oxygen per minute using pressure swing adsorption (PSA)
technology. It will serve about 750 hospital beds, including
ventilator-assisted beds and the Intensive Care Unit. The hospital is a
multi-specialty tertiary care facility that receives referrals from all around
the country.
UNDP: The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is a UN agency
entrusted with assisting countries in eradicating poverty and achieving
long-term economic and human development. It is the largest UN development aid
agency, with operations in 170 countries and headquarters in New York City.
Note: UN
Assistant Secretary General and UNDP Regional Director for Asia and the
Pacific: Ms. Kanni Wignaraja
2. NeSDA Report 2021: Kerala topped among states: The National e-governance service delivery assessment (NeSDA) report
2021 was published recently.. NeSDA helps the respective governments improve
their delivery of citizen centric services and shares best practices across the
country for all States, UTs and Central Ministries to emulate. DARPG embarked
on the second edition of NeSDA study in January 2021. NeSDA report 2021: Key
points
a) Top Rankers: Overall, in NeSDA 2021, Kerala had the highest overall
compliance score amongst all the States and UTs.
b) Among UTs: Jammu and Kashmir, assessed first time in NeSDA 2021, scored
highest among all UTs for six sectors.
c) Among North-east and Hill States: Meghalaya and Nagaland are the leading
state portals with an overall compliance of 90% across all assessment
parameters.
d) Among Remaining State Category: Kerala, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Punjab,
Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh had a compliance of more than 85% among the remaing
state category.
Highest
Improvements:
a) Among North-East and Hill States: The highest-ranking states of
Meghalaya and Tripura showed improvement across all sectors compared to NeSDA
2019.
b) Among Remaining State Category: The overall score of Tamil Nadu
increased the most in 2021 compared to 2019. Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Punjab,
Goa, and Odisha also improved the compliance of their services portals by 100%.
3. Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw Launches
‘StartUps For Railways’ Policy: Union Railway
Minister, Ashwini Vaishnaw has launched “StartUps for Railways”, an important
initiative in the field of innovation. Aiming at bringing about innovative
solutions to problems like rail fracture, reduction of time between two trains
and other passenger related issues. The innovation policy is expected to bring
about scale and efficiency in the field of operation, maintenance and
infrastructure creation through participation of very large and untapped
startup ecosystem.
About the
policy:
a) Out of over 100 problem statements received from different divisions,
field offices/zones of Railways, 11 problem statements like rail fracture,
headway reduction etc. have been taken up for phase-1 of this programme.
b) These will be presented before the start ups to find innovative
solutions.
c) The Railway Minister requested the startups to use this opportunity and
assured them of support from Indian Railways in form of 50 per cent capital
grant, assured market, scale and ecosystem.
d) The Railways would grant up to Rs 1.5 crore to innovators on equal
sharing basis with provision of milestone-wise payment under the policy.
INTERNATIONAL UPDATES:
1. Russia
overtakes Saudi Arabia to become India’s 2nd biggest oil supplier: Russia has overtaken Saudi Arabia to become India’s second-biggest
supplier of oil behind Iraq as refiners snap up Russian crude available at a
deep discount following the war in Ukraine. Indian refiners bought about 25
million barrels of Russian oil in May, or more than 16 per cent of all their
oil imports. Russian-origin crude hit 5 per cent of India’s total seaborne
imports in April for the first time, rising from under 1% throughout 2021 and
Q1 2022. Key points of the report:
a) After the U.S. and China, India is the world’s third-largest consumer of
oil, over 85 per cent of which is imported.
b) India, the world’s third-biggest oil-importing and consuming nation, has
long defended purchases of crude oil from Russia following President Vladimir
Putin ordering the invasion of Ukraine.
c) The Oil Ministry had last month stated that “energy purchases from
Russia remain minuscule in comparison to India’s total consumption.”
d) Iraq remained the top supplier to India in May and Saudi Arabia is now
the third biggest supplier.
e) India has taken advantage of discounted prices to ramp up oil imports
from Russia at a time when global energy prices have been rising.
2.
