23rd May, 2024
Remal, Chat Xi PT, Peace prize, Porter, TCpay, JANA SFB, Smartphone export, Land outlook, TTDI, Startup cities, IMO award, Booker prize, The International Day for Women in Maritime, International Day for Biological Diversity, Casablanca Chess Variant Tournament 2024, Motonet GP Jyvaskyla athletics meet, VST Tillers Tractors Limited (VST), Pradeep Natarajan, General To Lam, C. Gordon Bell,
- Cyclone Remal to hit West Bengal and Bangladesh coasts
- China Launches Chat Xi PT: AI Chatbot Promotes Xi Jinping’s Political Thought
- The Bangladesh government is set to introduce an international peace award named after the Father of the Nation, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, starting from 2025.
- Bengaluru-based logistics services platform, Porter, became the 3rd Unicorn in India in 2024
- Thomas Cook India has recently launched a new digital service called TCPay, designed to simplify and enhance international money transfers.
- Jana Small Finance Bank has entered into a bancassurance partnership with SBI General Insurance.
- Smartphones are now the fourth-largest export item from India with 42 per cent growth to $15.6 billion in FY24, as per the data released by Department of Commerce.
- Recently the “Global Land Outlook Thematic Report on Rangelands and Pastoralists”, which was prepared and released by the UN Convention on Combating Desertification (UNCCD).
- Recently the “Travel & Tourism Development Index (TTDI) 2024” is released by the World Economic Forum (WEF).
- A global firm, PitchBook has recently unveiled its global Venture Capital ecosystem rankings for 2024, showcasing the top 50 startup cities worldwide and providing insights into the development of these ecosystems.
- On 18th May (International Day for Women in Maritime), the International Maritime Organization (IMO) presented the inaugural IMO Gender Equality Award 2024.
- German author Jenny Erpenback and translator (the book translated into English by Michael Hofmann) jointly won the International Booker Prize 2024 for the book ‘Kairos’.
- The International Day for Women in Maritime (IDWIM) is annually observed across the globe on 18 May
- The United Nations (UN) International Day for Biological Diversity (IDB) is annually observed on 22nd May
- Five-time World Champion & World No. 1 Chess player Magnus Carlsen (from Norway) won the inaugural Casablanca Chess Variant Tournament 2024
- Indian athlete Tejas Shirse established a new national record in the men’s 110 m hurdles at the Motonet GP Jyvaskyla athletics meet in Finland.
- Bengaluru-based VST Tillers Tractors Limited (VST), a farm equipment manufacturer, has signed a MoU with Axis Bank Limited
- The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has approved the appointment of Pradeep Natarajan as whole time Executive Director of IDFC First Bank Limited for a period of 3 years.
- General To Lam has been appointed as the New President of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
- C. Gordon Bell, a computer scientist, who helped design some of the first minicomputers in the 1960s passed away.
Table of Content
National News
- Cyclone Remal to hit West Bengal and Bangladesh coasts
- What: A cyclonic storm named “Remal”, which is developing in the Bay of Bengal is expected to hit the coasts of West Bengal, Odisha, Northeast India, and Bangladesh.
- The name “Remal” was given to the cyclone by Oman, it means sand in “Arabic”
Source: Free Press Journal
International News
- China Launches Chat Xi PT: AI Chatbot Promotes Xi Jinping’s Political Thought
- What: China has recently introduced an AI chatbot called Chat XiBot, which is based on the political ideology of President Xi Jinping.
Source: Business Standard
- What: China has recently introduced an AI chatbot called Chat XiBot, which is based on the political ideology of President Xi Jinping.
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| Government of India has decided to develop an AI model for Indian use, Rs 2,000 crore allocated This centre is expected to be established under the Rs 10,000 crore IndiaAI Mission. |
- Bangladesh to launch peace award named after Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman
- What: The Bangladesh government is set to introduce an international peace award named after the Father of the Nation, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, starting from 2025.
- Why: The award named “Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Peace Award” will be bestowed upon individuals, organizations, or institutions from anywhere in the world who have made significant contributions to establishing peace.
- This prestigious award will carry a prize money of USD 100,000 and a gold medal weighing 50g of 18-carat gold.
