Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra announces autobiography ‘The Stranger In The Mirror’
Filmmaker Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra has announced his autobiography, “The Stranger In The Mirror”. He has co-written the book with noted author Reeta Ramamurthy Gupta. The autobiography has published by Rupa Publications, the book will hit the stands across the country on July 27. Ad maker-turned-director Mehra, known for helming movies like Rang De Basanti, Delhi-6, Bhaag Milkha Bhaag and the recently released Toofan.
According to a press release, The Stranger In The Mirror features first-person accounts of noted personalities from the cinema and advertising world including Waheeda Rahman, A.R. Rahman, Bajpayee, Abhishek Bachchan, Akhtar, Kapoor Ahuja, Tandon, Ronnie Screwvala, Atul Kulkarni, R. Madhavan, Divya Dutta and Prahlad Kakar.
World Brain Day: July 22
The World Federation of Neurology (WFN) celebrates World Brain Day on every July 22, focusing on a different theme each year. Many public awareness programmes and educational & social media activities are promoting the movement to stop multiple sclerosis, commencing July 22, 2021, & continuing until October 2022.
The theme for this World Brain Day is “Stop Multiple Sclerosis”. World Brain Day advocates early diagnosis of this condition that can help improve the quality of life of the patient.
Gira Sarabhai co-founder of National Institute of Design passes away
Gira Sarabhai co-founder of the National Institute of Design has passed away. The pioneer of design education in the nation has played a vital part in establishing several other institutions and also made remarkable contributions in the field of art and architecture.
Sarabhai was the daughter of industrialist Ambalal Sarabhai & sister of Dr Vikram Sarabhai. She also established the Calico Museum of Textiles. She was trained at the famous Taliesin West Studio in Arizona with noted architect and designer Frank Lloyd Wright.
Madhya Pradesh Para Shooter Rubina Francis bags gold at Peru event
Madhya Pradesh shooter, Rubina Francis has set a world record at the ongoing Para Sport Cup in Peru. She has won gold in the 10-metre air pistol para-event for women. Scoring 238.1 points, she went past the world record of Aysegul Pehlivanlar of Turkey. This win also secured her the quota for India at the Tokyo Summer Paralympics 2020.
Over the years, she has earned more than 15 medals from national and international events. Presently, Rubina is training under the guidance of Jaspal Rana, former shooter and coach of the Junior Indian Pistol Shooting Team.
Vice President releases book ‘Palleku Pattabhishekam’
Vice President of India, M Venkaiah Naidu has released a book titled ‘Palleku Pattabhishekam’ authored by former MP Yalamanchili Sivaji. This book is based on rural India and agriculture. The Vice President said that villages and agriculture are intrinsically connected and we must address their issues holistically to bring ‘Gram Swarajya’ to our villages.
A book title ‘Bank With A Soul: Equitas’ by Dr. C K Garyali
Former RBI Governor, Duvvuri Subbarao has unveiled a book ‘Bank With A Soul: Equitas’ authored by Dr. C K Garyali. Dr. Garyali is a founder trustee of EDIT (Equitas Development Initiative Trust) and the book chronicles the journey of Equitas and EDIT in transforming the lives of women with frequent social reform initiatives helping them set up micro-enterprises.
U GRO Capital & Bank of Baroda in tie-up for MSME co-lending
U GRO Capital, a non-bank financier, and state-owned Bank of Baroda have partnered for co-lending to the micro, small and medium enterprise (MSME) sector. Under the co-lending programme Pratham, Bank of Baroda and U GRO will together disburse loans worth Rs 1,000 crore to MSMEs. The aim is to dispense the entire amount by the end of this financial year. The loan amount ranges from ₹50 lakh to ₹2.5 crores to be offered at an interest rate starting from 8% with a maximum tenure of 120 months.
The programme is accessible to MSMEs across U GRO’s over 200 channel touchpoints around nine locations in Delhi, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Pune, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, and Kolkata.
Important takeaways for all competitive exams:
- Bank Of Baroda Headquarters: Vadodara, Gujarat, India;
- Bank Of Baroda Chairman: Hasmukh Adhia;
- Bank Of Baroda MD & CEO: Sanjiv Chadha;
- U GRO Capital’s Managing Director: Shachindra Nath.
Dvara E-Dairy partners with IFFCO Tokio General Insurance for AI-led tag
Dvara E-Dairy Solutions, a portfolio company of Dvara Holdings has launched an artificial intelligence (AI) led digital tag ‘Surabhi e-Tag’ to identify cattle based on muzzle identity. This will be used for cattle insurance products offered in partnership with IFFCO Tokio General Insurance.
