Current Affairs - Current News

A boy infected with the Nipah virus has died in Kerala, a state already hit badly by Covid-19

On 3rd August, 2021, the Supreme Court held that the Governor of a State can pardon prisoners; including death row ones, even before they have served a minimum 14 years of prison sentence.

To support startups and entrepreneurs in their initial phase, where they face most challenges, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has launched Startup Accelerators of MeitY for pRoduct Innovation, Development and growth (SAMRIDH) programme on 25 August 2021.

On 23rd August 2021, NITI Aayog and World Resources Institute (WRI), India, jointly launched the ‘Forum for Decarbonizing Transport’ in India as part of the NDC-Transport Initiative for Asia (NDC-TIA) project.

On 23rd August 2021, Union Minister for Finance and Corporate Affairs launched a four year (FY2022-FY2025) National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP) worth Rs 6 lakh crore to unlock value in brownfield projects by engaging the private sector, transferring to them the rights but not the ownership in projects; and using the funds for infrastructure creation across the country.

NTPC Limited has commissioned the largest floating solar PV project of 25 MegaWatt on the reservoir of its Simhadri thermal station in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh.

On 17th August 2021, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has launched a “Financial Inclusion Index” or FI-Index to measure and improve the extent of access, usage and quality of financial inclusion in the country.

Prime Minister of India addressed the nation from the ramparts of the Red Fort for the eighth consecutive time at the 75th Independence Day on 15th August 2021. He touched upon various achievements and future plans in his speech. Highlights of some of them are:

“IndiGau’, India’s first Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) based chip for the conservation of pure varieties of indigenous cattle breeds like, Gir, Kankrej, Sahiwal, Ongole, etc. was launched on 13 August 2021.

On 13th August 2021, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change has notified the Plastic Waste Management Amendment Rules, 2021, which prohibits identified single use plastic items which have low utility and high littering potential by 2022.