Kargil to Kohima (K2K) Ultra Marathon – “Glory Run” was recently Flagged off from KARGIL.The aim of the expedition is to promote awareness for Pedestrian Safety and recently launched Fit India Movement and also to pay tribute to the brave hearts who have made the supreme sacrifice for our motherland.

The Western Railway for the first time has installed a polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottle crushing machine in Mumbai Rajdhani Express. This machine can crush up to 3,000 bottles per day. The PET bottle crusher machine was installed in the train as part of the Indian Railways’ Swachh Bharat and Go Green missions and ties in with an impending ban of single-use plastic by the Centre.

The 6th India Water Week -2019 was inaugurated by the President Shri Ram Nath Kovind in Delhi on 24th September. The week is being organized by Ministry of Jal Shakti. The international event to focus on water related issues. So far, 5 editions of India Water Week have been organized.

On September 23, 2019, during the foundation stone laying ceremony for the construction of a new building of Registrar General of India (Janganana Bhawan/Census Building) in New Delhi, which conducts the census exercise, Union Minister of Home Affairs(MHA) Shri Amit Shah, announced to conduct first-ever “digital census” in 2021. He also suggested a single multipurpose identity card i.e., one card facility for all utilities in the future.

Climate activist Greta Thunberg blasted off the world leaders during the 2019 UN climate action summit in New York by saying, “You have stolen my dreams, my childhood with your empty words and yet I am one of the lucky ones.”

Central Board of Direct Tax(CBDT) has newly set up National e-Assessment Centre (NeAC) in Delhi. CBDT has also appointed 1984 batch Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer Krishna Mohan Prasad as the first Principal Chief Commissioner of Income Tax of NeAC. The Centre will have 16 officials and will be headed by a Principal Chief Commissioner of Income-tax (PCCIT) as its chief.

The state of Bihar got its first all-women employee post office on 21 September 2019. Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad inaugurated the post office on the campus of Bihar Public Services Commission (BPSC). Sub-post office of BPSC has been upgraded to the status of Bihar’s first all-women employee post office. Postal accounts will also be linked with Aadhaar for greater transparency.

• The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has constituted a working group on Social Stock Exchanges (SSE) under the chairmanship of Ishaat Hussain, Director, SBI Foundation.
• The working group shall examine and make recommendations with respect to possible structures and mechanisms, within the securities market domain, to facilitate the raising of funds by social enterprises and voluntary organizations.
• In Budget in July, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman proposed a social stock exchange for social enterprises and voluntary organisations working for social welfare to help them raise capital through debt, equity and mutual fund.

The Indian Air Force and the DRDO successfully carried out the third consecutive test firing of Astra beyond visual range air-to-air missile off the coast of Odisha

ISRO is already planning its next ambitious launch and this time, it’s aiming for the Sun. The Aditya-L1 is the first Indian mission to study the Sun that will launch in 2020. The ISRO Aditya-L1 mission was earlier named as Aditya-1. The Aditya-1 was conceived as a 400kg class satellite carrying one payload. The project will have a Visible Emission Line Coronagraph (VELC) with a plan to launch in an 800 km low earth orbit. The satellite will now be placed in a halo orbit around the Lagrangian point 1 (L1) of the Sun-Earth system, which has the advantages of viewing the Sun continuously without any occultation or eclipses, resulting in the name change. The Aditya-L1 will be placed in a halo orbit around the L1, which is 1.5 million km from the Earth.

Actress Anushka Sharma has been named in the Fortune India’s top 50 list of Most Powerful Women of 2019. The actress is the youngest woman on the list and ranks at 39. She is also the only Bollywood actor to feature on the list. Co-founder of AZB & Partners, Zia Mody topped the list.

• The Government of India has announced a significant reduction in the corporate tax rate for the domestic company to 22%. Earlier it was 30%. Effective Tax Rate would be 25.17% inclusive of all surcharges and cess for such domestic companies. Such companies are also not required to pay Minimum Alternative Tax.
• Any new domestic company incorporated on or after 1st Oct 2019 making fresh investment in manufacturing will have an option to pay income tax at a rate of 15%. The effective tax rate for new mfg cos would be 17.01% inclusive of surcharge and cess.
• The government has announced relief to listed companies which have already made a public announcement of buy-back before 5 July 2019. No tax on buy-back of shares in case of such companies will apply.
• In order to provide relief to companies which continue to avail incentive or exemptions, even for them, the government has provided a Minimum Alternate Tax (MAT) relief, and the MAT rate has been reduced for them to 15% from the existing 18.5%. Total revenue foregone for the reduction of corporation tax is Rs 1.45 trillion per year.

