National Fisheries Development Board (NFDB) under Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry & Dairying, Government of India has entered into an MoU with Punjab National Bank, the premier Bank in the country, to extend financial assistance through the Bank.

Rashad Hussain is an American attorney, diplomat, and professor. He has been nominated as the Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom by Joe Biden, the President of the USA. Rashad Hussain is Director for Partnerships and Global Engagement at the National Security Council.
He previously served as Senior Counsel at the Department of Justice’s National Security Division. He served as U.S. Special Envoy to the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), U.S Special Envoy for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications, and Deputy Associate White House Counsel.

Central Scientific Instruments Organisation (CSIR), Chandigarh developed a personal reading machine “Divya Nayan” for visually impaired people. In this device, any printed or digital document can be accessed in the form of speech output. The device can analyze a multi-column document and provide a seamless reading on the basis of the principle of contact scanning. Users can place the device over the document to be read and manually scan it. The image is converted into text, the text is converted to speech and audio with the help of language-dependent optical character.
CSIR was established by the Government of India in September 1942. It is an autonomous body and has emerged as the largest research and development organization in India. Ministry of Science & Technology, Government of India is its parent organization. The institute was founded by Shanti Swaroop Bhatnagar.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched some initiatives as a part of the extension to the  National Education Policy 2020 on July 29th, 2021. Vidya Praveshinitiative has been launched for Pre School Kids, basically for Grade 1 students. Under this initiative, a three-month play module will be set for the children to prepare them for school. It will also include a subject of Indian Sign language at the Secondary Level.

Mumbai-based graphic artist Anand Radhakrishnan, 32, has won the prestigious Will Eisner Comic Industry Award, considered the Oscars equivalent of the comics world. The Eisner Awards are given out annually and the award won by Radhakrishnan — Best Painter/Multimedia Artist (interior art) — recognises the creator of a graphic novel’s art and images.

Dr Cyrus Poonawalla, Chairman of the Pune-based vaccine maker Serum Institute of India (SII), has been selected for the prestigious Lokmanya Tilak National Award for 2021.

A 13-day mega military exercise between Indian and Russian armies is scheduled to be organized from August 1 at Volgogradcity located in Russia. The name of the Joint military exercise between the Indian and Russian armies is INDRA. The scheduled exercise is the 12th edition of INDRA and it is named “INDRA-21”.
According to the Indian army, 250 personnel from each side will participate in this 12th edition of the joint military exercise. The military exercise will help in strengthening the bilateral security cooperation and will serve to reinforce the longstanding bond of friendship between India and Russia. It will also conduct counter-terror operations as mandated under the UN’s framework of joint forces against international terror groups.

PM Modi has launched multiple educational initiatives including the Academic Bank of Credit that will provide multiple entries and exit options for students in Higher education.

The Rajasthan government has launched a new campaign titled ‘Mission Niryatak Bano’, to encourage aspiring exporters in the state, increase the total exports from Rajasthan and increase job opportunities in the state.

Avinash Sable finished seventh in the 3000m steeplechase event at the Tokyo Olympics 2020. He took 8 minutes 18.12 seconds (8:18.12s) to finish the race and set a national record by breaking his own record of 8:20.20s  that he set during the Federation Cup in March. He became the first Indian after 1952 to qualify for the Olympics in the 3000m steeplechase event.
Avinash Sable belongs to the Beed district of Maharashtra.

Bharat Bill Payment System, NPCI’s flagship bill payments platform that was hived off into a separate subsidiary in April, has appointed former PayU and Airtel Payments Bank executive Noopur Chaturvedi as its new chief executive officer.

18 banks in India have come together to set up a new fintech firm named ‘IBBIC Pvt Ltd (IBBIC)’, to make use of blockchain technology for the financial services sector.

The centre has announced 27% reservation for OBCs and a 10% quota for students from the economically weaker sections (EWS) for undergraduate and postgraduate medical and dental courses under the All-India Quota (AIQ) scheme.

The 36th edition of CORPAT between India and Indonesia is being held on 30 and 31 July 2021, in the Indian Ocean region. The Indian Naval Ship (INS) Saryu, an indigenously built Offshore Patrol Vessel and Indonesian Naval Ship KRI Bung Tomo is undertaking coordinated patrol (CORPAT).

Vantika Agarwal has won the National Women Online Chess title. She scored 9.5 points from 11 rounds. Arpita Mukherjee of West Bengal took the second spot and Tamil Nadu’s Sreeja Seshadri secured the third spot in the competition.