Under this initiative:
- Muzzle images of the cattle are collected through the Surabhi mobile application and stored in hi-resolution images as a unique digital identity.
- The artificial intelligence-driven mobile application of Dvara E-Dairy captures muzzle images with the mobile phone, compares the cattle’s unique digital identity stored in a secured cloud server and retrieves the results in less than 60 seconds.
- Conventional methods like polyurethane ear tags (PU ear tags) can be easily tampered with and are prone to duplication and fraud.
- Also, Injectable Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags are considered expensive and require specialized skills.
- On the other hand, muzzle printing or nose printing is a unique identifier because it perceives patchy traits on the muzzle of cattle, just like human fingerprints.
Important takeaways for all competitive exams:
- IFFCO Tokio General Insurance CEO: Anamika Roy Rashtrawar;
- IFFCO Tokio General Insurance Headquarters: Gurugram;
- IFFCO Tokio General Insurance Founded: 2000.
Sandesh Jhingan named AIFF men’s Footballer of Year
Senior India defender, Sandesh Jhingan was named the AIFF men’s Footballer of the Year 2020-21 season. It is the first time that the towering central defender has received the AIFF Player of the Year award, having won the Emerging Player of the Year Award in 2014.
About Jhingan:
- Jhingan made his senior national team debut in 2015 in Guwahati and has since gone on to make 40 appearances for the Blue Tigers, scoring four goals.
- He was part of the Indian sides that lifted the Intercontinental Cup in 2018 and played out a memorable draw at the home of the Asian champions Qatar in 2019.
- Jhingan has captained the senior team on five occasions, the most recent being the international friendly against Oman in Dubai in March. He was conferred with the prestigious Arjuna Award last year.
Another award:
While midfielder Suresh Singh Wangjam was picked as the Emerging Player for the year award for 2020-21. The 20-year-old Suresh, who made his Blue Tigers debut earlier this year against Oman, was part of the Indian side that competed at the FIFA U-17 World Cup in 2017.
Important takeaways for all competitive exams:
- All India Football Federation President: Praful Patel.
- All India Football Federation Founded: 23 June 1937.
- All India Football Federation Headquarters: Dwarka, Delhi.
UNESCO removes Liverpool from world heritage list
The UN’s cultural agency UNESCO has voted narrowly to remove Liverpool’s waterfront from its list of world heritage sites, citing concerns about overdevelopment, including plans for a new football stadium. At committee talks chaired by China, 13 delegates voted in favour of the proposal and five against, just one more than the two-thirds majority required to delete a site from the global list.
Those against delisting Liverpool included Australia, whose own listing for the Great Barrier Reef is threatened in this year’s UNESCO deliberations. Others opposing included Brazil, Hungary and Nigeria, arguing any step should be deferred a year to give the UK and Liverpool authorities more time.
Important takeaways for all competitive exams:
- UNESCO headquarters: Paris, France.
- UNESCO Head: Audrey Azoulay.
- UNESCO Founded: 16 November 1945.
G20 Environment Ministers’ Meeting 2021
The G20 Environment Ministers’ Meeting 2021 is one of the ministerial meetings organized as part of the G20 Leaders Summit 2021, which will be hosted by Italy in October 2021. The 2021 G20, under the Italian Presidency, will focus on three broad, interconnected pillars of action: People, Planet, Prosperity. Within these pillars, the G20 aims to take the lead in ensuring a swift international response to the COVID-19 pandemic – able to provide equitable, worldwide access to diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines – while building up resilience to future health-related shocks.
India was represented by a delegation led by Hon’ble Union Environment Minister, Bhupender Yadav and include Minister of State, Ashwini Kumar Choubey and senior officers of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change.
Countries Participated:
The G20 is made up of 19 countries and the European Union. The 19 countries are Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, France, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, the UK, and the US.
Noted Carnatic Classical Violinist Sikkil R Bhaskaran passes away
Noted Carnatic Classical Violinist ‘Kalaimaamani’ Sikkil Shri R Bhaskaran passed away. He started learning the Violin at the age of 11 from Thiruvarur Shri Subba Iyer and later trained under Mayuram Shri Govindarajan Pillai. He was an ‘A” Grade Artist of AIR and has served for nearly 2 decades in Chennai radio Station from 1976 to 1994.
Bhaskaran has served as an Executive Committee member of the Thiruvaiyaru Thyaga Brahma Festival for more than 2 decades. During his close to 5 decades of Musical Career, Bhaskaran has been bestowed with many laurels, Awards & Honours.
