National Thermal Power Corporation Limited (NTPC) has commissioned India’s largest 25 MW floating solar PV project at NTPC Simhadri, Visakhapatnam - Andhra Pradesh. With this plant, the total installed capacity of NTPC has now reached 66,900 MW.

 

In July 2021, NTPC commissioned the initial 10MW. And recently, the rest 15 MW was also declared open by NTPC. Thereby, the floating solar PV project at NTPC Simhadri was declared for commercial operation w.e.f. 10:00 AM of August 21, 2021.

 

 

* The floating solar PV project at NTPC Simhadri is spread over 75 acres in an RW reservoir. The solar installation is based on a unique anchoring design. The floating solar plant can generate electricity from more than 1 lakh solar PV modules.

 

* The plant will power around 7,000 households and will reduce about 46,000 tons of CO2e ( carbon dioxide equivalent) from the environment every year during the lifespan of this project. As floating Solar plants reduce evaporation, the plant will also be expected to save 1,364 million liters of water per annum. The water is adequate to meet the yearly water requirements of 6,700 households.

The World Bank has launched a new ‘Cybersecurity Multi-Donor Trust Fund’, to better roll out cybersecurity development agenda in a systematic manner. The new fund has been developed as an associated trust fund under the broader Digital Development Partnership (DDP) umbrella program.

 

World Bank has partnered with four countries, namely Estonia, Japan, Germany, and the Netherlands, to launch the fund. The main aim of this new fund is to enhance cyber and digital security capability and capacity in World Bank member countries, with the development of global knowledge, country assessments, technical assistance, capacity building and training, along with necessary investments in infrastructure and technology.

India's Shaili Singh won the silver medal in the women's long jump event at the World Athletics U20 Championships in Nairobi on August 22, 2021. 

 

Shaili Singh jumped a distance of 6.59m in her third attempt, which was her best show at the event. She won the silver medal, narrowly missing the gold. Sweden's Maja Askag won the gold with a jump of 6.60m, while Ukraine's Mariia Horielova settled for bronze with a jump of 6.50m.

Union Heavy Industries Minister Mahendra Nath Pandey on August 19, 2021 inaugurated an electric vehicle (EV) charging station in Karnal, Haryana. With this, the Delhi to Chandigarh Highway has become the first EV-friendly stretch in the country, with a network of solar-based electric vehicle chargers (SEVCs).

 

The chargers have been set up by Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL) under the FAME-I [Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of (Hybrid) and Electric Vehicles in India] scheme of the Ministry of Heavy Industries (MHI), BHEL said in a statement.

 

It added that the state-of-the-art charging station at Karna Lake Resort in Karnal was remotely inaugurated by Union Heavy Industries Minister Mahendra Nath Pandey in the presence of the ministry's Secretary Arun Goel.

Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar-led ten parties delegation including Janata Dal (United), Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and others met Prime Minister Narendra Modi at South Block in Delhi on Monday to discuss a caste-based census.

 

Besides Bihar Chief Minister, other members of the delegation were RJD's Tejashwi Prasad Yadav, JD(U) leader Vijay Kumar Choudhary, who is also the minister for education and parliamentary affairs, former Chief Minister and President of Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) Jitan Ram Manjhi, Congress legislature party leader Ajeet Sharma and BJP leader and Bihar minister Janak Ram, CPI-ML legislature party leader Mahboob Alam, Akhtarul Imam of AIMIM, Mukesh Sahni of VIP, Suryakant Paswan of CPI and Ajay Kunar of CPM.

The Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) on Thursday re-appointed T M Bhasin as chairman of the Advisory Board for Banking and Financial Frauds (ABBFF), a panel constituted to examine bank frauds of over Rs 50 crore and recommend action.

 

The re-appointment of Bhasin is with effect from August 21, 2021 for a further period of two years, as per the circular issued by CVC.

Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) has developed an AI-enabled chatbot named “URJA“. the chatbot will help in offering an interface for a seamless self-service experience and faster resolution of queries/issues for its customers. It will give answers and will give its solutions for consumer’s queries and requirements with its Artificial Intelligence.

 

* The Urja AI chatbot has become the first in the country’s oil and gas industry.

* It is “an intelligent virtual assistant with AI/NLP (Natural Language Processing) capabilities.

* It has been developed or trained with over 600 use cases.

 

* The URJA Chatbot will provide services including LPG booking, price and payment status, and delivery status of booked LPG cylinder and refill history.

* The Customers will be able to change LPG distributors, update mobile numbers, request services from BharatGas distributors including mechanic services, and seek double bottle connections (for single bottle connection customers).

* It will also provide the price of petrol and diesel.

* Users can find doorstep delivery of fuel through Chatbot.

 

* BPCL launched a successful 6-month pilot on WhatsApp for enabling LPG bookings.

* Now, Urja is available in 13 languages such as English, Hindi, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, Telugu, Marathi, Gujarati, Oriya, Bengali, Punjabi, Urdu and Assamese.

The night of 22 to 23 August 1791, in Santo Domingo (today Haiti and the Dominican Republic) saw the beginning of the uprising that would play a crucial role in the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade.

 

It is against this background that the International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition is commemorated on 23 August each year.

 

This International Day is intended to inscribe the tragedy of the slave trade in the memory of all peoples. In accordance with the goals of the intercultural project "The Slave Route", it should offer an opportunity for collective consideration of the historic causes, the methods and the consequences of this tragedy, and for an analysis of the interactions to which it has given rise between Africa, Europe, the Americas and the Caribbean.

 

The Director-General of UNESCO invites the Ministers of Culture of all Member States to organize events every year on that date, involving the entire population of their country and in particular young people, educators, artists and intellectuals.

Kalyan Singh was a senior leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). He had served as the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh twice from June 1991 – December 1992 and then from September 1997 – November 1999.

 

Former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh Kalyan Singh passed away on August 22, 2021 after a prolonged illness. He was 89.

 

The senior BJP leader was admitted to Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences in Lucknow on July 4, 2021 following a deterioration in his health condition.

 

The hospital released a statement that read, "Former Chief Minister of UP and Ex-Governor of Rajasthan Kalyan Singh Ji breathed his last today. He was admitted on July 4 in the Intensive Care Unit in critical condition. He died due to sepsis and multi-organ failure."

 

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, who had met Kalyan Singh earlier in the day, said that Singh's last rites will be performed on the bank of Ganga in Narora on the evening of August 23. He had been on the ventilator and was undergoing dialysis.

India and Russia on August 19, 2021 signed a deal for the immediate procurement of 70,000 AK-200 series assault rifles.

 

The agreement was signed at a time when both countries are working on a bigger project to jointly manufacture 6 lakh AK-203 rifles in India. The deal for the same has been pending since 2018.

 

India's initial plan was to directly import 20,000 of the 7.62×39mm AK-203 rifle and jointly manufacture around 6.5 lakh such rifles in India. 

 

Due to delay in delay in joint production, there is an immediate need to procure the rifles off the shelf. The off-the-shelf equipment could include multiple variants of the AK-200 series, as the basic difference is the accessories that are fitted to the rifle.

 

AK-203 is the latest version of the AK-47 rifle. These rifles will replace the 5.56×45mm Indian Small Arms System (INSAS) rifles that are currently being used by the Indian Army, Navy and the Air Force besides other security forces.

 

The Indian Army currently has a requirement of around 770,000 AK-203 rifles, among which about 100,000 are expected to be imported while the rest are planned to be manufactured in India.  The current off-the-shelf procurement will be a part of 100,000 assault rifles. 

 

Russia will provide the 70,000 AK-203 assault rifles to India in the next six months. A deal has also been finalised between India and Russia to upgrade Kamov lightweight multi-role military helicopters at India's requests to suit Indian conditions.