According to the fourth national serology survey of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), Madhya Pradesh has the highest Covid-19 Seroprevalence and Kerala has the lowest Covid-19 Sero-prevalence.
21 states were taken under consideration in this survey. The state-wise approximate prevalence was issued on July 28, 2021. Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Bihar are the top three states with high seroprevalence rates.  Madhya Pradesh has a seroprevalence of 79%, Rajasthan has a seroprevalence of 76% and Bihar has a seroprevalence of 75%. Kerala has a seroprevalence of only 44%.
Sero-prevalence refers to the frequency of individuals with antibodies to a particular virus in a population. Higher Seroprevalence rates mean more antibodies and more immunity and lower Seroprevalence rates mean fewer antibodies and less immunity.

The 12th edition of the biennial bilateral maritime exercise INDRA NAVY, between the Indian Navy and the Russian Navy was held in the Baltic Sea from 28 to 29 July 2021.

Intel in collaboration with the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), Ministry of Education, announced the launch of the AI For All initiative with the purpose of creating a basic understanding of artificial intelligence (AI) for everyone in India.

The newly sworn in President of Peru, Pedro Castillo had appointed Guido Bellido, as the new prime minister of the country on July 29, 2021.

On the occasion of International Tiger Day, Bhupendra Yadav (Minister for Environment, Forest, and Climate change) stated that 14 Tiger reserves of India have received accreditation of the Global Conservation Assured Tiger Standards (CA|TS). The 14 accredited tiger reserves are Manas, Kaziranga, and Orang in Assam; Satpura, Kanha, and Panna in Madhya Pradesh; Pench in Maharashtra; Valmiki tiger reserve in Bihar; Dudhwa in Uttar Pradesh; Sunderbans in West Bengal; Parambikulam in Kerala; Bandipur in Karnataka and Mudumalai & Anamalai in Tamil Nadu.
CA|TS is a set of criteria that sets best practices and standards to manage tigers and their conservation. It is a globally accepted conservation tool. CA|TS was launched in 2013. It was developed by tiger and protected area experts. It is an important part of T*2, the global goal to double the number of tigers by 2022. The long-term goal of CA|TS is to ensure safe heavens for Tigers.

A consignment of ‘Raja Mircha’, also referred to as King Chilli or Bhoot Jolokia, from Nagaland, has been exported to London for the first time.

The Kerala Government on July 30, 2021, announced a financial package of over Rs. 5,000 crores to revive the economy of the state that has been reeling due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Google’s parent company, Alphabet has announced that they will soon launch a new company, known as Intrinsic, which will focus on building industrial robots software.

The Reserve Bank of India has imposed a monetary penalty of Rs 5 crore on private sector lender Axis Bank. The penalty is for contravention of and non-compliance with certain provisions of directions issued by RBI on ‘Strengthening the Controls of Payment Ecosystem between Sponsor Banks and SCBs/UCBs as a Corporate Customer.

The European Space Agency (ESA) is all set to launch the world’s first commercial fully re-programmable satellite, the Eutelsat Quantum on July 30, 2021. The satellite, unlike convention satellite models that cannot be repurposed once in orbit, works on software-defined technology that offers flexible communications so that it can adapt to the demands of customers and markets in real-time.

Karnataka has become the first state in India to reserve jobs in public employment in favour of transgender persons. As per the information, the state government has approved 1% horizontal reservation for transgenders in government jobs.

Maruti Suzuki India Limited has announced a partnership with Maharashtra’s Savitribai Phule Pune University to train youth in automobile retail. The aim is to offer a customised three years “Bachelor of Vocational Studies in Retail Management” course to students.

India and the United States on July 30 2021 signed the Second Amendment to the Statement of Guiding Principles (SGP) on Triangular Cooperation for Global Development. The Second Amendment to the SGP agreement was signed to extend the validity of the SGP Agreement till 2026.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the SAFAL initiative of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), on July 29, 2021, on the occasion of the first anniversary of the National Education Policy (NEP). SAFAL stands for Structured Assessment For Analysing Learning. SAFAL is a competency-based assessment program for grades 3, 5 and 8 introduced by the CBSE, to assess the progress of foundational skills and basic learning outcomes among students.

The Reserve Bank of India has accorded its approval to the Government of the Union Territory (UT) of Ladakh to acquire 8.23 per cent of the paid-up equity capital of Jammu and Kashmir Bank Ltd as on the date of enforcement of Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019 ( October 31, 2019).