India marks January 26 as its Republic Day every year. In 2022, the country is celebrating its 73rd Republic Day.
While India gained independence from the British Raj in 1947, it wasn't until January 26, 1950, that the Indian Constitution came into effect, and India became a sovereign state, declaring it a republic.
The celebrations this year are special as it falls on the 75th year of Independence.
Instituted by the World Customs Organization (WCO), International Customs Day is held on January 26, which commemorates the day in 1953 when the inaugural session of the Customs Cooperation Council (CCC) was held in Brussels, Belgium.
In 1994 the CCC was renamed World Customs Organization (WCO) and today custom organizations from 179 countries are WCO members.
Penned in the pre-modern world by Henry Francis Lyte,a Scottish Anglican minister and son of a naval captain,the hymn has been a fixture in the Indian Beating Retreat ceremony since 1950.Played at dusk, this is also the last piece before the retreat buglers bring down the Indian flag.
Abide With Me has been replaced by Kavi Pradeep’s seminal piece Aye Mere Watan Ke Logon.
Abide With Me was one of Mahatma Gandhi’s personal favourites.
Gen Bipin Rawat, former UP CM Kalyan Singh, Hindustani Classical vocalist Prabha Atre and Radheshyam Khemka of Gita Press have been named for the Padma Vibhushan. Apart from Rawat, Singh and Khemka have been conferred the award posthumously.
A total of four Padma Vibhushans, 17 Padma Bhushans and 107 Padma Shri awards have been conferred this year.
Please find the link to entire list in the 'Detailed Content' section.
Ageas Federal Life Insurance in association with Dronacharya Awardee Gaurav Khanna launched India’s first Para-Badminton Academy.
The state-of-the-art, high-performance centre with advanced equipment and facilities in Lucknow aims to improve India’s medal chances at the 2024 Paralympics to be held in Paris, France.
The logo features the Star of David and the AshokaChakra- the two symbols that adorn the national flags of both countries- and forms the numeral 30 depicting the 30th anniversary of bilateral relations.
The winning design created by an Indian student, Nikhil Kumar Rai, was chosen through a joint decision of the Embassies and Consulates from both countries.
Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley was sworn in for a second term after her party appeared to have swept every legislative seat in the first elections the island nation held as a republic since casting off the British monarchy.
Barbados:
Capital: Bridgetown;
Currency:Barbadian or Bajan dollar
Tamil legal drama Jai Bhim and Malayalam actioner Marakkar: Arabikadalinte Simham have found a place in the shortlist of 276 films which are in contention to get nominated at the 94th Academy Awards.
Directors Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh’s Writing with Fire, a film about a newspaper run by Dalit women, has been shortlisted in the Best Documentary Feature category.
Marakkar Arabikadalinte Simham won three National Awards.
Food delivery platform Swiggy said that it has raised $700 million in new funding led by asset management firm Invesco. The Bengaluru-based start-up is now valued at $10.7 billion, up from its previous valuation of $5.5 billion just six months ago.
The latest funding makes Swiggy the fourth decacorn – valued at $10 billion or more – after Paytm, Oyo and Byju’s.
Fullerton India and One97 Communications Limited, which owns the brand Paytm, India’s leading digital payments and financial services platform, have announced a partnership to provide lending products to merchant partners and consumers.
Fintech users will be able to use Paytm Postpaid (buy-now-pay-later) on the Paytm platform as a result of this relationship.
Fullerton India Credit Company Limited is owned by Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group (SMFG)
India has become the world's top exporter of gherkins. During the months of April to October, India exported 1,23,846 metric tonnes of cucumber and gherkins for US$ 114 million (2020-21).
India has crossed the $ 200 million mark of export of agricultural processed product- pickling cucumber, which is globally referred as gherkins or cornichons, in the last financial year.
Nearly 15 percent production of the world's gherkin requirement is grown in India.
The Government has approved and notified the final resolution scheme for Punjab & Maharashtra Cooperative Bank, over two years after it was put under restrictions. All branches of PMC Bank shall operate as branches of Unity Small Finance Bank from Jan. 25, 2022 — the date of amalgamation.
PMC Bank had a deposit base of Rs 10,727 crore and loans worth Rs 4,473 crore.
Vinodanand Jha, a 1983-batch retired IRS officer has been appointed as the chairperson of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA)Adjudicating Authority located in the national capital.
Mr. Jha has been serving as the Member (Finance and Accounts) in in the Authority since September 2018.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has raised its forecast for growth in India's gross domestic product (GDP) in FY23 by 50 basis points (bps) to 9 percent.
The National Statistical Office's first advance estimate for national income for FY22 has pegged GDP growth for the year at 9.2 percent.
India's GDP growth forecast for FY24 was also raised by 50 bps to 7.1 percent.
In October 2021, Phase 1 of the challenge culminated as NASA awarded 18 teams a total of $450,000 for their concepts for innovative food production technology that produces safe, acceptable, palatable, nutritious food
products.
NASA now invites both new and existing teams to enter Phase 2 for a prize purse up to $1 million.
NASA launched the ‘Deep Space Food Challenge' with Canadian Space Agency.
Meta Platforms Inc. announced that its research team built a new artificial intelligence supercomputer that the company maintains will soon be the fastest in the world.
By mid-summer, when the AI Research SuperCluster is fully built, it will house some 16,000 GPUs, becoming the fastest AI supercomputer in the world.
Human resource technology startup Darwinbox has raised $72 million in Series D funding led by Technology Crossover Ventures (TCV), catapulting the company into the coveted unicorn club – firms with valuation of $1 billion or more.
Founded in 2015 by Chaitanya Peddi, Jayant Paleti, and Rohit Chennamaneni, Darwinbox competes with global leaders like SAP, Oracle and Workday.
3 other startups- Mamaearth,Fractal & LEAD School have attained unicorn status this year.
Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, in association with ICEA on released a 5-year roadmap and Vision Document for the electronics sector. It is titled “300 billion dollar Sustainable Electronics Manufacturing & Exports by 2026”. This roadmap is the second volume of a two-part Vision Document - the first of which was released in November last year.
India's rank improved one place to 85 among 180 countries
The index ranks 180 countries and territories by their perceived levels of public sector corruption ,on a scale of 0 to 100, where 0 is highly corrupt and 100 is very clean.
Among those with weak scores are: China (45) and India (40),Indonesia (38), Pakistan (28) and Bangladesh (26).
Denmark, Finland, New Zealand and Norway topped the list with the highest score.