Source: Indian Express
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| Recently RITES Limited, the export arm of Indian Railways, has recently signed a significant contract with Bangladesh Railways. The contract involves supplying 200 broad-gauge passenger coaches. |
Banking and Economy
- Porter becomes India’s third Unicorn of 2024
- What: Bengaluru-based logistics services platform, Porter, became the 3rd Unicorn in India in 2024
- In business, Unicorn is the term used to describe a startup company with a value of over $1 billion.
- The term was first coined by venture capitalist Aileen Lee in 2013.
- In 2024: Ola’s Krutrim AI and fintech firm Perfios achieved the status of Unicorn
- Tell me more:
- About Porter: Founded in 2014 by Pranav Goel, Uttam Digga, and Vikas Choudhary, Porter operates an on-demand marketplace for trucks, bikes, and packers & movers. It provides a wide range of intra-city and inter-city logistics services.
Source: Money Control
- About Porter: Founded in 2014 by Pranav Goel, Uttam Digga, and Vikas Choudhary, Porter operates an on-demand marketplace for trucks, bikes, and packers & movers. It provides a wide range of intra-city and inter-city logistics services.
- What: Bengaluru-based logistics services platform, Porter, became the 3rd Unicorn in India in 2024
| Knowledge Nuggets - |
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| India’s first Unicorn:
InMobi, an advertising firm became the first Unicorn of India in the year 2007. Government initiatives for helping start-ups MUDRA Scheme: Through this scheme, start-ups get loans from the banks to set up, grow and stabilize their businesses. SETU (Self-Employment and Talent Utilization) Fund: The Government has allotted Rs 1,000 Cr to create opportunities for self-employment and new jobs mainly in technology-driven domains. E-Biz Portal: It is India’s first government-to-business portal that integrates regulatory permissions and licenses at one source. Credit Guarantee Fund: The Government of India launched this to make collateral-free credit available to the micro and small enterprise sector (MSME). Fund of Funds for Start-ups (FFS): A Rs. 10,000 crore corpus fund was established in line with the Start-up India action plan under SIDBI for extending support to Start-ups. |
- Thomas Cook India Introduces “TCPay” for International Money Transfers
- What: Thomas Cook India has recently launched a new digital service called TCPay, designed to simplify and enhance international money transfers.
Source: Economic Times
- What: Thomas Cook India has recently launched a new digital service called TCPay, designed to simplify and enhance international money transfers.
- Jana Small Finance Bank and SBI General Insurance enter into a Bancassurance agreement
- What: Jana Small Finance Bank has entered into a bancassurance partnership with SBI General Insurance.
- Bancassurance is an arrangement between a bank and an insurance company, through which the insurer can sell its products to the bank’s customers.
- Why: This collaboration aims to facilitate the distribution of insurance products and enhance customer access to non-life insurance offerings.
Source: Economic Times
- What: Jana Small Finance Bank has entered into a bancassurance partnership with SBI General Insurance.
- Smartphones now India’s fourth-largest export item
- What: Smartphones are now the fourth-largest export item from India with 42 per cent growth to $15.6 billion in FY24, as per the data released by Department of Commerce.
- Tell me more:
- India started collecting data for smartphones separately from April 2022.
- While India’s top export items are dominated by petroleum products, smartphones replaced motor gasoline to become the fourth-largest exported commodity in FY24.
Source: Mint
Report and Indices
- Global Land Outlook Thematic Report on Rangelands and Pastoralists released
- What: Recently the “Global Land Outlook Thematic Report on Rangelands and Pastoralists”, which was prepared and released by the UN Convention on Combating Desertification (UNCCD).
- The year 2026, is declared, the International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists (IYRP), by the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA)
- Rangelands are natural or semi-natural ecosystems grazed by livestock and/or wild animals.
- Tell me more (Key findings):
- Estimate: Up to 50% of world’s vast rangelands are degraded and is nearly double the previous estimates that ranged from 20% to 35%.
- Reason for degradation: This degradation is due to over-exploitation, misuse of natural pasturelands, and climate change.
- Importance of rangelands: Rangelands cover 80 million square kilometers of land i.e. 54% of all land on earth, account for 1/6th of global food production and represent nearly 33% of carbon reservoir on earth.
- Rangeland status in India:
- Rangelands occupy about 121 million hectares in India and a large part (around 100 million hectares) of these is considered underutilized.
