Gol Issues Orders to bring Digital News Portals, Online Films, Content Providers under Purview of I&B Ministry

• Government of India issued an order to bring digital or online Media, films and audio-visual programmes, news portal and current affairs content under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (Ministry of 1&B).This will include OTT (over-the-top) platforms such as Netflix, Hotstar, Prime Video & Online News Portal. In order to do bring this under Ministry of 1&B President amended the Government of India (Allocation of Business) Rules, 1961.

• Digital Media Platforms were under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Electronics and Information
• Technology (Meity) while other media such as print, television and radio came under the I&B Ministry

• Youtube, Facebook which generates user generated content continue to remain under MeitY.

About Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (Ministry of i&B):

• Union Minister - Prakash Javadekar

• Headquarters - New Delhi

India Ranked 196th in BMI Ranking 2019, Netherlands Tops; Published in The Lancet

• A review of BMI (Body Mass Index) of various countries' teenagers has been recently published in the international medical journal "The Lancet", according to which India is placed at 196th rank with respect to BMI in boys & ranks 198th in girls. India's 19-year-old boys and girls have a BMI of 20.1 means they are also among the shortest in the world.

• India's boys ranked 180 with an average height of 5.46 feet while girls ranked 182 with an average height of 5.06 feet.

• This review covered school-aged children and adolescents for ages 5-19 years from 1985 to 2019 in 200 countries and territories: a pooled analysis of 2181 population-based studies with 65 million participants

Based on Height:

• Top 3 Countries with Tallest Boys & Girls:
• The Netherlands
• Montenegro
• Estonia

Country with Tallest Girls

• The Netherlands
• Montenegro
• Denmark

Top 3 Countries with Shortest Boys & Girls:

• Rank--Country with Shortest Boys
• timor leste
• laos

Country with shortest girls

• Guatemala
• Bangladesh
• As per World Health Organization (WHO) a typical BMI ranges from 18.5 to 24.9
• In 2019 there is a difference of 20 cm or higher in mean height of 19-year-old adolescents between countries with the tallest populations & those with the shortest populations

13th Urban Mobility India Conference 2020 held Virtually for 1st Time

• 13th Urban Mobility India (UMI) Conference 2020 was held virtually on the theme "Emerging Trends in Urban Mobility" from New Delhi which was inaugurated by Minister of State-Mos (Independent Charge-IC) Hardeep Singh Puri, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MOHUA). This was the first virtual UMI conference amid COVID 19 and was also held for a day as against the usual format of three days without any exhibition.

• The 14th Urban Mobility India (UMI) Conference and Expo 2021 will be held on October 29-31, 2021 in Kochi, Kerala.

• During the Conference, Awards for innovations in Urban Transport during Covid-19 were also announced.

Award of Commendable Initiative

• Bihar, Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority (Haryana), Surat Municipal Corporation (Gujarat), Rajkot Municipal Corporation (Gujarat) and Emakilam Jolla Autorickshaw Drivers Cooperative Society (Kochi, Kerala).

Award of Excellence

• Capital Region Urban Transport (CRUT), Bhubaneswar (Odisha) and Agartala Smart City Limited (ASCL), Tripura

20th Summit of SCO Council of Heads of State 2020

• The virtual 20th Summit of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Council of Heads of State (CHS) 2020 was chaired by President of Russia Vladimir Putin where Indian Delegation was led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

• President Emomali Rahmon of Tajikistan will assume the chairmanship of SCO in 2021.

• Indian side extended its full support to observe the 20th anniversary of SCO in 2021 as the "SCO Year of Culture".

• India will also hold the first SCO exhibition on Shared Buddhist Heritage to be organized by the National Museum of India (New Delhi).

About Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO);

• The SCO comprises eight member states - India, Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan andUzbekistan: four Observer States (Afghanistan, Belarus, Iran, and Mongolia); and six "Dialogue Partners" (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Turkey)

• Secretariat-Beijing, China

• Secretary-General- Vladimir Imamovich Norov

Edelgive Hurun India Philanthropy List 2020

• The Hurun India and EdelGive Foundation released the 7th edition of the EdelGive Hurun India Philanthropy List 2020.

• The EdelGive Foundation has partnered with Hurun India to create this report, with the objective of understanding philanthropic giving in the country from a data and evidence point of view.

Women in the 2020 list:

• 7 women have secured their position in the EdelGive Hurun India Philanthropy List 2020.

• With a donation of Rs 47 crores, Rohini Nilekani wife of Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani became India's most generous woman followed by Anu Aga & family of Thermax who donated Rs 36 crore and Kiran Mazumdar Shaw of Biocon who donated Rs 34 crores

Youngest Philanthropist:

• With a donation of Rs 5.3 crores, Binny Bansal (37 years old), co-founder and Former CEO of Flipkart became the youngest philanthropist to enter the Edelgive Hurun India Philanthropy List.

• He is the only person under the age of 40 on the list.

Key Points:

• With cumulative donation of Rs 9324 cores donation from 90 philanthropists, Education is the most favoured cause

About Edelgive Foundation:

• Chairperson & CEO- Vidya Shah

• Headquarters- Mumbai, Maharashtra

About Hurun India:

• MD and Chief Researcher-Anas Rahman Junaid
• Headquarters, Mumbai, Maharashtra

SEBI Setup a 7 Member Expert Group to Review the Share Based Employee Benefits

• Securities and Exchange Board of India(SEBI), set up a 7-member expert group chaired by Sandip Bhagat, partner at S&R Associates to review the frameworks of the share based employee benefits & issue of sweat equity and recommend policy changes.

• Usually, the sweat equity shares are issued by a company to its employees at a discount or for other considerations other than cash.

