• The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) has partnered with Reserve Bank’s arm RBIH to put in place a system which will enable faster processing of agricultural loans.
• NABARD will integrate its e-KCC loan origination system portal with the Public Tech Platform for Frictionless Credit (PTPFC) of Reserve Bank Innovation Hub (RBIH), a wholly-owned subsidiary of the RBI.
• NABARD has developed the loan origination system portal to facilitate digital Kisan Credit Card (KCC) loan processing for cooperative banks and Regional Rural Banks (RRBs).
• The digitisation of agricultural lending will ensure instant doorstep delivery of credit to farmers while improving the efficiency of banks, advancing NABARD’s mission of fostering rural prosperity.
• The partnership agreement was signed by the NABARD chairman and Rajesh Bansal, CEO, RBIH.
• Through the integration with PTPFC, about 351 district and state cooperative banks and 43 RRBs will gain access to a range of services including digital state land records, satellite data, KYC, credit history and transliteration for more effective credit underwriting.
• The collaboration will streamline the lending process and reduce the turnaround time for loans from three to four weeks to just five minutes for India’s 120 million farmers.
• The pilot phase of the partnership will see implementation in select RRBs including the Karnataka Gramin Bank and Maharashtra Gramin Bank and cooperative banks in Andhra Pradesh, the goal is to scale the digital lending platform to cover about 5 crore KCC loans across all cooperative banks and RRBs nationwide.

• The International Cricket Council (ICC) has announced India’s famous former cricketer Yuvraj Singh as the ambassador for the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2024 with 36 days to go for the commencement of the grand event.
• Yuvraj Singh hit six sixes in an over during India’s successful Men’s T20 World Cup 2007 campaign.
• The Men’s T20 World Cup 2024 to be jointly hosted by the West Indies and the United States of America.
• Yuvraj Singh joins the list of West Indies icon Chris Gayle and eight-time Olympic Gold Medallist Usain Bolt.

• World Veterinary Day 2024 is celebrated on April 27th, recognizing veterinarians’ pivotal role in maintaining animal and human health.
• World Veterinary Day is celebrated every year on the last Saturday of April.
• Through disease control, public health initiatives, and animal welfare efforts, veterinarians uphold the well-being of diverse ecosystems.
• The theme for 2024 is “Veterinarians are Essential Health Workers”.

• A retired IAS officer of the Himachal Pradesh cadre, Ashok Ranjan Basu, has been elevated to the post of chairman of Research Committee No. 48 on Administrative Culture of International Political Science Association (IPSA), Montreal, Canada.
• He will remain on the post till 2028.
• The committee, which does research work in administrative systems, has members from all over the world.
• Basu had been a member of the Member of the Central Administrative Tribunal. After retirement, he took to writing and has published books on different aspects of administration and law.
• His book ‘Transparency, Accountability, Open Government and e-governance’, published in English, has recently been translated to six European languages — German, French, Russian, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese.
• He is a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland (FRAS), London.
• He has also been the Director of Himachal Pradesh Institute of Public Administration, Fair Lawns, Shimla.

• The Uganda Cricket Association has named Indian former first-class cricketer Abhay Sharma as the new head coach of the men’s national team in the run-up to the Twenty20 World Cup.
• Abhay Sharma has previous coaching stints with India A and India Under-19s, as well as the Indian women’s cricket team and the Delhi Ranji Trophy team.
• The Cricket Cranes have booked their place in the competition for the first time and will be among 20 teams at the tournament being jointly hosted by the United States and the West Indies from June 1.

• The Supreme Court has rejected all petitions seeking 100 per cent verification of votes polled on Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) with their Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips. It, however, provided options for election candidates to seek EVM verification in case they suspect any anomaly.
• The Supreme Court’s two-judge bench, including Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta, have made a decision in the ‘EVM case’ of Association for Democratic Reforms vs Election Commission of India and Another.

KEY HIGHLIGHTS:

• The ADR, a non-governmental organization, had requested that the voting system by EVM should either be removed altogether or significantly changed.
• The petitioners argued that if EVMs were to continue, the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slip should be handed to the voter so that they could physically cast it into the ballot box, or all VVPAT slips in the country should be counted alongside the electronic tally.
• Presently, only the electronic counts from five randomly selected EVMs in each assembly segment are verified against the tally given by VVPAT slips.
• Additionally, the petitioners challenged the rule that only allows the voter to call for physical verification if they feel that there is a discrepancy between their vote as cast and the VVPAT slip. They argued that any elector, not just such a voter, should be able to call for a recount.

