National:
India’s 67th chess Grandmaster:
- Leon Mendonca has become India’s 67th chess Grandmaster by winning the third and final norm at a tournament in Italy. 14-year-old Leon Mendonca is from Goa.
Mendonca, who achieved the feat at 14 years, 9 months and 17 days, is the second GM from the coastal state.
Mendonca achieved his first GM norm at the Rigo Chess GM Round Robin in October while the second came at the event in Budapest in November and the final one at the Vergani Cup in Italy.
Chennai player G Akash was the country’s 66th Grandmaster.
RBI Introduces Digital Payments Index:
- Reserve Bank of India announced on 01 January 2020, Reserve Bank of India has constructed a composite Digital Payments Index (DPI) to capture the extent of digitisation of payments across the country.
The RBI-DPI comprises of 5 broad parameters that enable measurement of deepening and penetration of digital payments in the country over different time periods.
These parameters are:
- Payment Enablers (weight 25%)
- Payment Infrastructure – Demand-side factors (10%)
- Payment Infrastructure – Supply-side factors (15%)
- Payment Performance (45%)
- Consumer Centricity (5%)
The ‘RBI-DPI’ has been constructed with March 2018 as the base period, i.e. DPI score for March 2018 is set at 100.
International:
India as Non-permanent Member of UNSC:
- India set to begin its two-year tenure as non-permanent member of 15-nation United Nations Security Council (UNSC) for the 2021- 22 term. This is the eighth time that the India has had a seat as a non-permanent member.
IFSCA as Associate Member of IOSCO:
- The International Financial Services Centres Authority (IFSCA), has become an Associate Member of the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO).
The IOSCO is the international organization that brings together the world’s securities regulators, covering more than 95% of the world’s securities markets. It is the global standard setter for the securities sector.
IFSCA has been established on April 27, 2020, & headquartered at GIFT City, Gandhinagar in Gujarat. The IFSCA is a unified authority for the development and regulation of financial products, financial services and financial institutions in the International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) in India.
Death:
- Senior Congress leader and former Union minister Buta Singh passed away in Delhi on January 2, 2021. He was 86. He was firstly elected from Sadhna constituency in Rajasthan, to the 3rd Lok Sabha in 1962.
- Hard-line Iran cleric Ayatollah Mohammad Taqi Mesbah Yazdi died on January 01, 2021. He was 85 years old.
The cleric was known as a supporter of the country’s ex-president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who questioned the Holocaust and claimed there were no gays or lesbians in Iran.
