1) International Translation Day: 30 September
•International Translation Day is observed on 30th September every year. The day aims to celebrate the work of language translation professionals which facilitates dialogue, understanding and cooperation, contributing to the development and strengthening world peace and security. The day also marks the feast of St. Jerome, the Bible translator who is considered the patron saint of translators.
•International Translation Day 2020 theme: “Finding the words for a world in crisis”.
2) NABARD to undertake Sanitation Literacy Campaign in Karnataka
•The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development will begin a Sanitation Literacy Campaign (SLC) in Karnataka to promote literacy on ‘WASH’ (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) in 2,000 villages covering one lakh rural population. The objective of the campaign is to focus on inculcating significant behavioural changes towards adapting good hygiene and sanitation practices.
•The campaign will start from October 2 and continue till January 26, 2021. In the past, NABARD also supported the construction of 3.29 crore household toilets disbursing 27,298 crore rupees across the country.
3) NITI Aayog & Embassy of the Netherlands signs Statement of Intent
•NITI Aayog and Embassy of the Netherlands, New Delhi, has signed a Statement of Intent (SoI) to support the decarbonization and energy transition agenda for accommodating cleaner and more energy. The focus of the partnership is on co-creating innovative technological solutions by leveraging the expertise of the two entities.
•Through this collaboration, NITI Aayog and the Dutch Embassy seek a strategic partnership to create a platform that enables a comprehensive collaboration among stakeholders and influencers, including policymakers, industry bodies, OEMs, private enterprises, and sector experts.
4) Sonu Sood honoured with Special Humanitarian Action Award by UNDP
•Bollywood actor, Sonu Sood has been conferred the prestigious SDG Special Humanitarian Action Award by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on 28 September 2020 during a virtual ceremony. He has received the award for selflessly extending a helping hand and sending lakhs of migrants, stranded students across geographies abroad, back to their homes. Besides that, he has also been providing free education and medical facilities to young children and has been creating free employment opportunities to the needy in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
•With this prestigious honour, Sood joins the likes of Angelina Jolie, David Beckham, Leonardo DiCaprio, Emma Watson, Liam Neeson, Cate Blanchett, Antonio Banderas, Nicole Kidman and Priyanka Chopra who have been similarly honoured by different UN bodies.
5) Filmmaker Shekhar Kapur named FTII governing council chairman
•Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has announced Shekhar Kapur as the new President of Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) Society and Chairman of FTII Governing Council. His tenure will be till March 3, 2023.
•Kapur, known for films like Masoom (1983), Mr India (1987), Elizabeth (1998) and Bandit Queen (1994), will replace television producer BP Singh. Singh’s tenure had ended in March 2020 but he was given an extension owing to the coronavirus situation.
6) Vakrangee gets RBI approval to set up BBPS unit
•The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has granted in-principle approval to Vakrangee Ltd to set up Bharat Bill Payment Operating Unit (BBPOU) to handle payment services related to bills. With in-principle authorisation from RBI, Vakrangee Ltd will set up and operate BBPOU under the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007 and will now be able to directly handle payment and aggregation of payment services relating to bills under the scope of BBPS (Bharat Bill Payment System).
•The company offers banking, insurance, money transfer services, e-commerce, e-governance and other digital services on behalf of its partner banks, insurers, government agencies, e-commerce players among others through its branches mostly located in rural and semi-urban areas.
7) BrahMos Missile featuring Indigenous Booster successfully flight tested
•BrahMos surface-to-surface supersonic cruise missile featuring indigenous Booster and Airframe Section along with many other ‘Made in India’ sub-systems was successfully flight tested from ITR, Balasore in Odisha. It is one more major step in enhancing the indigenous content. The BrahMos Land-Attack Cruise Missile (LACM) was cruising at a top speed of Mach 2.8.
•The successful flight testing of BrahMos surface-to-surface supersonic cruise missile featuring indigenous Booster has paved the way for the serial production of the indigenous booster and other indigenous components of the powerful BrahMos Weapon System realising Atmanirbhar Bharat pledge.
8) IDBI Bank becomes 1st bank to enable document embedding feature on SFMS
•Industrial Development Bank of India (IDBI) become the first to implement the new feature of document embedding facility with Letter of Credit (LC) / Bank Guarantee (BG) messages over SFMS (Structured Financial Messaging System) platform of Indian Financial Technology and Allied Services (IFTAS). The process would be conducted via a middleware application “i@Connect-SFMS (CSFMS) developed by IDBI Intech.
9) Rajnath Singh launched a book titled ‘A bouquet of flowers’
•Defence Minister Rajnath Singh has launched a book titled ‘A bouquet of flowers’ written by Dr Krishna Saksena. Dr Krishna Saksena is the first lady to get a PhD, in 1955 from Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh. The book has been designed to allow the readers to travel their own journey and arrive at their own very personal realization and be inspired by it.
