National Forest Martyrs Day 2022 is observed on September 11 every year. To honour those who gave their lives to preserve India's forests, jungles, and wildlife, National Forest Martyrs Day is observed.

In order to protect our forests, wildlife, national parks, animal sanctuaries, etc., forest rangers and other personnel work day and night.

 

The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change declared in 2013 that a day should be set aside in honour of forests and people who protect India's forests, jungles, and wildlife.

 

The tragic Khejarli massacre occurred on September 11, 1730, which is why this day was chosen to be recognised as National Forest Martyrs Day. Cutting down the Khejarli trees in the forest was ordered by Maharaja Abhay Singh of Rajasthan. Bishnoi community people protested against the order as they considered Khejarli trees to be sacred.

 

 A woman named Amrita Devi offered her head to save Khejarli trees from being cut down, as a mark of protest. 

 

However, the Maharaja’s men beheaded Amrita Devi and also killed more than 350 people that day, including young children of Amrita Devi. The King ordered his men to stop killing individuals when the situation worsened...

Source : DNA India

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday(12th Sep 2022) inaugurated the International Dairy Federation World Dairy Summit (IDF WDS) 2022, being organised at India Expo Centre and Mart in Greater Noida.

Union Minister Purshottam Rupala, addressing the World Diary Summit 2022, said that it has been organised in India after 48 years.

 

"World Diary Summit has been organized after over 48 years in India. Our milk production is 220 million tonnes today. We are in the position to export surplus milk, in line with the 'Aatma Nirbhar Bharat," he said.

 

According to the Prime Minister's Office, the four-day-long IDF WDS 2022 -- being held from 12th September  to 15th September 2022, is a congregation of global and Indian dairy stakeholders including industry leaders, experts, farmers and policy planners, centring around the theme of 'Dairy for Nutrition and Livelihood'.

 

Around 1,500 participants from 50 countries are expected to participate in IDF WDS 2022. The last such summit was held in India about half a century ago in 1974..

Source : NDTV

Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) and the Indian Army have collaborated for implementing a "CSR project" to coach and mentor less privileged girl students in Kargil. The project is known as ‘Kargil Ignited Minds’, and the project aims to prepare 50 girl students for various national-level engineering and medical entrance examinations.

 

* It will focus on empowering the underprivileged girls with limited resources, residing in extreme weather conditions. The selection of students for this project is through a rigorous process involving screening, preliminary test and interviews.

 

* "The project shall enhance knowledge, skill and personality development of aspiring students," it said.

 

* The MoU signing ceremony for Project 'Kargil Ignited Minds' was held at Headquarters 14 Corps, Leh.

 

* HPC ED (I&C) Subodh Batra highlighted CSR projects including 'Kashmir Super 50 - Medical' in Jammu and Kashmir and the construction of more than 1,000 school toilets under 'Swachh Vidyalaya Abhiyan' in various parts of the country, which have been instrumental in providing better educational opportunities for needy students..

Source : The Hindu Businessline

Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the "Centre-State Science Conclave" in Ahmedabad on Saturday(10th Sep 2022) via video conferencing.

 

According to Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), the first of its kind Conclave will strengthen Centre-State coordination and collaboration mechanisms – in the spirit of cooperative federalism – to build a robust science, technology and innovation (STI) ecosystem across the country.

 

The two-day Conclave is being organised at Science City, Ahmedabad on September 10-11, 2022.

It will include sessions on different thematic areas including STI Vision 2047; Future Growth Pathways and Vision for STI in States; Health – Digital Health Care for All; Doubling Private Sector investment in R&D by 2030; Agriculture – Technological interventions for improving farmers’ income; Water – Innovation for producing potable drinking water; Energy- Clean Energy for All including S&T role in Hydrogen mission;

Deep Ocean Mission and its relevance for Coastal States/UTs as well as country’s future economy.

 

During the inauguration of the conclave, Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel and Union Minister of State for Science and Technology Jitendra Singh were present.

 

The first-of-its-kind Conclave will witness the participation of Science and Technology Ministers and Secretaries of States and Union Territories, industry leaders, entrepreneurs, NGOs, young scientists and students..