Source: Indian Express
- Rangelands occupy about 121 million hectares in India and a large part (around 100 million hectares) of these is considered underutilized.
- What: Recently the “Global Land Outlook Thematic Report on Rangelands and Pastoralists”, which was prepared and released by the UN Convention on Combating Desertification (UNCCD).
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| UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) - UNCCD is a legally binding agreement that aims to protect and restore land and combat desertification and drought. - It was adopted in 1994 and became effective in 1996. - The UNCCD focuses on drylands, which are arid, semi-arid, and dry sub-humid areas that are home to some of the most vulnerable ecosystems and peoples. - Secretariat: The UNCCD's permanent Secretariat is located in Bonn, Germany. |
- Travel & Tourism Development Index 2024 released by WEF
- What: Recently the “Travel & Tourism Development Index (TTDI) 2024” is released by the World Economic Forum (WEF).
- Tell me more:
- Edition: 2nd
- It evolved from the Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index (TTCI) series, a flagship index of the World Economic Forum that has been in production since 2007.
- Index prepared by: WEF along with the University of Surrey
- Countries assessed: 119
- Index Overview: The TTDI measures the factors and policies that enable the sustainable and resilient development of the Travel and Tourism (T&T) sector, which in turn contributes to a country’s overall development.
- Rankings: The United States of America (USA) has topped the list with a TTDI score of 5.24 followed by Spain (5.18) and Japan (5.09) at 2nd and 3rd rank respectively
- Mali, with a score of 2.78, was placed at the bottom of the index.
- In general, the Europe and Asia-Pacific regions and high-income economies in particular
continue to have the most favorable conditions for T&T development. - Pillars of assessment:
- Enabling Environment (5 sub-pillars)
- Travel & Tourism Policy and Enabling Conditions (3 sub-pillars)
- Infrastructure and Services (3 sub-pillars)
- Travel & Tourism Resources (3 sub-pillars)
- Travel & Tourism sustainability (3 sub-pillars)
- India-related data:
- Rank: 39th among 119 economies with a TTDI score of 4.25.
- India is ranked highest in South Asia and among the lower-middle-income economies.
- Rank and score in the last edition: 54th, with a score of 4.1
Source: WEF
- Edition: 2nd
- 2024 global rankings for the best startup cities
- What: A global firm, PitchBook has recently unveiled its global Venture Capital ecosystem rankings for 2024, showcasing the top 50 startup cities worldwide and providing insights into the development of these ecosystems.
- Tell me more:
- Global ranking:
- India-related data: Two Indian cities, Mumbai at 32nd place, and Bengaluru at 34th place.
Source: Indian Express
| Knowledge Nuggets - |
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| About Startups & their status - Startup is an entity working towards innovation, development or improvement of products or processes or services, or with a scalable business model etc. - It should have age less than 10 years and annual turnover not exceeding Rs 100 crore. Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), Ministry of Commerce & Industry recognize business as a startup. India has 3rd largest startup ecosystem in the world and record of 114 unicorns as of March 2024. - Unicorn is a startup business worth more than $1 billion |
Awards
- IMO has presented the inaugural IMO Gender Equality Award 2024
- What: On 18th May (International Day for Women in Maritime), the International Maritime Organization (IMO) presented the inaugural IMO Gender Equality Award 2024.
- Awarded to: Ms. Despina Panayiotou Theodosiou (from Cyprus), former President of the Women’s International Shipping and Trading Association (WISTA International), has been selected as the recipient of the first-ever IMO Gender Equality Award.
- Why awarded: Due to the pivotal and leading role she played in advancing gender equality and empowering women throughout her tenure as President of WISTA International.
Source: IMO
- The International Booker Prize 2024
- What: German author Jenny Erpenback and translator (the book translated into English by Michael Hofmann) jointly won the International Booker Prize 2024 for the book ‘Kairos’.
- The book is originally written in German.
- Jenny Erpenback has now become the first German to win the International Booker Prize for Fiction and Michael Hofmann is now the first male translator to win the award.
- About Kairos book: Kairos’ is a book that follows a complex love story between a young woman, merely 19 years old and an older, married man in his 50s back in the 1980s in East Berlin and how their love embodied the tumultuous times of that era.
