1- ICICI Bank Launches Digital Village Project in Akodara Village of Gujarat

Digital Village Project

Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation of India (ICICI) Bank has launched its own version of Digital Village Project by adopting entire Akodara Village in Sabarkantha district of Gujarat. It was launched presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and ICICI Bank MD and CEO Chanda Kochar to mark 60-year-celebration of the ICICI group’s existence.

Key facts about ICICI Bank’s Digital Village Project

It is launched in lines with Governments flagship programme of Digital India. It seeks to provide entire village with services ranging from cashless banking to digitised school teaching. As part of this project, banking platform at rural part will be digitized by covering all aspects of banking like opening an account to sale of goods to purchase of products including milk from the vendors or local kirana stores. In case of school teaching, it will digitized all school records alongwith the Gujarat syllabus and even teaching methods and tools. It will also provide necessary infrastructure needed for digisiting entire village in order to provide villager with the access required to data and information in a digital format. Besides basic banking facilities like ATMs and other digital banking services, other services like e-health, e-milk producer group, Wi-Fi connectivity and schools with digital black boards in the village, along with a host of other digital facilities will be provided under this project.

About ICICI Bank

It was established in 1955 as ICICI Ltd. Originally it was set up as an Indian financial institution as the initiative of the World Bank, the Government of India and representatives of Indian industry to provide project financing to Indian businesses. Later in 1994, it got merged to form ICICI Bank.

2- UNICEF to prepare a Tea Atlas in Assam

Tea Plants- Assam

United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has decided to prepare a Tea Atlas in India’s North Eastern State Assam. This atlas seeks to create a comprehensive database of the tea gardens and socio-economic condition of its workers in state.

Key facts

It will cover all aspects of the Tea industry, including garden workers who comprise nearly 20 percent of the state population by mapping tea community database, graphs and maps. It will also provide features like geographical locations of the gardens, proprietorship, various indicators like implementation of Plantations Labour Act and government schemes meant for the tea community. In this case, tea communities have been identified as the focus of UNICEF Assam’s Social Inclusion and Equity Programming which addresses the issues like early marriage, alcoholism and child labour among them.

3- Union Sports Ministry recommends Saina Nehwal’s name for Padma Bhushan award

Saina Nehwal

Union Sports Ministry has recommended badminton player Saina Nehwal’s name for Padma Bhushan award. As per Sports ministry, recommending her name is a special case. Earlier, she had expressed anger for not being nominated for this year’s award. However, Sports ministry earlier did not nominate her citing reason that Badminton Association of India (BAI) did not apply for Saina’s name for award on time. Later on 3rd January 2015, BAI had acknowledged Saina’s name to Sports ministry paving way for  her nomination.

About Saina Nehwal

She was born 17 March 1990 in Hisar, Haryana. She is the first Indian to win Olympics medal in Badminton and had achieved this feat by winning the Bronze medal at the London Olympics 2012. She is the first Indian to win the World Junior Badminton Championships and was also the first Indian to win a Super Series tournament, by winning Indonesia Open in 2009. She also has won the China Open Super Series Premier-2014. She is only Indian badminton player who attained a career best ranking of number 2 in December 2010 by Badminton World Federation.

Awards: Government has awarded her with Arjuna Award (2009), Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna (2009–2010) and Padma Shri (2010). About Padma Bhushan award It is the third highest civilian award in India, after Bharat Ratna and Padma Vibhushan. It was established on 2 January 1954 by President and is awarded to recognized person for their distinguished service of a high order to the nation, in any field Every year it is announced on the occasion of Republic Day. It is conferred to recipient by the President at a function held at Rashtrapati Bhavan.

4- Edward Brooke, first black elected US senator passes away

Edward Brooke

Edward Brooke, the first elected black US senator passed away on 3rd January 2015. He was 95. He belonged to US’s Republican Party.

