CURRENT AFFAIRS 18TH 19TH & 20TH FEBRUARY

FAITH releases India tourism vision document envisaging goals and benchmarks for tourism till 2035.

Federation of Associations in Indian Tourism & Hospitality (FAITH) has released the FAITH 2035 vision document containing goals and an execution path for making Indian tourism preferred and loved by the world by the year 2035.
The vision document has been launched commemorating the 75th year of Indian independence.
FAITH is the policy federation of all the national associations representing the complete tourism, travel and hospitality industry of India. Nakul Anand is the chairman of FAITH.

Government approves ‘New India Literacy Programme’ for Education of adults; Outlay- Rs.1037.90 crore.

Ministry of Education has approved a new scheme named “New India Literacy for the period FYs 2022-2027 to cover all the aspects of Adult Education.
The scheme aims to align Adult Education will all aspects of National Education Policy 2020 and Budget Announcements 2021-22.
Outlay: The total outlay of “New India Literacy Programme” is Rs.1037.90 crore for the FYs 2022-27. (which includes Central share of Rs.700 crore and State share of Rs.337.90 crore respectively)
Who will be covered: The scheme will cover non-literates of the age of 15 years and above in all state/UTs in the country.
Government has now replaced the term “Adult Education (प्रौढ़शिक्षा)” as ‘Education for All’ in the country.
Census data: As per Census 2011, the absolute number of non-literates of the country in 15 years and above age group is 25.76 crore (Male 9.08 crore, Female 16.68 crore).

PM Narendra Modi delivers inaugural address at TERI’s World Sustainable Development Summit 2022.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi delivered the inaugural address at World Sustainable Development Summit via video conferencing on February 16, 2022.
The World Sustainable Development Summit is the annual flagship event of The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI).
The three day Summit will culminate on February 18, 2022.
The theme for World Sustainable Development Summit 2022 is ‘Towards a Resilient Planet: Ensuring a Sustainable and Equitable Future’.
Some key issues to be discussed at the Summit includes climate change, sustainable production, energy transitions, global commons and resource security.

US-Bangladesh to conduct joint air exercise ‘Cope South 22’.

The air forces of Bangladesh and the United States will conduct a joint tactical airlift exercise ‘Cope South 22’ from February 20, 2022.
The six days exercise has been sponsored by Pacific Air Forces (PACAF).
The bilateral exercise will be held at Bangladesh Air Force (BAF) Kurmitola Cantonment, Dhaka; and Operating Location-Alpha, Sylhet, Bangladesh.
The goal of the exercise is bolstering bilateral ties between the two countries through tactical airlift sorties and subject-matter expert exchanges.

NPCI International partners with Gateway Payment Service and Manam Infotech to deploy UPI solution in Nepal.

NPCI International Payments Limited (NIPL) has partnered with Gateway Payments Service Pvt Ltd and Manam Infotech Private Limited to deploy Unified Payments Interface(UPI) in Nepal.
Gateway Payments Service Pvt Ltd is an authorized Payment System Operators in Nepal.
The partnership aims to support interoperable real-time Person to person (P2P) and Merchant payment transactions (P2M) in Nepal.
Nepal shall be the first country outside of India to adopt UPI as the payments platform driving the digitalization of cash transactions.

Twitter partners with Paytm to boost its ‘Tips’ feature in India.

Twitter Inc has partnered with Paytm’s payment gateway to improve the support for its ‘Tips’ feature in India.
What is Tips feature of Twitter?: using the Tips feature, users can send payments to their favourite content creators on twitter.
Tips is available since November to all Twitter users above 18 years of age in India. It is available in Indian languages including Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Marathi and Tamil.
With this partnership, Twitter users will be able to use the payments facility of Paytm, including its Paytm digital wallet, Paytm Postpaid (buy-now-pay-later service), debit and credit cards, and net banking.

Edelweiss Asset Management launches mobile app eInvest for investors.

The Edelweiss Asset Management has launched a mutual fund mobile app named eInvest.
eInvest is an easy-to-use app for investors to give them a smooth investing experience where they can perform all financial transactions and access their investment from anywhere at any time with speed and ease.

Haryana Men’s Team & Kerala Women’s Team wins Senior National Volleyball Championship 2021-22.

Haryana defeated the Indian Railway 3-0, to win Men’s title in Senior National Volleyball Championship 2021-22.
Similarly, in women’s category, Kerala defeated the Indian Railway 3-1, to lift the trophy.
The 70th Senior National Volleyball (Men & Women) Championship 2021-22 was held at the Biju Patnaik Indoor Stadium, KIIT Deemed to be University, Bhubaneswar from February 07 to 13, 2022.

Chelsea beat Palmeiras to win 2021 FIFA Club World Cup Champions.

