National
Two innovative customer centric initiatives of RBI
⇒ Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi launched two innovative customer centric initiatives of RBI on 12 November 2021.
» These initiatives are the RBI Retail Direct Scheme and the Reserve Bank – Integrated Ombudsman Scheme.
RBI Retail Direct Scheme:
- The RBI Retail Direct Scheme is aimed at enhancing access to government securities market for retail investors. It offers them a new avenue for directly investing in securities issued by the Government of India and the State Governments.
- Investors will be able to easily open and maintain their government securities account online with the RBI, free of cost.
Reserve Bank – Integrated Ombudsman Scheme:
- The Reserve Bank – Integrated Ombudsman Scheme aims to further improve the grievance redress mechanism for resolving customer complaints against entities regulated by RBI.
- The central theme of the scheme is based on ‘One Nation-One Ombudsman’ with one portal, one email and one address for the customers to lodge their complaints.
- There will be a single point of reference for customers to file their complaints, submit the documents, track status and provide feedback.
- A multi-lingual toll-free number will provide all relevant information on grievance redress and assistance for filing complaints.
Unkal Lake Renamed
⇒ Members of Some Veerashaiva Lingayat organisations renamed Unkal Lake as Sri Channabasava Sagar after Sri Channabasavanna, 12th century saint, in Hubballi, Karnataka.
They celebrated the Sri Channabasavanna Jayanti and performed puja to Sri Basaveshwara and Sri Channabasavanna.
After Hubballi Railway Station, which was renamed as Shree Siddharoodha Swamiji Railway Station, well-known Unkal lake is renamed as Channabasava Sagara.
International
‘E-Amrit’, a web portal
⇒ India launched ‘E-Amrit’, a web portal on electric vehicles (EVs), at the COP26 Summit in Glasgow, UK on 10 November 2021.
About E-Amrit:
- E-Amrit is a one-stop destination for all information on electric vehicles—busting myths around the adoption of EVs, their purchase, investment opportunities, policies, subsidies, etc.
- E-Amrit intends to complement initiatives of the government on raising awareness on EVs and sensitizing consumers on the benefits of switching to electric vehicles.
Developed and hosted by:
The portal has been developed and hosted by NITI Aayog under a collaborative knowledge exchange programme with the UK government and as part of the UK–India Joint Roadmap 2030, signed by the Prime Ministers of the two countries.
Ashden Award 2021
⇒ During the Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, United Kingdom on November 4, 2021:
Manipal-based Bharatiya Vikas Trust (BVT) received the Ashden Award 2021 under the ‘Energy Access Skills’ category at an official ceremony held in Glasgow.
About BVT:
Bharatiya Vikas Trust (BVT) was established by late T A Pai. The Trust has been working on harnessing solar energy since 2001.
China launches three new remote sensing satellites
⇒ China on 06 November 2021 successfully launched three new remote sensing satellites from the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre in the country’s southwestern Sichuan province.
The satellites, belonging to the Yaogan-35 family, were launched by a Long March-2D carrier rocket and entered the planned orbit successfully.
- This launch marked the 396th mission for the Long March series carrier rockets.
- The Long March carrier rocket series, developed by the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, is responsible for about 96.4 per cent of all the launch missions in China.
Sports
India’s 71st Grandmaster
⇒ 18-year-old Sankalp Gupta from Nagpur became India’s 71st Grandmaster after he completed the third and final norm at the GM Ask 3 round-robin event in Arandjelovac, Serbia.
Sankalp secured the three required GM norms in just 24 days by playing three back-to-back tournaments, in which his rating performances were over 2599 and even touched the 2500 Elo rating mark.
Important Day
India Celebrates Transport Day at COP26
⇒ India Celebrated Transport Day at COP26. On Transport Day at COP26, India, represented by NITI Aayog, participated in the fourth ministerial dialogue of the Zero-Emission Vehicle Transition Council (ZEVTC), a global forum on enhancing political cooperation on the transition to zero-emission vehicles.
ZEVTC brings together ministers and representatives of some of the world’s largest automobile markets to collectively address key challenges in the transition to ZEVs, to enable faster, cheaper, and easier transition to EVs for all.