Members of the expert group:

• Santosh Haldankar, company secretary of HDFC Bank; Vikram Shroff of Nishith Desai Associates Narayan Shankar, company secretary of Mahindra & Mahindra
• Pavan Vijay, founder of Corporate Professionals
• M Sanaulla Khan, company secretary of Wipro, Jeevan Sonparote Chief General Manager of SEBi

About Securities and Exchange Board of India(SEBI):

• Chairman- Ajay Tyagi
• Headquarters - Mumbai, Maharashtra

HDFC Bank in Partnership with Visa Launches 'SmartHub Merchant Solutions 3.0

• HDFC Bank in Partnership with Visa launched "SmartHub Merchant Solutions 3.0', India's first comprehensive banking and payment solution for merchants. This first-of-its-kind solution offers the ideal platform for merchants and self-employed professionals to open a current account instantly and to accept payments in-store and online

• In 9 languages, the users can customise interface. The product catalogue can be shared with customers through SMS, email or Whatsapp

About HDFC Bank:

• Headquarters - Mumbai, Maharashtra

• MD & CEO - Sashidhar Jagdishan Tagline- We understand your world

About Visa:

• Headquarters- California, United States Chairman and CEO- Alfred F. Kelly. Jr.

Paytm Launches 'Payout Links' for Businesses to Instantly Transfer Money

• Paytm launched 'Payout Links', a new initiative under Paytm Payout, for businesses. This enables businesses to instantly make payments to the customers, employees & vendors, without the need to collect their bank details.

• Payout Links offers a seamless payment integration for businesses to instantly send incentives and refunds to customers.

• It removes the need to store many bank details.

About Paytm:

• Headquarters- Noida, Uttar Pradesh
• Founder & CEO- Vijay Shekhar Sharma

Tata AIA Life Insurance Partners with PayBima

• Tata AIA Life Insurance Company Limited entered into partnership with PayBima(PayBima.com)

• the digital arm of Mahindra Insurance Brokers Ltd.,(MIBL) as a Broker to distribute its life insurance solutions.

About Tata AIA Life Insurance Company Limited

• Headquarters, Mumbai, Maharashtra
• CEO- Naveen Tahilyani

About Mahindra Insurance Brokers Ltd.(MIBL):

• MD-Dr. Jaideep Devare Chairman- Rajeev Dubey

• Head office- Mumbai, Maharashtra

Abu Dhabi's SWF becomes first Notified Fund to get 100% IT exemption in India

• MIC Redwood 1 RSC Limited The Abu Dhabi's Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF) has become the first foreign SWF that has been notified and granted 100% income-tax exemption on income from interest, dividend and long-term capital gains for its investment in India's priority sector as per the Finance Act 2020.

• Govt Sets up 21 member Inter-Ministerial Committee

• Government of India has set up a 21 member Inter-Ministerial Committee to strengthen the Capital Goods(CG) sector. The committee is headed by Shri Arun Goel, Secretary of Department of Heavy Industries(DHI), Ministry of Heavy Industries & Public Enterprises

• To strengthen India's capital goods sector which turns to achieve the target of a USD 5 trillion economy and a USD 1 trillion manufacturing sector.

Union Minister for Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises - Prakash Javadekar

• Indian Astronomers Collaborate with Andrea Ghez on Thirty Meter Telescope Project

• Indian Astronomers with 2020 Physics Nobel Laureate Professor Andrea Ghez for designing the back-end instruments of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) project which is being installed at Maunakea in Hawaii.

TMT Project:

• The 2 Billion worth TMT project is a joint venture involving Five Countries (China, Canada, Japan, India and United States)

• India has committed $200 Million, which is about tenth of proposed cost. The telescope needs 492 precisely polished mirrors and India has contributed 83 of them.

TMT Telescope:

• The Telescope is designed for UltraViolet to mid infrared observations.

• It has 30 metres prime mirror diameter and is three times as wide as the largest existing visible light telescope in the world so it is touted to be one of the largest Telescopes of the world.

World's First 6G Satellite Sent Into Orbit by China

• China has successfully launched the world's first 6G satellite named "UESTC" satellite (Star Era 12)" into orbit with an aim to test communications from space using high-frequency terahertz (THz) spectrum. It was one of the 13 satellites aboard the Long March-6 rocket, which launched on November 6, 2020 at the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Centre in Shanxi province of China.

• The UESTC is named after the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China and will test the performance of the 6G frequency band in space which is expected to be over 100 times faster than 5G which is already expected to be ultra-fast

Veteran Author & Gujarati Columnist Father Carlos Gonzalez Valles SJ Passed Away at 95

• Spaniard Father Carlos Gonzalez Valles SJ, a veteran Author and columnist, who was popularly known as Father Valles passed away at the age of 95 in Madrid, Spain.

About Father Carlos Gonzalez Valles SJ:

• Father Valles, Jesuit priest, and a mathematician came to India in 1949 and settled in Gujarati.He was a mathematics lecturer.

• India honoured him with Indian citizenship.

• He wrote a weekly column in the Gujarat Samachar's Sunday supplement.

Bahrain's Prince Khalifa bin Salman al Khalifa, World's Long-Serving Prime Minister Passed Away at 84

• Prince Khalifa bin Salman al Khalifa, Prime Minister(PM) of Bahrain passed away at the age of 84 at Mayo Clinic hospital, United States. He is the World's Longest Serving PM. He has been serving as PM since 1971.

• He has played a vital role in the political and economic affairs of Bahrain for over 3 decades.

About Bahrain officially the Kingdom of Bahrain):

• Capital- Manama
• Currency- Bahraini dinar