The government has increased the rate of interest for the General Provident Fund and other related schemes to 8% from 7.6% for the Oct-Dec quarter. The interest rate would apply on Provident Funds of central government employees, railways & defence forces.
The interest rate is in line with that for Public Provident Fund
Anna Burns has become the 1st Northern Irish author to win the Man Booker prize, for Milkman which is about an 18-year-old woman known as middle sister, being sexually harassed by a powerful man. According to the chair of judges, it is incredibly original.
The Man Booker prize was established in 1969.
The Uttar Pradesh Cabinet adopted a proposal to rename the historic city of Allahabad as Prayagraj with an immediate effect. The name of the city was Prayagraj 500 years ago, as it is at the `Triveni Sangam' (a confluence of three rivers).
Ram Naik is the governor of Uttar Pradesh.
India and Tanzania signed two Memorandum of Understandings between the Foreign Service Institute of India and Centre for Foreign Relation, Tanzania and National Research Development Corporation and Tanzania Industrial Research and Development Corporation.
Capital of Tanzania – Dodoma, Currency - Tanzanian shilling
Radha Mohan Singh stated that the govt is working on achieving the goal of zero hunger by 2030 in a systematic manner on the occasion of World Food Day. This year’s world food day aims at showcasing centre’s global commitment towards zero hunger.
World Food Day is observed on 16th October.
According to the RBI guidelines, interoperability of all KYC compliant PPI was enabled in 3 phases – issuance of PPIs in the form of wallets via UPI and in the form of cards via card networks and interoperability between wallets & bank accounts via UPI.
UPI is an instant real-time payment system developed by NPCI.
India has been ranked as the 58th most competitive economy with a score of 62.0 on the World Economic Forum's global competitiveness index for 2018, which was topped by the US. It is a composite indicator that determines an economy's level of productivity.
India's rank rose by 5 places from 2017.
Maharashtra govt has launched the Solar Pump Programme to provide power to the farmers during daylight hours & enhance the irrigation coverage of farmland. 1 L pump will be installed at an investment of about ₹ 3435 Cr within the next 3 years.
Reserved category farmers would pay only 5% of the total costs.
Suraj Panwar won India’s first athletics medal at the 3rd Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires which increased the medal count to 11. Also, Praveen Chitravel won the bronze medal in triple jump at the Youth Olympics 2018.
India is at 12th in the rankings table.
Paul Allen, who founded Microsoft with Bill Gates died due to cancer. He was 65. He also founded Stratolaunch Systems, which built the world’s largest plane designed as a colossal rocket-launching aircraft touted as the future of space travel.
He was also known as the owner of the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks.