• Tata Trusts is set to launch India’s first state-of-the-art Small Animal Hospital in Mahalaxmi, Mumbai.
• The hospital is a first-of-its-kind and spans over 98,000-square-foot, across 5 floors with a capacity of over 200 beds.
• Inspired by philanthropist and former Tata Group Chairman Ratan Tata’s vision for a super speciality hospital for pets, the facility will provide round the clock services through pet-sensitised veterinarians, nurses and technicians trained to deliver quality care with a mission to save lives.
• The hospital will be launched in March 2024.
• The hospital will have facilities like: Emergency & Critical Care – 24×7 triage and treatment services; Inpatient and ICU units (including isolation units); Surgical Services (Soft Tissue Surgery, Orthopedics etc.); Pharmacy Services; Support Functions such as Diagnostics – Radiology & Imaging (MRI, X-Ray, CT Scan & USG), Laboratory – Hematology, Microbiology, Cytology, Clinical Pathology, Biochemistry, Histo-pathology and Anesthesia.

• The World Defence Show 2024 was organised in Riyadh, attracting significant participation from over 773 exhibitors across 75 countries.
• Government entities and leading local and international defence and security companies actively joined the event, highlighting the growing importance of the sector in the region.
• This five-day World Defence Show was organized in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia from 4 to 8 February 2024.

INDIA’S PRESENCE:

• Minister of State for Defence Ajay Bhatt is on a visit to Riyadh as the head of the Indian delegation for the World Defence Show (WDS) 2024.
• The World Defence Show (WDS) 2024, witnessed Tri-Service women representation, a testament to Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi-led Government’s vision of leveraging Nari Shakti across domains. Squadron Leader Bhawana Kanth, Colonel Ponung Doming and Lieutenant Commander Annu Prakash represented the Armed Forces in the various seminars of the WDS 2024 especially in the International Women in Defence themed events.
• India’s ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ and Saudi Arabia’s ‘Vision 2030’ are national programmes that can be mutually beneficial for both sides.

Both these initiatives give priority to technological progress, indigenous capabilities and knowledge sharing

• Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government of India launched “Science for Women-A Technology & Innovation (SWATI)” Portal, aimed at creating a single online portal representing Indian Women and Girls in STEMM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics & Medicine)
• The database of SWATI Portal will serve in policy making to address the challenges of Gender-gap.
• The Portal is a complete interactive database; and the first-of-its-kind in India which is developed, hosted and maintained by the National Institute of Plant Genome Research (NIPGR), New Delhi.
• The other objectives of the SWATI Portal include to scale up the effort exponentially to include each and every Indian woman in science, across all career stages and subjects, spanning both Academia and the Industry enabling reliable and statistically significant long term research on the issues of equality, diversity and inclusivity in India; Enabling reliable and statistically significant long term research on the issues of equality, diversity and inclusivity in India, developing active search engine and searchable database (Name, Affiliation, Area of Interest).

• The 1st BIMSTEC Aquatics Championships was held at Delhi’s Syama Prasad Mookerjee Swimming Pool Complex from 6th February to 9th February 2024 with competitions being held for Under 20 age category in Swimming, Water Polo and Diving events.
• The organization for the very first time in history is hosting a sports competition which is being hosted in India.
• The announcement for the same was made by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi during the 4th BIMSTEC Summit in 2018, where he announced the organising of the BIMSTEC Youth Water Sports competition in India.
• The event was initially proposed for the year 2021, however, it was later postponed to 2024 due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic across the world.
• India finished atop the BIMSTEC Aquatics Championships 2024 medal tally with 54 medals at the end of the tournament.
• India added 18 medals to their tally on the final day and finished their campaign with 19 gold, 27 silver, and eight bronze medals.
• The hosts won 11 gold, 16 silver, and a bronze medal from the men’s events, while clinching eight gold, 11 silver, and seven bronze medals from the women’s
• Thailand finished second in the medal tally with 40 medals, including 16 gold, nine silver, and 15 bronze medals.
• Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Myanmar are the three other nations who competed in the BIMSTEC Aquatics Championships 2024. However, they failed to register a single medal in the tournament and will return home empty-handed.

BIMSTEC AQUATICS CHAMPIONSHIPS 2024: BEST PERFORMERS

• Best Team – India
• Best Swimmer (Men) – Harsh Saroha (India)
• Best Swimmer (Women) – Mario Andelelko (Thailand)
• Best Swimming Team (Men) – India
• Best Swimming Team (Women) – India
• Best Diving Team (Men) – India
• Best Diving Team (Women) – India
• Best Water Polo Team (Men) – Thailand
• Best Water Polo Team (Women) – Thailand

• A two-day national exhibition and programme of environment friendly activities on the LiFE (Lifestyle for Environment) themes was organized on 9th and 10th February at India Gate, Delhi.
• Over 2,500 school and college students from over 60 institutions participated at the event, and brought their energy and creativity to the LiFE actions; more than 3,000 people overall visited the exhibitions over the two days.