International Day of Family Remittances: 16th June: The International
Day of Family Remittances (IDFR) was adopted by the United Nations General
Assembly and is observed on 16 June. The IDFR recognizes more than 200 million
migrant workers, women and men, who send money home to over 800 million family
members. This day further highlights the great resilience of migrant workers in
the face of economic insecurities, natural and climate related disasters and a
global pandemic. This year, the United Nations is continuing last year’s theme
for International Day of Family Remittances: recovery and resilience through
digital and financial inclusion.
About International Day of Family
Remittances:
IDFR is a universally-recognized observance adopted by United Nations General
Assembly’s (UNGA). The custodian of IDFR towards these objectives is the United
Nations International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). IFAD is a
specialized United Nations (UN) agency that was one of the major outcomes of
the World Food Conference 1974. Later in 1977, it was set up as an international
financial institution.
OTHER UPDATES:
SPORTS
1. Angelo
Mathews and Tuba Hassan crowned ICC Players of the Month for May: The International Cricket Council (ICC) has announced that Sri Lanka’s
batting star Angelo Mathews and Pakistan’s debutante spin sensation Tuba Hassan
have been voted the ICC Men’s and Women’s Players of the Month for May 2022.
Fans can continue to vote every month for their favourite male and female
cricketers across all formats of international cricket as part of the ICC
Player of the Month initiative by registering at www.icc-cricket.com/awards.
Angelo
Mathews: Mathews was selected the stand-out male player
after piling on runs over the course of his side’s impressive ICC World Test
Championship series victory against Bangladesh. Mathews becomes the first Sri
Lankan player to be named the Player of the Month since its inception in
January 2021, scooping the award ahead of fellow nominees Asitha Fernando (Sri
Lanka), and Mushfiqur Rahim (Bangladesh).
Tuba
Hassan: On the other hand, Hassan was awarded the to
honour after enjoying significant success with the ball during her debut
international series. The 21-year-old leg spinner was instrumental in
restricting scores set by opponents Sri Lanka in the three-game T20I series in
Pakistan, where she captured the Player of the Series award, taking five
wickets at an average of 8.8 and an economy rate of 3.66. In securing this
month’s award, Hassan overcomes fellow nominees in compatriot Bismah Maroof,
and Jersey’s Trinity Smith. Tuba is the first female player from Pakistan to
win in the award.
Note: ICC
Founded: 15 June 1909; ICC Chairman: Greg Barclay; ICC CEO: Geoff Allardice;
ICC Headquarters: Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
2. BWF
Indonesia Masters 2022: The 2022 Indonesia Masters
badminton tournament (officially known as the Daihatsu Indonesia Masters) took
place at the Istora Gelora Bung Karno, Jakarta, Indonesia. Olympic champions
Viktor Axelsen and Chen Yufei clinched the respective men’s and women’s singles
titles at the BWF Indonesia Masters 2022.
BWF
Indonesia Masters 2022:
|
Category |
Winners |
|
Men’s singles |
Viktor Axelsen
(Denmark) |
|
Women’s singles |
Chen Yufei (China) |
|
Men’s doubles |
Fajar Alfian
(Indonesia) & Muhammad Rian Ardianto (Indonesia) |
|
Women’s doubles |
Chen Qingchen (China)
& Jia Yifan (China) |
|
Mixed doubles |
Zheng Siwei (China)
& Huang Yaqiong (China) |
BANKING AND FINANCE
1. Indian
Bank launched digital renewal scheme for KCC holders: Indian Bank launched its KCC Digital Renewal scheme, enabling eligible
customers to renew their Kisan Credit Card accounts via digital modes. The
initiative is part of the bank’s digital transformation under project ‘WAVE’ –
World of Advanced Virtual Experience. The account renewals can be done using
Indian Bank’s IndOASIS mobile app and internet banking. Out of the total
agriculture portfolio of Rs 88,100 crores, KCC constitutes Rs 22,300 crores
with 15.84 lakh customers.
The bank expects
the digital initiative to come in handy for customers and intend to enhance the
threshold limit to cover more KCC account holders. In April this year, the bank had launched its
first end-to-end digital product – Pre-Approved Personal Loan.
Note: Indian
Bank Founded: 15 August 1907; Indian Bank Headquarters: Chennai; Indian Bank
CEO: Shri Shanti Lal Jain; Indian Bank Tagline: Taking Banking Technology To
The Common Man.