ASSOCIATION FOR DEMOCRATIC REFORMS (ADR):

• The Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) was founded in 1999 by a group of professors from the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Ahmedabad.
• Since 2003, ADR and the National Election Watch have conducted Election Watches for the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha Elections, as well as most State Assembly Elections in the country.

• Defense Secretary Giridhar Armane attended the meeting of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Defence Ministers in Astana, Kazakhstan.
• A protocol was signed by the defence ministers of all SCO member states.
• A Joint Communique was issued after the meeting, in which the SCO Defence Ministers agreed, amongst other initiatives, to developing the idea of ‘One Earth, One Family, One Future’, which is rooted in the ancient Indian philosophy of ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’.

ABOUT SHANGHAI COOPERATION ORGANIZATION (SCO):

• Shanghai Cooperation Organization is a permanent intergovernmental international organisation.
• Its creation was announced on 15 June 2001 in Shanghai (China) by the Republic of Kazakhstan, the People’s Republic of China, the Kyrgyz Republic, the Russian Federation, the Republic of Tajikistan, and the Republic of Uzbekistan.
• It was preceded by the Shanghai Five mechanism.
• The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Charter was signed during the St. Petersburg SCO Heads of State meeting in June 2002, and entered into force on 19 September 2003.
• The Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s official languages are Russian and Chinese.
• Members countries of SCO
  • China
  • India
  • Kazakhstan
  • Kyrgyzstan
  • Russia
  • Pakistan
  • Tajikistan
  • Uzbekistan
  • Iran

• The 2024 Laureus Sports Awards ceremony held in Madrid. The event was a grand celebration of the world’s best athletes and their achievements.
• List of winners:
  • World Sportswoman of the Year: Aitana Bonmati
  • World Sportsman of the Year: Novak Djokovic
  • World Team of the Year: Spain Women’s Football Team
  • World Breakthrough of the Year: Jude Bellingham
  • World Comeback of the Year: Simone Biles
  • World Sportsperson of the Year with a Disability: Diede de Groot
  • World Action Sportsperson of the Year: Arisa Trew
  • Laureus Sport for Good: Rafael Nadal Foundation

ABOUT THE AWARDS:

• The Laureus World Sports Awards is an annual event that started in 2000. It celebrates great and inspiring sporting achievements and also showcases Laureus Sport for Good’s initiatives.
• Shortlists for seven categories, which include Sportswoman, Sportsman, Team, Breakthrough, Comeback, Action and Sport for Good, are created by votes from over 1,000 sports media from more than 70 countries.
• The Indian cricketer Sachin Tendulkar won the Laureus Sporting Moment Award (2000-2020).

• Satluj Jal Vidyut Nigam Limited (SJVN) has inaugurated India’s first Multi-purpose Green Hydrogen Pilot Project at the 1500 MW Nathpa Jhakri Hydro Power Station (NJHPS) in Jhakri, Himachal Pradesh.
• The facility is designed to produce 14 kilograms of green hydrogen daily during its 8-hour operational window. It utilizes an alkaline electrolyzer of 20 Nm3/hour capacity, powered by renewable energy sourced from SJVN’s 1.31 MW Solar Power Plant in Wadhal, Shimla.
• The hydrogen produced is stored at a pressure of 30 bars in six storage tanks, with a total capacity of 12 m3, and will be used to generate electricity through a 25-kW capacity fuel cell and for High Velocity Oxygen Fuel (HVOF) Coating of turbine underwater parts at NJHPS.
• Beyond electricity generation, the green hydrogen will cater to the High-Velocity Oxygen Fuel Coating requirements of turbine underwater parts, augmenting operational efficiency and sustainability.

• In order to streamline and enhance air traffic management (ATM), India has initiated the process of consolidating its four airspace regions into a single entity spanning the entire nation -Indian Single Sky Harmonized Air Traffic Management (ISHAN) initiative, centered in Nagpur.
• The Airports Authority of India (AAI) has called for expressions of interest to prepare a detailed project report for it.
• Indian airspace is controlled through four flight information regions (FIRs) at Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, and Chennai, and a sub-flight information region at Guwahati.
• Expected benefits of ISHAN – seamless operations, reduced congestion, increased capacity, efficient routing, and reduced flight times.
• Once ISHAN is implemented, all coordination for domestic flights flying in upper airspace (above 25,000 ft) will be handled by air traffic controllers (ATCOs) in Nagpur. The ATCOs in every region or airport would only be required to guide the flights approaching or taking off from an airport until they enter the upper space.