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National

MAHIR in Power Sector

• The Ministry of Power and the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy have jointly launched a National Mission to quickly identify emerging technologies in the power sector and develop them indigenously, at scale, for deployment within and outside India.
• The National Mission, titled “Mission on Advanced and High-Impact Research (MAHIR)” aims to facilitate indigenous research, development and demonstration of the latest and emerging technologies in the power sector.

Kerala Fibre Optical Network (KFON)

• The Kerala government on 5 June 2023 officially launched the Kerala Fibre Optical Network (KFON).
• Through KFON, Kerala, which was the first state to declare the right to internet as a basic right, aims to reduce the digital divide by ensuring high speed broadband internet access to all houses and government offices.

National Institute Ranking Framework (NIRF) 2023

• The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Madras retained the top spot in the National Institute Ranking Framework (NIRF), 2023 for the fifth consecutive year.
• The Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru has been ranked as the best university.

World’s largest grain storage plan unveiled

• The Union Cabinet approved the constitution of an Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMC) to facilitate the “world’s largest grain storage plan in the cooperative sector”.
• At present, India has a foodgrain storage capacity of 145 million metric tonnes (MMT) against the total food production of 311 MMT—leaving a gap of 166 MMT.
• In the absence of sufficient storage facilities, foodgrains are sometimes stored in the open, which results in damage.

VAIBHAV Fellowship Programme

• The Government has launched a new fellowship programme to connect the Indian STEMM diaspora with Indian academic and R&D institutions for collaborative research work leading to sharing of knowledge, wisdom, and best practices in the frontier areas of science & technology.
• The Vaishvik Bhartiya Vaigyanik (VAIBHAV) fellowships programme to be implemented by the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Ministry of Science and Technology.

International

Iran-Taliban water conflict

• Iran and Afghanistan are locked in a long-standing dispute over the sharing of water from the Helmand River.
• The Helmand is Afghanistan’s longest river. It originates near Kabul in the western Hindu Kush mountain range and flows in a southwesterly direction.

Mega Wargame

• The navies of India, France and the United Arab Emirates have carried out a two-day mega wargame in the Gulf of Oman reflecting their growing cooperation to deal with challenges in the maritime sphere.
• It was the first edition of the wargame involving navies of the three countries.

Carbon tax at WTO formally notified

• The European Union (EU) has formally notified the implementation of Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) at the WTO members of the committee on trade and environment.
• CBAM or carbon tax is seen as a protectionist move made by Europe and is feared to impact $8 billion worth of Indian exports, especially steel and aluminum sector.

US wants to rejoin UNESCO

• The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) announced on 12 June 2023 that the United States will rejoin it in July, four years after it left the agency (along with Israel.
• UNESCO is a UN agency tasked with furthering international cooperation and peace through the promotion of educational, scientific and cultural causes.

Economy

‘Lightweight’ payments system

• The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has conceptualised a lightweight payment and settlements system, which it is calling a “bunker” equivalent of digital payments, which can be operated from anywhere by a bare minimum staff in exigencies such as natural calamities or war.
• The infrastructure for this system will be independent of the technologies that underlie the existing systems of payments such as UPI, NEFT, and

RBI Governor named 'Governor of the Year'

• Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das was awarded the "Governor of the Year" at the Central Banking Awards 2023 in London.
• Central Banking is a London-based international economic research journal.
• Das is the second RBI governor to receive the award after Raghuram Rajan, who was given the title in 2015.

Science And Technology

Agni-1 missile successfully launched

• India conducted a “successful launch” of the medium-range Agni-1 missile from the APJ Abdul Kalam Island off the Odisha coast on 1 June 2023.
• The “training launch” of the Agni-1, which has a strike range of 700km, was conducted by the tri-service Strategic Forces Command (SFC).
• The SFC, which was set up to handle the country’s nuclear arsenal in 2003, currently has the Prithvi-II (350km range), Agni-1 (700-km), Agni-2 (2,000-km), Agni-3 (3,000-km) and Agni-4 (4,000-km) ballistic missiles.

India’s overhaul of Internet laws

• The most important law is the Draft of Digital India Bill, which will be the successor to the decades-old Information Technology Act, 2000, the country’s core Internet law.

KAVACH

• KAVACH is a state-of-the-art electronic system which was designed to help the Indian Railways achieve Zero Accidents.
• It is an Automatic Train Protection (ATP) system which has been indigenously developed by the Research Design and Standards Organisation (RDSO) in collaboration with the Indian industry.
• It activates the train braking system automatically if the driver fails to control the train as per the speed restrictions.

New-generation Agni-prime missile tested

• 'Agni Prime', the new-generation ballistic missile, was successfully flight-tested from an island off the Odisha coast on 7 June 2023 night.
• Agni-P is a two-stage canisterised solid propellant ballistic missile with dual redundant navigation and guidance system.
• It has a range 1000 to 2000 km and was tested for the first time in June 2021. It is lighter than all the earlier Agni series of missiles.

First mission to catches the solar wind

• Data from the Parker Solar Probe has uncovered the source of solar wind, a stream of energized particles that flow from the corona, or the sun’s hot outer atmosphere, toward Earth.
• Solar wind is a continuous outflow of plasma, which contains charged particles like protons and electrons.

Leptospirosis surges in the monsoon

• Leptospirosis has emerged as an important infectious disease in the world today. It is a potentially fatal zoonotic bacterial disease that tends to have large outbreaks after heavy rainfall or flooding.
• The disease is caused by a bacterium called Leptospira interrogans, or leptospira. It is a contagious disease in animals but is occasionally transmitted to humans in certain environmental conditions.

Miscellaneous

World Environment Day 2023

• The World Environment Day (5 June 2023) hosted under the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), marks a day to raise awareness and action about the environmental catastrophes of the modern world.
• In 1972, a conference held by the United Nations in Stockholm was the first UN conference which had the environment as its major agenda. It also recognised the right to live in a healthy environment as the basic right of any human being.

Cyclone Biparjoy

• Developed in the Arabian Sea, cyclone Biparjoy is heading towards the northern Gujarat coast, with landfall on 15 June 2023.
• A cyclone is a large-scale system of air that rotates around the centre of a low-pressure area. It is usually accompanied by violent storms and bad weather.

India tops digital payments rankings globally

• India has topped the global rankings in digital payments for the year 2022, data from govt's citizen engagement platform MyGovIndia showed on 10 June 2023.
• Brazil took the second place, with the country clocking 29.2 million digital transactions. China followed at third spot with 17.6 million transactions.

Global Slavery Index

• According to the Global Slavery Index 2023, on any given day in 2021, as many as 50 million people were living in “modern slavery”.
• Among these 50 million, 28 million suffer from forced labour and 22 million from forced marriages. Of these 50 million, 12 million are children.
• “Modern slavery” refers to situations of exploitation that a person cannot refuse or leave because of threats, violence, coercion, deception, or abuses of power.

90% of people have gender biases: UN

• The latest Gender Social Norms Index (GSNI) report has revealed that while about 90% of men and women hold gender biases, the proportion holding a bias is least on the subject of women's education, just 28%.