• Indian Ocean Region plus (IOR) Defence Ministers’ Conclave was hosted by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh at the sidelines of DefExpo 2022 in Gandhinagar.
• The conclave was attended by representatives of 40 countries. The conclave aims to promote strategic and commercial partnerships within the IOR countries, in line with Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi’s vision of Security and Growth for All in the Region (SAGAR).
• The theme of the conclave was ‘Challenges Opportunities and Collaborations in the Indian Ocean.
• Delivering the keynote address, Mr. Rajnath Singh described the Prime Minister’s vision of SAGAR as the theme of New Delhi’s Indian Ocean Policy. Giving the example of adverse impact on the energy and food security for the most vulnerable countries due to the recent Ukrainian conflict, Mr. Singh called for collective efforts towards addressing the present and emerging threats to security & stability in the IOR.
• Singh urged the IOR countries to leverage the R&D ecosystem created by the Government in India for the mutual benefit for all. He said, with the right policies and framework, India is poised to be a global R&D hub. He also held bilateral meetings with delegation leaders from Bangladesh, Angola, South Africa, Democratic Republic of Congo and Paraguay.
• Also, the second edition of India-Africa Defence Dialogue (IADD) was held on the sidelines of DefExpo 2022. The dialogue saw the participation of representatives from 50 African countries. Gandhinagar declaration was adopted as an outcome of IADD.
• The India-Africa Security fellowship programme was also launched to provide an opportunity to African scholars to pursue research on defence and security issues in India.

• Fiji is set to host the World Hindi conference next year with over 1,000 delegates attending the event, Indian High Commissioner to Fiji, Palaniswamy Karthigeyan, confirmed.
• The three-day conference, which would be held in the Fijian city of Nadi and envisaged to promote Hindi globally, would see the participation of over 1,000 experts of the Indian language, including scholars, writers and laureates.
• Hindi is one of the three languages spoken in the South-Pacific nation, the other two being Fijian and English.
• Fiji Hindi is also known as ‘Fijian Baat’ or ‘Fijian Hindustani’.
• According to the United Nations (2020), Fiji has a population of more than 896,000 and out of which over 30 per cent is of Indian-origin. Many Indians arrived in Fiji as indentured labour in the 19th century.

• Himalaya Literary Culture and Environment Forum, Shimla, today announced to give “Vilakshan Pratibha Lekhak Award” for the year 2020 to specially abled Kavya Varsha of Kangra.
• Despite being uneducated, Kavya learned Hindi and Punjabi languages, besides Pahari dialect on mobile and is constantly writing poems, songs, stories and memoirs.
• Her first collection of 117 poems, ‘Neel Gagan ko Chhune do’ was published in the year 2021.
• Eminent writer SR Harnot said that the six short films based on the script written by Kavya Varsha, including Pillow, Good Bye Papa, Samaj and Pocket Money, had been produced and a song ‘O Jaane Jaan’ had also been shot.
• Born on February 8, 1990, Kavya is handicapped since childhood and is completely unable to walk and get up.

• Finally, the directions of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) in February 2014, to construct an eco-friendly market in Marhi to facilitate the visitors and conserve the fragile ecology of the Rohtang region have been complied with after over eight years and the eco-friendly market has recently started catering to the tourists visiting Rohtang Pass near Manali. Though finishing touches are being provided the market and other basic amenities have started functioning.
• The project had been accomplished at a cost of Rs 7.23 crores.
• Marhi is a famous tourist spot between Manali and Rohtang and it is thrown open for the tourists as a snow point in the month of April till the road to Rohtang Pass is restored later by the end of May. The market has 16 stalls and almost all kinds of items needed by the tourists are available in this small market.
• The construction work of parking at Marhi has been completed. The sewage treatment plant has been made functional and electricity supply has also been provided for it. In the event of power supply disruption, the Manali Tourism Development Council (TDC) has sanctioned Rs 24 lakh to the Jal Shakti Department for generator sets for the operation of the plant. The Jal Shakti Department has been asked to keep the plant running at all times.
• It is the responsibility of the TDC to create facilities to give shape to the directions of the NGT. No construction or activities can be undertaken without the permission of the NGT in the region. The TDC authorities said that the remaining works of the eco-friendly market will be completed soon.
• The residents alleged that while the government had failed or delayed to initiate development procedures as directed by the NGT, the administrative authorities had forcefully and hastily implemented those directions, which snatched the employment of a large number of people.
• They said that the order for barriers, permits and banning commercial activities were enforced almost instantly after the orders of the NGT but work on creating eco-friendly toilets, eco-friendly market and other such efforts to conserve the fragile ecology of Rohtang were lingered.

• Youth from 70 countries will participate in a  Global Youth Climate Summit to be inaugurated in Khulna, Bangladesh. The three day summit between October 20-22 will bring together 650 youth in a hybrid format with 150 youth participating in person and 500 online. The youth will explore how they can lead the fight against climate change.
• Elaborating the purpose of the summit, Ejaj Ahmad, the CEO of the Global Youth Leadership Centre (GYLC) which is organising the programme, said that the  GYLC is being launched as a global organisation to mobilise youth especially from the Global South to tackle the climate crisis. The mission of GYLC is to expand youth’s knowledge about climate science, equip them with leadership skills to take individual and collective action, and enable them to launch businesses that contribute to climate mitigation or adaptation.
• Ejaj Ahmad said that Khulna has been chosen as the inaugural venue of the GYLC as it is one of Bangladesh’s most climate vulnerable regions. The youth taking part in the summit will undertake mangrove plantation in the Coastal belt to promote locally led climate adaptation and highlight the importance of mangroves, which are critical for human beings as well as for biodiversity. He said that to empower youth to take climate action, 10 delegates at the Summit will receive a grant of USD 1,000 each to implement their climate mitigation or adaptation project.
• The Global Youth Climate Summit will bring together renowned climate scientists, policymakers, entrepreneurs, leadership experts, and youth climate activists.

