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Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) launched ‘Digi Yatra’ from the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport in New Delhi (Delhi) for three airports in India, namely New Delhi, Varanasi (Uttar Pradesh), and Bengaluru (Karnataka). Digi Yatra was designed to use Facial Recognition Technology (FRT) to achieve contactless, seamless passenger processing at airports.
• In the initial phase, Digi Yatra will be introduced in 7 airports, starting with the first 3: Delhi,
Bengaluru, and Varanasi.
• It will be followed by 4 airports by March 2023: Hyderabad (Telangana), Kolkata (West Bengal), Pune (Maharashtra), and Vijayawada (Andhra Pradesh).
• Currently, the service is only available to domestic flight passengers.
• With Digi Yatra, India will join the ranks of world-class airports such as Heathrow in London, the
United Kingdom (UK), and Atlanta in the United States of America (USA).
• The Digi Yatra project is conceived by Digi Yatra Foundation under the Ministry of Civil Aviation.
• Digi Yatra platform is built on 4 key pillars: Connected Passengers, Connected Airports, Connected Flights, & Connected Systems.
• The project envisions any traveller passing through
multiple airport checkpoints using paperless and contactless processing, establishing their identity with facial features and linking it to their boarding card.
• One-time registration (OTR) on the Digi Yatra app using
Aadhar-based validation and a self-image capture is required in order to access this facility.
• There is no central storage of Personally Identifiable Information (PII) in the project’s privacy features.
• The ID and travel credentials of passengers are maintained in a secure wallet on the passenger’s
smartphone.
• Blockchain technology will be used to process the uploaded data, and all data will be deleted from the servers 24 hours after use.
The 12th edition of Agni Warrior (XAW) 2022, a bilateral exercise between the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) & Indian Army (IA) was held at Field Firing Ranges, Devlali in Maharashtra from November 13 – 30, 2022. The closing event was witnessed by Wong Wie Kuen, High Commissioner of Singapore to India & Lieutenant General S Harimohan Iyer, Commandant, School of Artillery along with
other dignitaries from Singapore & serving officers from both
armies.
• The exercise culminated in a joint live-firing exercise involving the Singapore Armed Forces’ (SAF) Singapore Light
Weight Howitzer, Field Artillery Meteorological System, and the Indian Army’s 155mm Field
Howitzer 77B.
• XAW comprises joint firepower planning, execution and use of New Generation Equipment by the Artillery arm of both armies.
• Expert academic discussions were also conducted on modern trends in Artillery and refinement of Artillery planning process.
• A joint computer war-game was also held as a part of the joint planning process.
Indian Army forces are training Kites to prey on enemy drones in a first-of-its-kind operatio . The military conducts operations with trained birds and dogs.Indian
army used a kite named ‘Arjun’.
• During the ongoing joint training exercise Yuddh Abhyas in Auli, Uttarakhand, the Indian Army showed the use of Kites to prey on hostile drones.
• A 15-day-long exercise, ‘Yudh Abhyas 22’, the 18th
edition of the Indo-US joint training exercise, began on 26th November 2022 in Auli, Uttarakhand.
• Yudh Abhyas 22 will focuses on high altitude and extremely cold climate warfare
Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India and the Comptroller General of the Republic of Chile signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to develop institutional and professional capacities and learn from each other’s best practices in Santiago, Chile. The MoU was formally signed by Girish Chandra Murmu, CAG of India, and Jorge Bermudez Soto, the Comptroller General of the Republic of Chile.
• Under the MoU, both parties agreed to assist capacity building, share methodology for public audits, and conduct training programmes in their respective nations.
• The MoU will bring in a new era of constructive engagement and deepen bilateral ties with Chile’s Supreme Audit Institution (SAI).
Bank of Baroda (BoB) has launched Foreign Currency Loan against INR Deposits of Indian Companies for their Overseas Subsidiaries/ Joint Ventures (VS) in Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT City) branch in Gandhinagar, Gujarat. It provides an alternative facility for the Indian companies to raise
funds for their international businesses. BoB is the first bank to offer this facility at GIFT City.
• Under the new loan scheme, BoB’s International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) Banking Unit (IBU) in GIFT City will provide financial support to Overseas Subsidiaries/JVs of Indian corporates by leveraging their INR deposits.
• This helps Indian companies to meet the cash flow requirements for their international operations.
Online foreign exchange marketplace BookMyForex.com launched Interbank Rate Multi- Currency Forex Card which is India’s first true zero markup travel card. It is co-branded multicurrency card developed in association with Yes Bank, and M2P Fintech. It is powered by Visa. BookMyForex.com, a MakeMyTrip Group Company is India’s very first tech initiative in the foreign exchange domain and the market leader in the online retail forex space.