Chief Minister of Delhi Arvind Kejriwal launched “Champions Campaign” to fight dengue and urged citizens to become ‘champions’ and encourage 10 friends to check their homes for mosquito larvae.

The Government of Maharashtra has decided to set up ‘Swachh Bharat World University’ in Wardha to mark Mahatma Gandhi’s 150th birth anniversary. The University will focus on research studies in sanitation, cleanliness and environment.

The Jacksonville, United States (US) based research firm Fidelity National Information Services (FIS) in its 6th annual Flavours of Fast report for 2019 rated India’s Immediate Payment Service (IMPS) as the world’s best real-time payment service in comparison to the similar facilities of 54 countries. It received the only 5+ rating. It is rated highest in FIS’s ‘Faster Payments Innovation Index 2019’.

The International Day of Sign Languages is observed across the world on 23 September every year to highlight the importance of sign language for people who have hearing inability. The first International Day of Sign Languages was observed on September 23, 2018.

A new book titled ‘Being Gandhi’ written by award-winning author Paro Anand will be released to mark the 150th anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.

Max Bupa, a health insurance company, has announced a bancassurance corporate agency agreement with the state-owned Indian Bank. The partnership will further strengthen Max Bupa’s footprint in the Southern market. The agreement aims to offer a wide range of products and services to the customers.

National Thermal Power Corporation Limited (NTPC) plans to set up a 5-gigawatt solar park in the western state of Gujarat.

External Affairs Minister (EAM) of India, Dr S Jaishankar unveiled the statue of Mahatma Gandhi in Helsinki, sculpted by Gautam Pal. It was gifted by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR), Government of India to the Government of Finland to commemorate the 150th birth anniversary of Gandhiji. He also met the Indian community in Finland; Visited the Finnish Institute of International Affairs (FIIA) and delivered a speech on “India and the World – Priorities of Indian Foreign Policy”.

India’s Deepak Punia pulled out of his title bout at the World Wrestling Championships to settle for silver due to an ankle injury that he sustained during his semifinal bout.

Tata Communications partnered with Cisco to offer enterprises a secure, fully-managed, multi-channel, cloud-based Cisco Webex Contact Center solution. This joint offering is an end-to-end managed solution and gives contact center users a seamless user experience across up to 150 countries on the back of Tata Communications’ global network. The solution will allow for simplified licensing.

Madhukar Kamath, the chairman emeritus of advertising firm DDB Mudra Group, has been elected as the chairman of the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) for 2019-20.

Thousands of drivers working with cab aggregator Ola will receive health benefits under the Ayushman Bharat health scheme in Delhi NCR. A memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed on 19 September 2019 between Ola and Ayushman Bharat-Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB-PJAY) and National Health Authority to provide secondary and tertiary care to drivers and their families.

France announced to press for dropping Sudan off the US blacklist of state sponsors of terrorism. The announcement was made by the French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian.

Central Government has announced its plan to set-up state-of-the-art National Police University (NPU) at Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh. The aim is to establish a world-class NPU with a dynamic learning and working environment that is dedicated to the advancement and dissemination of education, research and scholarships of the highest quality in specialized niche areas of policing science, forensic science, cyber forensics, criminology, criminal justice, risk management and related areas.

1.5 Lakh Health Centres are to be set up by 2022 under the Ayushman Bharat scheme which provides Rs 5lakh per year under the insurance cover.

The central government is giving special attention to those 250 Districts of India where the malnutrition level is higher than the national average during the celebration of “Rashtriya Poshan Maah” (National Nutrition Month), the entire month of September, 2019 with the theme of ‘Complementary Feeding’.Rashtriya Poshan Maah: The initiative aimed at addressing issues of malnutrition & undernutrition and obesity in some sections and also stemmening existing nationwide campaign for ‘malnutrition-free India’.5 pillars of Poshan Maah are the importance of First 1000 days of the Child, Anaemia, Diarrhoea, Hand Wash and Sanitation and Poshtik.