1) Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan launches NEAT 3.0
•Union Minister of Education, Dharmendra Pradhan has launched National Educational Alliance for Technology (NEAT 3.0), and regional language textbooks prescribed by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE). NEAT 3.0 aims to provide the best-developed ed-tech solutions and courses to students on a single platform. It will be beneficial especially among the economically disadvantaged students. It is a Public-Private Partnership model between the Government (through its implementing agency AICTE) and the Education Technology companies.
•58 global and Indian ed-tech startup companies have come together for this solution and are offering 100 courses and e-resources to enhance learning outcomes, developing employable skills as well as overcome learning loss. The collaboration of global ed-tech companies and Indian start-ups by way of NEAT will help to build on the digital education bedrock of India.
2) Odisha’s Ganjam district is now child marriage free
•Odisha’s Ganjam has declared itself a child marriage free district, the first in the State. The district administration has been able to stop as many as 450 child marriages and video-record 48,383 marriages in two years — 2020 and 2021. After verification, the Ganjam administration declared it a child marriage free district. Sarpanchs and task force committee members had sent recommendations that no child marriage had taken place in their respective areas.
3) Ladakh celebrated traditional new year ‘Losar Festival’
•The Losar Festival in Ladakh is celebrated at the onset of the New Year in the traditional schedule of Tibetan Buddhism. It is celebrated by the Buddhist Community in the Ladakh region. The Losar is a 15 days festival, from the start of the Tibetan Lunar calendar, marking the 1st day of the 11 months in the Tibetan Calendar. Losar is a Tibetan word that means ‘New Year’.
•The festivities began with the celebration of Birth and Nirvana Anniversary Je Tsongkhapa with illuminations of religious places like Monasteries, Stupas, residential and other places. The eve of the Losar festival is also celebrated with memorial food offerings for the departed loved ones.
4) Alka Mittal becomes 1st women head of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation
•Director HR in ONGC, Alka Mittal has been given the additional charge as the new interim chairman and managing director (CMD) of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), the largest oil and gas producer in India. She is the first woman to head the top post at the Maharatna company. She replaces Subhash Kumar who superannuated on December 31. He was also serving as an interim head.
•Alka Mittal has been appointed for a period of six months with effect from January 1, 2022, or till the appointment of a regular incumbent to the post, or until further order, whichever is the earliest.
5) Sudan’s Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok announces resignation
•Prime Minister of Sudan, Abdalla Hamdok has announced his resignation on January 02, 2022. The decision follows a military coup that caused political deadlock and widespread pro-democracy protests in the country. The 66-year-old Hamdok served as the 15th Prime Minister of Sudan from 2019 to 2022.
•Mr Hamdok called for a dialogue to agree on a “national charter” and to “draw a roadmap” to complete the transition. The October coup had upended Sudan’s plans to move to democracy after a popular uprising forced the military’s overthrow of longtime autocrat Omar al-Bashir and his Islamist government in April 2019.
6) Nippon India MF launches India’s first Auto ETF 2022
•Nippon Life India Asset Management Limited, asset manager of Nippon India Mutual Fund (NIMF), has announced the launch of India’s First Auto sector ETF – Nippon India Nifty Auto ETF. Nippon India Nifty Auto ETF will predominantly invest in stocks comprising of the Nifty Auto Index in the same proportion as the Index. It will provide exposure to Top 15 (as per Nifty Auto Index methodology) companies representing auto-related sectors like Automobiles 4 wheelers, Automobiles 2 & 3 wheelers, Auto Ancillaries, and Tyres.
•The Nippon Auto ETF will start operation from January 5, 2022 to January 14, 2022. The minimum investment amount required is Rs 1,000 and in multiples of Rs 1 aftermath. The investment objective of the scheme is “to provide investment returns closely corresponding to the total returns of the securities as represented by the Nifty Auto Index before expenses, subject to tracking error. However, there can be no assurance or guarantee that the investment objective of the Scheme will be achieved.
7) Zishaan A Latif won Ramnath Goenka Award in Photo journalism
•Zishaan A Latif won Ramnath Goenka Award in the Photo Journalism category. He won the award for his photo essay, The arduous struggle for inclusion in the NRC, which was published in The Caravan in October 2019. He documented the plight of people who were dropped from the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and put a face to an untold human story. About a month after the NRC list was released, Latif made his way through four districts in Assam, documenting people’s struggle for inclusion in the NRC.
8) CryptoWire introduces India’s first global index of cryptocurrencies IC15
•CryptoWire, a global crypto super app that is a special business unit of TickerPlant, announced the launch of India’s first index of Cryptocurrencies – IC15, which is a rule-based broad market index by market capitalisation. The IC15 tracks and measures the performance of the top 15 widely traded liquid cryptocurrencies listed on leading crypto exchanges of the world, the company stated.
•The Mumbai-based company has been designed to provide insights into crypto mining and the true benchmark and a mirror of the underlying crypto market, a barometer of the industry in a sense, with a diversified representation of overall market sentiments.
9) RBI named Ajay Kumar Choudhary and Deepak Kumar as new Executive Directors
•The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has appointed Deepak Kumar and Ajay Kumar Choudhary as new executive directors (ED) with effect from 03 January. Prior to being promoted as ED, Deepak Kumar was heading the department of information technology of RBI, while Ajay Choudhary was Chief General Manager-in-Charge, Department of Supervision.
10) Apple becomes world’s first company to hit $3 trillion M-Cap
•The stock market value of Apple Inc. hit $3 trillion and became the world’s first company to do so. The market cap of Apple hit $182.86 per share, which made it the world’s first company to touch the $3 trillion mark. However shortly after hitting the mark, the share value dipped below it and did not rise again until the market closed. The iPhone maker passed $2 trillion in 2020 and over $1 trillion in 2018.
•The world’s most valuable company reached the milestone as investors bet that consumers will continue to shell out top dollar for iPhones, MacBooks and services such as Apple TV and Apple Music. In China, the world’s largest smartphone market, Apple continued to lead for the second straight month, beating rivals such as Vivo and Xiaomi, recent data from CounterPoint Research showed.