BUSINESS AND ECONOMY
1. Finally Microsoft’s Internet Explorer retiring
after 27 years: Microsoft has announced the retirement of
27-year-old Internet Explorer (IE) as the firm’s oldest browser will be
completely phased out from June 15. A year ago, Microsoft said that it was
putting an end to Internet Explorer on June 15, 2022, pushing users to its Edge
browser, which was launched in 2015. The company made clear then it was time to
move on. Estimates for Internet Explorer’s market share in 2022 are about 0.38%
across all platforms, or by StatCounter’s numbers ranked 10th. Evolution of
Internet Explorer (1995-2013):
Internet
Explorer (IE), World Wide Web (WWW) browser and set of technologies created by
Microsoft Corporation, a leading American computer software company. After
being launched in 1995, Internet Explorer became one of the most popular tools
for accessing the Internet. There were 11 versions between 1995 and 2013.
a) 1995: In July 1995 Microsoft released Internet Explorer 1.0 as an add-on
to the Windows 95 operating system. By November the company had produced IE 2.0
for both Apple Inc.’s Macintosh and Microsoft’s Windows 32-bit operating
systems.
b) 1996: In August 1996 IE 3.0, designed for use with Windows 95, added
important components such as Internet Mail and News (an e-mail and newsgroup
client) and Windows Media Player, a computer graphics program that allowed
users to view GIF (graphics interchange format) and JPEG (joint photographic
experts group) files;
c) 1997: IE 4.0, which came out in 1997, was tightly integrated into the
company’s main operating systems, Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows NT. This
incarnation replaced Internet Mail and News with Outlook Express, a freeware
version of Microsoft Office Outlook, the company’s commercial e-mail and
newsgroup client.
d) 1998: IE 5, released in September 1998, expanded Web design capabilities
and allowed for further personalization.
e) 2001: IE 6, released in 2001 and designed to work with the Windows XP
operating system, featured more privacy and security options.
f)
2006: IE 6 was Microsoft’s primary Web browser
until the 2006 development of IE 7, which was compatible with the Windows Vista
operating system.
g) 2009: IE 8, which was released in 2009, added more support for Web 2.0
features.
h) 2011: IE 9 was released in 2011 and featured increased speed and
compliance with the HyperText Markup Language (HTML) 5 standards for video and
audio. Later that same year, IE 10 brought the browser further into complete
adherence to the HTML 5 standards.
i)
2013: IE 11, released in 2013, had features built
for touch screens such as those on smartphones and tablets. In January 2016
Microsoft discontinued its active technical support for all other versions of
Internet Explorer except IE 11. Microsoft Edge replaced Internet Explorer as
the company’s preferred browser in 2016.
DEFENCE
1. GoI launched Agnipath military recruitment
scheme: The Indian government has introduced the Agnipath
Military recruitment scheme, a 4-year tenure scheme for the defense troops. The
scheme will facilitate the induction of more troops for shorter-term tenures.
The scheme has been planned and is being implemented by the Department of
Military Affairs.
Here are
the key details of the scheme:
a) ‘Agnipath’ is a short-term service youth recruitment scheme for the
armed forces that operates across India. Agniveers will be the name given to those
chosen for the scheme, and they will serve in a variety of terrain such as
deserts, mountains, land, sea, and air.
b) Approximately 45,000 people between the ages of 17.5 and 21 will be
inducted into the service for a four-year period under the scheme. The
recruitment process will begin in the next 90 days, with the first batch
expected to be completed by July 2023.
c) In a one-time waiver, the Central government has increased the upper age
limit for the Agnipath scheme from 21 to 23 years (First Batch only).
d) The selection will be made using a centralised online method. Agniveers
will be required to have the same educational requirements as normal officers
in the armed forces.
e) Women will be inducted in the ‘Agnipath’ scheme as well.
f)
After four years, Agniveers would be given the
option to voluntarily apply for registration in the permanent cadre. These
applications will be evaluated based on merit and service performance. It’s
possible that up to 25 per cent of submissions will be accepted.
g) Agniveers will be hired for four years under the ‘Agnipath’ scheme and will get intensive military training. They will be given a monthly wage of ₹ 30,000 to ₹ 40,000 per month, plus allowances.
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