Source : The Print

North Korea has passed a law allowing it to carry out a preventive nuclear strike and declaring its status as a nuclear-armed state "irreversible", Pyongyang's official media said Friday(9th Sep 2022).

 

The announcement comes at a time of crumbling ties between the North and South, with Pyongyang blaming Seoul for the outbreak of Covid-19 in its territory and conducting a record number of weapons tests this year.

 

The law will allow North Korea to carry out a preventive nuclear strike "automatically" and "immediately to destroy the hostile forces" when a foreign country poses an imminent threat to Pyongyang.

 

With the newly enacted law, "the status of our country as a nuclear weapons state has become irreversible", leader Kim Jong Un said.

 

Kim in July said his country was "ready to mobilise" its nuclear capability in any war with the United States and the South.

 

He reiterated that Pyongyang would never give up the nuclear weapons it needed to counter hostilities from Washington, claiming the United States sought to "collapse" his regime at any time.

 

Nuclear talks and diplomacy between Washington and Pyongyang have been derailed since 2019 over sanctions relief and what Pyongyang would be willing to give up in return..

Source : Economic Times

 

Commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal has launched an initiative — SETU (Supporting Entrepreneurs in Transformation and Upskilling) — here to connect startups in India to US-based investors.

 

* SETU is designed to break the geographical barriers between mentors based in the US that are willing to invest in entrepreneurship and sunrise startups in India.

 

* The programme was launched during an interaction focused on specific issues related to the startup ecosystem in India.

 

* The meeting focused on ways to encourage domestic incorporation and mentorship of early-stage Indian startups by successful diaspora members in the Bay Area of San Francisco.

 

* The interaction between the stakeholders will be supported through the mentorship portal under the Startup India initiative MAARG (Mentorship, Advisory, Assistance, Resilience, and Growth) programme, which is a single-stop solution finder for startups in India.

 

* “There were suggestions about mentorship. We have launched the SETU programme where we are looking at supporting entrepreneurs through transformation and upskilling initiatives. We are also looking at a programme that the startup advisory council had initiated in India in which mentorship is being initiated particularly in tier-2, 3 and 4 towns and remote areas,” Goyal said.

 

* It is estimated that about 90 per cent of the startups and more than half of the well-funded startups fail in their early days.

 

* Lack of experience in handling the business is a key issue, and founders require the right guidance for taking a decision and moral support.

 

* MAARG is inviting applications from mentors across the world. Till date, over 200 mentors have been on-boarded on MAARG across the globe. .

Source : The Print

The largest fintech platform in India, PhonePe, said that 14 million debit and credit cards have been tokenized on the platform which is in line with the mandatory card tokenization of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) which is a move to reduce the risk of fraud and safeguard customers' card details. With its Safecard Tokenization solution, PhonePe, one of the leading providers of digital payments, is actively advancing tokenization.

PhonePe began developing tokens in December 2021 in accordance with RBI guidelines and was the first player in the digital payment sector to provide tokens with all three major card networks : Visa, Mastercard, and RuPay. At this time, more than 80% of PhonePe's active users have already tokenized their cards, and the company is on schedule to fulfill the RBI's deadline of September 30, 2022.

 

* The new term “token” to be used in the place of the actual card number with tokenization.

 

* The real card details are not disclosed to a merchant during transactions, a tokenized transaction is safer and less likely to result in data leakage.

 

* Since April of this year, when the company began processing token-based transactions, almost all eligible transactions are handled by tokens.

 

* The success rate of transactions processed via tokens on PhonePe has shown an improvement of around 2 per cent in comparison with card-based transactions.

 

* The RBI delayed the card-on-file tokenization deadline in July till September 30 since token-based transaction processing had not yet gained traction. It was the third and maybe final one of its kind.

 

* The RBI had stated that the industry should make use of the additional time to help all stakeholders get ready to handle tokenized transactions while extending the deadline.

 

* Many other payment platforms had developed tokenization solutions following the RBI’s mandate on storage of card details.

 

* PayU, an online payment solution provider, launched “PayU Token Hub”, which offers both network tokens and issuer tokens under a single hub. “Razorpay TokenHQ,” a multi-network card-on-file tokenization solution, has been created by Razorpay.

 

* The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) is working with brands and aggregators to create a tokenisation option..