English club Chelsea defeated Brazilian club Palmeiras, 2-1, to win the 2021 FIFA Club World Cup final, held on February 12, 2022.
Chelsea has won the FIFA Club World Cup for the first time. The decisive goal was scored by Kai Havertz with 3 minute of extra time to go.
The final was held at Mohammed bin Zayed Stadium, Abu Dhabi.

Noted Kannada writer and poet Chennaveera Kanavi passes away.

Channaveera Kanavi, an iconic poet and writer in the Kannada language, has passed away. He was 93.
He was often referred to as ‘Samanvaya Kavi’ (Poet of Reconciliation).
Kanavi received the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1981 for his work Jeeva Dhwani (Poetry).

Ministry of Power notifies Green Hydrogen and Green Ammonia Policy.

Government had launched the National Hydrogen Mission on India’s 75th Independence Day (i.e. 15th August, 2021).
Now the Ministry of Power has notified the Green Hydrogen and Green Ammonia Policy.
Target of Government: This is in line with Government’s target of production of 5 million tonnes of Green hydrogen by 2030.

India’s first water taxi service inaugurated to connect South Mumbai with Navi Mumbai.

The Union Minister of Ports, Shipping and Waterways Sarbananda Sonowal flagged off India’s first water taxi service in Maharashtra on February 17, 2022, from the newly constructed Belapur Jetty.
The Belapur Jetty was inaugurated by Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray same day.
Both the inaugurations were held virtually.
The Water Taxi service will connect the twin cities of Navi Mumbai to mainland Mumbai.
This will be for the first time that South Mumbai to Navi Mumbai will be connected by fast and reliable transport services which will help in reducing the travelling time.

Home Minister Amit Shah launches ‘Smart Card Arms License’ and ‘Shastra App’ of Delhi Police.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah launched ‘Smart Card Arms License’ and ‘Shastra App’ of the Delhi Police on February 16, 2022, on the occasion of 75th anniversary of the Delhi Police.
The Delhi Police Licensing Unit has introduced ‘Smart Card Arms License’, to replace the existing bulky arms license booklet.
With this Delhi Police has become the first police force in the country to introduce such smart card service.
The Smart Card Arms License is easy to carry with inherent security features. It will be printed in house after verification of data of arms license holders.
The card is also integrated with the ‘e-Beat book’ of Delhi Police through ‘Shastra mobile app’ for effective policing.
The Shastra app will help beat officers in identifying the credentials of arms license holders anytime during day-to-day random checking.

Career Counselling Workshop ‘Pramarsh 2022’ launched in Bikaner .

The Minister of State for Culture & Parliamentary Affairs Shri Arjun Ram Meghwal launched ‘Pramarsh 2022’ , a mega career counselling workshop on February 15, 2022, for the students of the Bikaner District region in Rajasthan.
More than one lakh students from thousands of private & government schools of Bikaner district and mainly from rural areas, participated in this workshop.
It is first such incidence in India that more than 1 lakh Students participated in Career Counselling in one Workshop.

Kotak Mahindra Bank ties up with Ezetap for integrated PoS solutions.

Kotak Mahindra Bank has partnered with Ezetap to provide integrated Point of Sale (PoS) solutions to merchants across 4,000 locations in India.
The integrated solution provided by Ezetap will enable the merchants availing PoS facility of Kotak Mahindra Bank to avail various value-added services through the PoS product like payment digitally through their apps over cash.

India’s GDP projected at 8.8% in FY22: SBI Ecowrap report.

The State Bank of India (SBI) Research Report, Ecowrap, has revised downwards the gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate of India for FY22 (2021-22) to 8.8 percent. Earlier this was estimated at 9.3 percent.
The report projects the GDP to grow at 5.8 percent in the third quarter (Q3) of FY2021-2022 (October-December).

World Pangolin Day 2022: 19 February.

The World Pangolin Day is celebrated on the “Third Saturday of February” every year.
In 2022, the annual World Pangolin Day is being celebrated on 19 February 2022.
It marks the 11th edition of the event.
The day aims to raise awareness about these unique mammals and speed up conservation efforts.
Pangolins are one of the most heavily trafficked mammals in the illegal wildlife trade Their numbers are rapidly declining in Asia and Africa.

Football legend Surajit Sengupta passes away at 71.

The former India footballer Surajit Sengupta, who played as a midfielder, has passed away due to COVID-19 complications. He was 71.
At club level, Sengupta had been associated with Kolkata’s three big clubs, Mohun Bagan (1972-1973, 1981-1983), East Bengal (1974- 1979) and Mohammedan Sporting (1980).
He was part of the Indian national team that won a bronze medal in the 1970 Asian Games, held in Bangkok, Thailand.