• Sri Lankan author Shehan Karunatilaka won the 2022 Booker Prize for his second novel ‘The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida’. Booker Prize is one of the most prestigious literary awards in the world.
• 47-year-old Karunatilaka, becomes the second Sri Lankan to win the prestigious 50,000 pounds literary prize at a ceremony in London on Monday night, after Michael Ondaatje who won for ‘The English Patient’ in 1992.
• ‘The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida’ tells the story of the photographer of its title, who in 1990 wakes up dead in what seems like a celestial visa office.With no idea who killed him, Maali has seven moons to contact the people he loves most and leads them to a hidden cache of photos of civil war atrocities that will rock Sri Lanka.
• Chair of the 2022 Booker judges Neil MacGregor said, the judges particularly admired and enjoyed in ‘The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida’ the ambition of its scope, and the hilarious audacity of its narrative techniques.
• The novel has been described by judges as a whodunnit and a race against time, full of ghosts, gags, and deep humanity.
• Shehan Karunatilaka, who was born in Galle in 1975 and grew up in Colombo, says that Sri Lankans specialise in “gallows humour” and make jokes in the face of crises as a coping mechanism. His debut novel from 2011, ‘Chinaman’, had won the Commonwealth Prize.
• The Booker Prize is awarded annually to a book published in English in the United Kingdom and Ireland.

• The Hyderabad-based Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) has become part of the world’s largest and most diverse genomic study covering 54 lakh individuals. It identified 12 thousand 222 places in the human genome that are associated with human height.
• The study by name ‘A saturated map of common genetic variants associated with human height’ was published in Nature science journal recently. Researchers from across the world, including chief scientist Dr G R Chandak from CCMB, came together to form a consortium to study genetic links to human height.
• They analysed existing genetic data of over 53 individuals drawn from various parts of the world. In the course of the genomic study, the researchers identified over 1,200 spots in the human genome that literally dictate the height of humans.
• An official release stated that the study paves the way for similar investigations on the impact of genes on other human traits and diseases.
• The findings from the path-breaking study have the potential to help researchers worldwide understand how the human body grows.
• They also enable researchers to understand the increased risk of several diseases such as irregular heartbeat, varicose veins, nerve damage in arms and legs, and bone infections among taller people.
• The findings also support earlier studies which predicted that 40-50 percent of height variation among people could be explained by common genetic variants.

• Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla to address the National Conference on Tourist Police Scheme in New Delhi.
• The agenda of the Conference is implementation of uniform Tourist Police Scheme at pan-India level for developing the tourist specific policing.
• It also aims to provide safer ecosystem to the foreign and domestic tourists in and around tourist destinations.
• The Ministry of Tourism in co-ordination with the Ministry of Home Affairs and Bureau of Police Research and Development is organizing the conference.
• The Ministry said, this will change the safety and security-related perception of India at global level and help in making India a must-visit destination around the globe.

 Tourist Police Scheme:

• Under the scheme, a pool of trained policemen would be made available to render policing service to the tourists and would control the crimes at the places of tourist interest.
• The rules of the district police of the concerned state shall be applicable to the Tourist Police, unless the contrary appears from the content or from rules in this scheme.
• Tourist Police Station will work under the jurisdiction of district police (Superintendent of Police) for all policing purpose.

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate ‘Indian Urban Housing Conclave-2022’, IUHC2022, a three-day event being organised by Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs from tomorrow at Rajkot, Gujarat.
• This Conclave will provide a platform to all stakeholders to demonstrate their technologies and they will deliberate upon various options of technologies, materials and processes for large scale adoption and mainstreaming in different type of housing construction suitable for different Geo-climatic regions of the country.
• It will help devise strategies, action plan and roadmap for achieving the vision of “Future Ready Urban India.”
• The Conclave will also help in widening the horizon and bringing technology transition in the construction sector for sustainable development.
• It will bring together all global and indigenous innovative technologies, materials and process, including those developed subsequently by various stakeholders across the world.

• Union Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Hardeep Singh Puri dedicated a Asia’s largest Compressed Biogas  Plant CBG  to the people of Punjab. The plant set up in 20 acres has been commissioned with a Foreign Direct Investment of 220 crore rupees by Verbio AG one of the Germany’s leading bioenergy company.
• Mr Puri said that this plant in Sangrur district is just the beginning of India’s master plan for a CBG based rural economy.
• Talking about the benefits of Sangrur CBG plant for rural economy he said that this plant will consume 100,000 tons of paddy straw which will be procured from 6 to 8 satellite locations within 10 kilometre radius of the plant.Mr Puri said, there will be daily production of about 600-650 tons of Fermented Organic Manure which can be used for organic farming.
• The plant shall also provide direct employment to 390 and indirect employment to 585 people.