• During regular banking hours, International travellers will be able to buy Forex Cards at Interbank Rates with zero added markup i.e. the live & actual rates as seen on search engines at which banks deal with each other for major currencies. The card is accepted globally at over 35 million stores, 1 million e-commerce websites, and over 2 million ATMs
• Earlier, BookMyForex charged a markup of about 0.25 paise
per dollar, which has now been waived with the introduction
of interbank rate multi-currency forex card
• The card can be loaded with 14 different currencies, and the exchange rates on forex cards remain fixed,
• BookMyForex will also provide a FREE international SIM with
unlimited incoming calls and WhatsApp chats for 30 days post
activation along with the Interbank rate Forex Card
Chattopadhyay NIF Prize 2022 Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay NIF Book Prize 2022 was awarded to ‘The Chipko Movement: A People’s Movement’, a book on the popular forest conservation campaign Chipko Movement written by a historian and an activist Shekhar Pathak. The book, ‘The Chipko Movement: A People’s Movement’, has been translated from Hindi by Manisha Chaudhry. The 2022 was the 5th edition of the Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay NIF Book Prize.
• The Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay NIF Book Prize was established in 2018 and is given for nonfiction
on contemporary India by writers of any nationality, carrying a cash award of 15 lakhs, a trophy and a citation.
• This prize has been named after Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, the institution-builder who had
contributed significantly to the freedom struggle, women’s movement, refugee rehabilitation and renewal of handicrafts..
• Previous winners of the prize are Milan Vaishnav (2018), Ornit Shani (2019), Amit Ahuja and Jairam Ramesh (jointly, 2020), and Dinyar Patel (2021).
Manthan platform won NSEIT the Best Tech Initiative of the Year at the Dun & Bradstreet Business Excellence Awards 2022 during an event in Mumbai, Maharashtra.
• Manthan platform promotes collaboration between industry and the scientific research and development ecosystem.
• Manthan was launched on India’s 76th Independence Day.
• Manthan enables multiple stakeholders to collaborate to cocreate solutions that are compatible with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and our national scientific missions.
India assumed the Presidency of the United Nation Security Council (UNSC) for the month of December, the second time in its two-year tenure as an elected member of the Council in 2021-22. India had earlier assumed the UNSC Presidency in August 2021.
• During India’s Presidency, two high-level signature events will be held on 14th December 2022 on Reformed Multilateralism and 15th December 2022 on
Reformed Multilateralism and will be chaired by External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar.
• On 14th December 2022 The high-level open debate on
the theme ‘Maintenance of International Peace and
Security: New Orientation for Reformed Multilateralism’ will be conducted, which will encourage the UN members to work on reforms in the current multilateral architecture with the UN at its centre.
• On 15th December 2022, a high-level briefing on the theme ‘Threats to International Peace and Security Caused by Terrorist Acts: Global Approach to Counter Terrorism – Challenges and Way Forward’ will take place, which helps in building a consensus on the principles of a global counterterror architecture.
• This will enhance the Delhi Declaration adopted during the special meeting of the counterterroris committee in October 2022 in India.
• World Computer Literacy Day is annually observed on December 2 to raise public knowledge of computers and encourage the development of technological skills, particularly among children and women in India.
• The day aims to promote digital literacy and raise awareness in
underserved communities across the globe.
• 2022 marks the 22nd World Computer Literacy Day.
• World Computer Literacy Day was established by an Indian
computer company, the National Institute of Information Technology (NIIT), in 2001 to mark NIIT’s 20th anniversary.
• The 1st World Computer Literacy Day was observed on 2nd December 2001.
National Pollution Control Day is annually observed across India on December 2 to honour and commemorate the people who lost their lives in the Bhopal Gas Tragedy on the 2nd and 3rd of December 1984. Note: 2nd December 2022 marks the 38th anniversary of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy.
• In India, air pollution is responsible for 7 million annual
deaths, of which 4 million are caused by indoor air pollution.
• Nine out of ten people on the earth are believed to lack access to clean air. The 1984 Bhopal Gas Tragedy:
• India’s 1st major industrial disaster, the Bhopal Gas
Tragedy, was a gas leak from the Union Carbide Plant in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, on December
2nd and 3rd, 1984.
• The insecticide plant owned by Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL), the Indian division of the
American company Union Carbide Corporation, released about 45 tonnes of the hazardous chemical Methyl isocyanate (MIC).
• Nearly 25000 people were killed and around 6 lakh victims sustained injuries.
United Nations (UN)’s International Day for the Abolition of Slavery is annually observed across the globe on December 2 to raise public awareness of the need to combat modern forms of slavery such as child labour, human trafficking, and sexual exploitation. The day aims to abolish modern-day forms of slavery.
• The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) adopted the resolution A/RES/317(IV) on 2nd December 1949.
• International Day for the Abolition of Slavery was declared to be observed on December 2 to mark the UNGA’s adoption of the UN Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others.