Source: The Times of India
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| The International Booker Prize - It is an annual award that is given to the best work of fiction written in any language and translated into English in the previous year. - The prize emphasises the importance of translators, with the award money split equally between the author and translator. |
Important Days
- May 18: International Day for Women in Maritime
- What: The International Day for Women in Maritime (IDWIM) is annually observed across the globe on 18 May
- Why: To celebrate and honor the contributions of women in the maritime industry and promote women’s recruitment, retention, and sustained employment in the sector.
- Organized by: International Maritime Organization (IMO) of the United Nations (UN)
- The Theme for 2024: “Safe Horizons: Women Shaping the Future of Maritime Safety.”
Source: IMO
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| About International Maritime Organization (IMO) - Secretary-General- Arsenio Dominguez Velasco (Panama) - Headquarters- London, UK - In 1948 an international conference in Geneva adopted a convention formally establishing IMO (the original name was the Inter-Governmental Maritime Consultative Organization, or IMCO, but the name was changed in 1982 to IMO). - The IMO Convention entered into force in 1958 and the new Organization met for the first time the following year. |
- May 22: The United Nations (UN) International Day for Biological Diversity (IDB)
- What: The United Nations (UN) International Day for Biological Diversity (IDB) is annually observed on 22nd May
- Why: To increase understanding and awareness of biodiversity issues and to promote the conservation of biological diversity.
- The theme of IDB 2024 is “Be part of the Plan”.
Source: CBD
Sports
- Casablanca Chess Tournament 2024
- What: Five-time World Champion & World No. 1 Chess player Magnus Carlsen (from Norway) won the inaugural Casablanca Chess Variant Tournament 2024
- Hosted by: Mahkama du Pacha in Casablanca, Morocco.
- The tournament featured 4 distinguished players who represented 4 different continents i.e. Vishwanathan Anand (Asia), Bassem Amin (Africa), Hikaru Nakamura (America) and Magnus Carlsen (Europe).
- Hikaru Nakamura from the United States of America (U.S.A.) secured 2nd position.
- 5-time World Champion and Indian Chess Player, Vishwanathan Anand secured the 3rd position.
Source: Chess. Com
- Tejas Shirse establishes a new national record in men’s hurdles
- What: Indian athlete Tejas Shirse established a new national record in the men’s 110 m hurdles at the Motonet GP Jyvaskyla athletics meet in Finland.
- He clocked an impressive 13.41 seconds to win the final.
- He shattered the previous national record of 13.48 seconds, which was set by Siddhanth Thingalaya back in 2017.
Source: Times Now
Memorandum of Understanding
- VST Tillers Tractors inks MoU with Axis Bank to Offer Credit Facilities to Farmers
- What: Bengaluru-based VST Tillers Tractors Limited (VST), a farm equipment manufacturer, has signed a MoU with Axis Bank Limited
- Why: To provide financial solutions for farmers purchasing tractors and farm mechanization products.
Source: Axis Bank
Appointment
- Pradeep Natarajan appointed as Whole Time Director of IDFC First Bank
- What: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has approved the appointment of Pradeep Natarajan as whole time Executive Director of IDFC First Bank Limited for a period of 3 years.
Source: Financial Express
- What: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has approved the appointment of Pradeep Natarajan as whole time Executive Director of IDFC First Bank Limited for a period of 3 years.
- General To Lam appointed as the New President of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam
- What: General To Lam has been appointed as the New President of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
Source: First Post
- What: General To Lam has been appointed as the New President of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
| Knowledge Nuggets - |
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| About Vietnam - Prime Minister - Pham Minh Chinh - Capital - Hanoi - Currency - Vietnamese dong |
Miscellaneous
- Gordon Bell, father of minicomputer passed away
- What: C. Gordon Bell, a computer scientist, who helped design some of the first minicomputers in the 1960s passed away.
Source: The Washington Post
- What: C. Gordon Bell, a computer scientist, who helped design some of the first minicomputers in the 1960s passed away.
About Anuj Jindal
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Anuj Jindal, the founder, is an ex-manager from SBI, with an M.Com from Delhi School of Economics. He also has a JRF in Commerce & Management and NET in HRM, along with more than 5 years of experience in the field of Education.
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