- The government unveiled the new National Education Policy (NEP) that introduced several changes in Indian education system-from school to college level. The new policy comes after a period of three decades. The NEP will replace the existing National Policy on Education 1986, which was later modified in 1992. The NEP includes the extension of the Right to Education Act 2009 to cover children between the age group of 3 to 18 years. The new policy also seeks to reduce the content load in the school education curriculum.
- Defence Institute of Advanced Technology (DIAT), Pune has developed ‘Aashray’, the medical bed isolation system to combat Covid-19 by minimizing the spread of the disease.
- Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) in association with credit bureau TransUnion Cibil has launched a portal to help Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), seeking access to finance and also help borrowers manage their credit obligations while also supporting entrepreneurs towards managing their credit obligations.
- NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover mission is on its way to the Red Planet to search for signs of ancient life and collect samples to send back to Earth.
- The 6th BRICS Environment Ministers’ Meeting was held under the presidency of Russia. The Environment Ministers of the Federative Republic of Brazil, the Russian Federation, the Republic of India, the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of South Africa participated in the meeting held via the video conference. The meeting was preceded by the BRICS Working Group meeting. India will host the next meeting in 2021.
- Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard launched underground ballistic missiles as part of an exercise “Great Prophet 14” involving a fake aircraft carrier in the Strait of Hormuz, the latest barrage in a drill that saw two American bases temporarily go on alert over the launches.
- Fintech company MobiKwik launched mpay.me – a UPI payment link service to send and receive money from any UPI payment app. Through mpay.me users and merchants can set up a link using their mobile number to start receiving money.
- BOB Financial Solutions Limited (BFSL), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Bank of Baroda, has selected Fiserv, Inc., to enable the digitization of their end-to-end card issuance and processing cycle and support the unveiling of several new and high-tech products namely contactless credit cards, tokenisation and integration with branded wallets, and virtual credit cards.
- Indian Grandmaster P Harikrishna finished second in the rapid section of the 53rd Biel International Chess Festival in Switzerland. The World No. 26 scored 10 points, two less than Radoslaw Wojtaszek of Poland, who finished on top.
- SKOCH Gold Award has been awarded to the Ministry of Tribal Affairs (MoTA) for its “Empowerment of Tribals through IT enabled Scholarship Schemes” project. The project was launched to show Government of India’s commitment to realize the dreams of Digital India and bringing transparency as well as ease in the delivery of services.