Source : Mint

Former Chief Justice of India Kamal Narain Singh, who remained Chief Justice of India (CJI) for the shortest period of 18 days in 1991, has died at his residence in Prayagraj.

 

* "Shri Kamal Narain Singh, Former Chief Justice of India, has left for his heavenly abode 8th September 2022 at 9:40 A.M. His last rites will be performed on 9th September 2022 at Shanker Ghat, Rasulabad, Electric Crematorium, Allahabad," said a statement issued by Supreme Court.

 

* Justice Kamal Narain Singh was born on 13 December 1926 and was the 22nd Chief Justice of India. He remained CJI for the shortest period of 18 days. He was appointed as the Chief Justice of India on 25 November 1991 and retired on 12 December 1991.

 

* He was appointed as a judge of the Supreme Court on 10 March in 1986.

 

* Justice K N Singh was a lawyer since 1957, specialising in civil, constitutional, and taxes law.

 

* In 1970, he was appointed as an Additional Judge of the Allahabad High Court, and in 1972, he was appointed as a Permanent Judge.

 

* Later he joined the Supreme Court in 1986 and became Chief Justice of India from 25 November 1991 until 12 December 1991.

 

* Justice Yeshwant Vishnu Chandrachud, who was the 16th Chief Justice of India had the longest tenure as CJI till today. Justice Dr D.Y. Chandrachud is son of Justice Y V Chandrachud..

Source : Mint

The United Nations Day for South-South Cooperation is observed annually on September 12 to highlight the importance of cooperation among people and countries in the global South. The day also aims at spreading awareness on the social, economic, and political developments made in the Southern region.

 

 

* Foster and strengthen the self-reliance of developing countries by enhancing their creative capacity to find solutions and technological capacities to their development problems and formulate the requisite strategies to address them;

 

* Promote and strengthen collective self-reliance among developing countries through the exchange of experiences leading to a greater awareness of common problems and wider access to available knowledge;

 

* Recognize and respond to the problems and requirements of the least developed countries, landlocked developing countries, small island developing States and the countries most seriously affected by, for example, natural disasters and other crises, and enable them to achieve a greater degree of participation in international economic activities.

 

History : The United Nations Conference on Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries adopted the Buenos Aires Plan of Action for Promoting and Implementing Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries (TCDC) on September 12, 1978. Delegations from 138 states had reached a consensus to adopt TCDC and named it after Argentina’s capital of Buenos Aires where the conference was held. Later, the United Nations General Assembly designated September 12 as the United Nations Day for South-South Cooperation.

 

United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation (UNOSSC) : The creation of the UNOSSC was proposed in 1974 in the United Nations General Assembly as a special unit within the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The idea was to make a body for technical cooperation among the developing countries. The UNOSSC serves as the main office for the coordination of South-South and triangular cooperation globally and within the UN system..

Source : News 18

Americans remembered 9/11 on Sunday(11th Sep 2022) with tear-choked tributes and pleas to “never forget,” 21 years after the deadliest terror attack on U.S. soil.

 

Bonita Mentis set out to read victims’ names at the World Trade Center wearing a necklace with a photo of her slain sister, Shevonne Mentis. The 25-year-old Guyanese immigrant worked at a financial firm while going to college.

 

“It’s been 21 years, but it’s not 21 years for us. It seems like just yesterday,” Mentis said. “The wounds are still fresh.”

 

“No matter how many years have passed, nobody can actually comprehend what happened,” she told a crowd that included Vice President Kamala Harris and husband Doug Emhoff.

 

At the Pentagon, which also was targeted on 9/11, President Joe Biden vowed that the U.S. would continue working to root out terrorist plots and called on Americans to stand up for “the very democracy that guarantees the right to freedom that those terrorists on 9/11 sought to bury in the burning fire, smoke and ash.” First lady Jill Biden spoke at the third attack site, a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

 

On Sept. 11, 2001, al-Qaida conspirators seized control of jets to use them as passenger-filled missiles. The attacks killed nearly 3,000 people, reconfigured national security policy and spurred a U.S. “war on terror” worldwide. Sunday’s observances came little more than a month after a U.S. drone strike killed a key al-Qaida figure who helped plot the 9/11 attacks, Ayman al-Zawahri..

Source : PBS