About Edward Brooke

He was elected to US Congress in 1966 by voters of Massachusetts State at a time of widespread racial unrest in the country. He was also the first African-American to hold the post of attorney general of any state in US. He was attorney general Massachusetts State. He had served as Congressmen in the US Senate till 1979 and was one of only nine African-Americans to do so, including US President Barack Obama. His name i.e. the Brooke amendment was given to US federal housing act, passed in 1969, which limited to 25 percent the amount of income a family must pay for rent in public housing. He lost his bid for the third term to Congress in 1978. After this defeat he returned to private law practice. In 2004, he was awarded US Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 2009, he was also awarded Congressional Gold Medal, the highest award Congress has to honor civilians.

5- National Flag designer Pingali Venkayya honoured

Freedom fighter and National Flag designer Pingali Venkayya was honoured by naming All India Radio(AIR) Vijayawada (in Andhra Pradesh) building after him. In this regard, Union Minister for Urban Development and Parliamentary Affairs, M. Venkaiah Naidu unveiled the statue of Pingali Venkaiah, in the premises of AIR Vijayawada. On this occasion, minister also released a book on the biography of Pingali Venkayya, translated into Hindi by Mr.Venna Vallabha Rao.

About Pingali Venkayya

He was born in Bhatlapenumarru, near Masulipatnam district in Andhra Pradesh. In the National Conference of Indian National Congress (INC) held in Kakinada (in Andhra Pradesh) 1921, he had suggested that India should have a flag of its own that impressed Mahatma Gandhi. After Mahatma Gandi’s request, he had designed the flag which initially had saffron and green colours, but in the course of time, modifications were made with additions like a spinning wheel at the centre and a third colour- white, Chakra i.e Dharma Chakra which depicts the “wheel of the law”. It should be noted that India’s present flag was adopted during the meeting of Constituent Assembly held on the 22 July 1947, a few days before India’s independence from the British. He was also an educationist who had set up an educational institution in Machilipatnam district of Andhra Pradesh and was an authority in geology, agriculture. He died in 1963.

6- Eminent Economist Arvind Panagariya appointed as NITI Aayog vice-chairman

Arvind Panagariya

Eminent free-market economist Arvind Panagariya has been appointed as Vice-chairman of National Institution for Transforming India (NITI) Aayog. NITI Aayog is established by government to function as both a think tank and a policy forum and replaces decades year old Planning Commission. As a vice chairman, he will play a pivotal role in coordinating economic strategy and hold position similar to cabinet rank minister.

About Arvind Panagariya

He is an Indian-American economist and Professor of Economics at Columbia University. He holds a Ph.D. degree in Economics from prestigious Princeton University. He was an ex-Chief Economist at the Asian Development Bank (ADB). He has also worked for the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, World Trade Organization, and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in various capacities. He has written around 10 books and the latest was India: The Emerging Giant published in 2008.

Other Appointments of NITI Aayog

• Full-Time Members: Bibek Debroy- Economist. V.K. Saraswat- Former Secretary Defence R&D.
• Ex-officio members: Rajnath Singh- Union Home Minister. Arun Jaitley- Union Finance, Corporate Affairs and Information & Broadcasting Minister. Suresh Prabhu- Union Minister of Railways. Radha Mohan Singh- Union Minister of Agriculture.
• Special Invitees: Nitin Gadkari- Union Minister of Road Transport & Highways and Shipping. Thawar Chand Gehlot-Union Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment. Smriti Zubin Irani- Union Minister of Human Resource Development (HRD).

7- International Hindi Conference 2015 will be hosted in New Jersey

International Hindi Conference 2015

International Hindi Conference-2015 (अंतर्राष्ट्रीय हिंदी सम्मलेन-2015) will be hosted by New Jersey, United States in April 2015. Theme of 2015 edition of this conference is Expanding World of Hindi: Possibilities and Challenges.

Key facts of International Hindi Conference 2015

This conference seeks to provide a platform for participants to get together and identify challenges and find solutions for the advancement of the Hindi language in North America and the Caribbean region. In this conference, Hindi scholars from various parts of the world, particularly from United States and India will participate. Participants are expected to discuss individual and organisational partnerships and leadership and field capacity building and infrastructure building skills and topics. In this case they are going to discuss topics such as material selection and development funding, professional development of teachers, and volunteer management. This conference will also hold sessions on topics such as, Hindi in higher education, expanding the use of Hindi in businesses and commerce, Community support for Hindi, Current status of the teaching and learning of Hindi etc.

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