ABOUT LIFE MISSION:

• Mission LiFE, or Lifestyle for Environment, is an India-led global mass movement to nudge individual and community action to protect and preserve the environment.
• It was launched by the Indian Prime Minister at the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow in November 2021.
• The program hopes to “mobilize one billion Indians as well as people in other countries to become individuals who practice sustainable lifestyles.
• The global movement will showcase sustainable goals and climate actions taken by countries and individuals around the world.
• It makes the fight against climate change democratic, in which everyone can contribute with their respective capacities.
• It emboldens the spirit of the P3 model, i.e. Pro Planet People.
• It functions on the basic principles of ‘Lifestyle of the planet, for the planet and by the planet’.
• It aims at following a three-pronged strategy for changing people’s collective approach towards sustainability.
• This includes nudging individuals to practice simple yet effective environment-friendly actions in their daily lives (demand), enabling industries and markets to respond swiftly to the changing demand (supply), and to influence government and industrial policy to support both sustainable consumption and production (policy).

• The Centre has said subsidies under the second phase of FAME Scheme will be eligible for e-vehicles sold till March 31, 2024, or till the time funds are made available. The Ministry of Heavy Industries has announced that the outlay of the Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Electric Vehicles in India (FAME-II) programme has been enhanced from Rs 10,000 crore to Rs 11,500 crore in a bid to push clean mobility in the country.

ABOUT THE FAME SCHEME

• The National Electric Mobility Mission Plan (NEMMP) 2020 is a National Mission document providing the vision and the roadmap for the faster adoption of electric vehicles and their manufacturing in the country.
• As part of the NEMMP 2020, the Department of Heavy Industry (under the Ministry of Heavy Industries & Public Enterprises) formulated a Scheme viz. Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of (Hybrid &) Electric Vehicles in India (FAME India) Scheme in 2015.
• The objective of the FAME India scheme is to promote manufacturing of electric and hybrid vehicle technology and to ensure sustainable growth of the same.
• The scheme encourages adoption of Electric and hybrid vehicles by offering upfront incentives on purchase of Electric vehicles and establishing a necessary charging Infrastructure for electric vehicles.
• The scheme aims at addressing the issue of environmental pollution and fuel security.

PHASE-I

• The Phase-I of this Scheme was initially launched for a period of 2 years, commencing from 1st April 2015, which was subsequently extended up to 31st March 2019.
• The 1st Phase of FAME India Scheme was implemented through four focus areas namely (i) Demand Creation, (ii) Technology Platform, (iii) Pilot Project and (iv) Charging Infrastructure.

PHASE-II

• Phase-II of FAME India Scheme is being implemented for a period of 3 years from 2019.
• This phase focuses on supporting electrification of public & shared transportation.
• In addition, the creation of charging infrastructure is also supported for electric vehicles.

• The Government of India and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) signed a $200 million loan to strengthen flood and riverbank erosion risk management along the 650 kilometres (km) long main stem of the Brahmaputra river in the state of
• The project builds on the success and lessons from the ADB-financed Assam Integrated Flood and Riverbank Erosion Risk Management Investment Programme implemented during 2010–2020, and similar investments in Bangladesh and will continue to tackle recurrent flooding and continual riverbank erosion of the Brahmaputra river.

ABOUT ASIAN DEVELOPMENT BANK

• The Asian Development Bank (ADB) was founded in 1966 with the primary mission of fostering growth and cooperation among countries in the Asia-Pacific Region.
• It is headquartered in Manila, Philippines.
• At present, ADB comprises 68 members (including India) – of which 49 are from within Asia and the Pacific and 19 outside.
• The ADB was modeled closely on the World Bank, and has a similar weighted voting system where votes are distributed in proportion with members’ capital subscriptions.
• ADB’s five largest shareholders are Japan and the United States (each with 15.6% of total shares), the People’s Republic of China (6.4%), India (6.3%), and Australia (5.8%).
• ADB assists its members, and partners, by providing loans, technical assistance, grants, and equity investments to promote social and economic development.
• ADB is an official United Nations Observer.

• The Uttarakhand government has constituted a nine-member committee to prepare the draft rules for the Uniform Civil Code (UCC).
• The committee will be headed by retired IAS officer Shatrughan Singh. Mr. Singh was also in the five-member committee formed by the State government in May 2022, to prepare a draft for the UCC.
• Additional Secretary (Justice) Uttarakhand Sudhir Singh, Inspector General of Police Training Barinderjit Singh, Doon University Vice-Chancellor Surekha Dangwal and social worker Manu Gaur are among the members of the committee set up to prepare UCC rules. Ms. Dangwal and Mr. Gaur too were part of the UCC draft committee.

• Yemen’s internationally recognised government has named Foreign Minister Ahmed Awad bin Mubarak as the new prime minister.
• Bin Mubarak replaces Maeen Abdulmalik Saeed at a time of rising tensions in the Arabian Peninsula’s poorest country after a spate of Red Sea attacks by Houthi rebels on ships that have prompted retaliatory strikes by the United States and the UK.

• Sikkim Chief Minister Prem Singh Tamang has announced the restoration of the Old Pension System (OPS) for state government employees appointed on or after April 1, 2006.
• Sikkim now stands as the first state in the Northeast to implement
• As per Sikkim services pension rules, 1990, employees appointed on or before March 31, 1990 will get benefit of this revival.