📝 Employment-Linked Incentive (ELI) scheme[1]
✅ Recently approved by the Union Cabinet with an allocation of ₹99,446 crore ⇒ To support employment generation, enhance employability and social security across all sectors, with special focus on the manufacturing sector.
👉🏽 Aims to incentivise the creation of more than 3.5 crore jobs over two years ⇒ Benefits of the scheme will apply to jobs created between August 1, 2025 and July 31, 2027.
✅ Two parts of the scheme:
Part A: Incentive to First-Time Employees
👉🏽 Offers 1-month EPF wage up to Rs 15,000 in 2 instalments ⇒ Employees with salaries up to Rs 1 lakh are eligible.
👉🏽 1st instalment after 6 months of service; 2nd instalment after 12 months of service and completion of a financial literacy programme by the employee.
Part B: Support to Employers
👉🏽 Covers additional employment generation in all sectors (special focus on the manufacturing sector) ⇒ Employers will get incentives
👉🏽 Employers will get incentives (in respect of employees with salaries up to Rs 1 lakh) of up to Rs 3000 per month, for 2 years, for each additional employee with sustained employment for at least 6 months ⇒ Extended benefits for a further 2 years in the manufacturing sector.
💡ELI Scheme: Announced in the Union Budget 2024-25 as part of PM’s package of 5 schemes to facilitate employment, skilling and other opportunities for 4.1 Crore youth with a total budget outlay of Rs 2 Lakh Crore.
📝 Operation Conviction[2]
✅ Launched in 2023 by the Uttar Pradesh Police Department to combat criminals and mafias in the state.
👉🏽 Objective: Immediate arrest of criminals, the collection of strong evidence against them, quality investigation, and effective representation of cases in courts ⇒ To ensure they are punished ASAP.
✅ Led to the conviction of 97000+ criminals in last 2 years ⇒ 68 criminals were sentenced to death, 8000+ received life imprisonment.
📝 Yard 12652 (Udaygiri)[3]
✅ 100th indigenously manufactured stealth frigate ⇒ Delivered to the Indian Navy on 1 July ⇒ 2nd among the seven Project 17A stealth frigates, built at Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Limited (MDSL).
👉🏽 Not to be confused with the erstwhile INS Udaygiri, its predecessor, which was decommissioned in 2007.
💡Project 17A is a follow-on of the Shivalik class (Project 17) frigates active in service.
📝 INS Tamal (F71) [4]
✅ Commissioned by the Indian Navy on 1 July at the Yantar Shipyard in Kaliningrad, Russia ⇒ 51st ship produced under India-Russia collaboration over the past 65 years.
👉🏽 A multi-role stealth, guided missile frigate capable of engaging threats across all four dimensions of naval warfare — air, surface, sub-surface, and electronic ⇒ Equipped with dual-role BrahMos supersonic cruise missiles.
👉🏽 Last foreign-built major warship to be inducted into the Indian Navy (In line with Aatmanirbhar Bharat and Make in India initiatives).
👉🏽 8th in the series of Project 1135.6 (Talwar class) and the 2nd of the follow-on Tushil-class frigates.
📝 Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA)[5][6]
✅ A statutory body of the Ministry of Women & Child Development ⇒ Functions as the nodal body for adoption of Indian children and is mandated to monitor and regulate in-country and inter-country adoptions.
👉🏽 Central Authority to deal with inter-country adoptions according to the Hague Convention on Inter-country Adoption, 1993, ratified by India in 2003.
✅ Recently, CARA clarified that digitally certified adoption orders are legally valid under the Adoption Regulations, 2022.
📝 Sigachi Pharma Factory Explosion[7]
✅ In Sangareddy (Hyderabad Metropolitan Region), Telangana.
👉🏽 Sigachi Industries manufactures Microcrystalline Cellulose (MCC) from wood pulp, which is used in pharmaceutical, food, cosmetics and other industries ⇒ Manufacturing of MCC can cause accumulation of dust microns in a confined space, resulting in an explosion.
📝 India’s sports policy journey[8]
✅ 1951: India hosted the 1st Asian Games in New Delhi.
✅ 1954: India set up the All-India Council of Sports (AICS).
✅ 1982: The Department of Sports under the Ministry of Human Resource Development was created.
✅ 1984: India unveiled its 1st National Sports Policy (NSP) ⇒ Suggested integrating sports with education, which was formalised in the 1986 National Education Policy.
✅ 1984: Establishment of the Sports Authority of India (SAI).
✅ 2000: The Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports (MYAS) was created.
✅ 2001: A revised National Sports Policy was launched.
✅ 2011: The National Sports Development Code (NSDC) was introduced to address governance, anti-doping, age fraud, betting, gender issues, etc.
✅ Schemes: Target Olympic Podium Scheme or TOPS (2014) provided athletes with coaching, nutrition, and infrastructure support; Khelo India (2017) conducted youth talent identification across schools and universities; and the Fit India Movement (2019) promoted physical activity and fitness as a public health priority.
✅ The Union Cabinet approved the National Sports Policy (NSP) 2025 on 1 July.
💡 Sports is a ‘State’ subject in the Constitution.
📝 National Sports Policy 2025[9]
✅ Approved by the Union Cabinet on 1 July ⇒ Supersedes the existing National Sports Policy, 2001.
✅ 5 key pillars:
1. Excellence on the Global Stage
2. Sports for Economic Development
3. Sports for Social Development
4. Sports as a People’s Movement
5. Integration with Education (NEP 2020)
✅ Strategic Framework:
1. Governance
2. Private Sector Funding & Support
3. Technology & Innovation
4. National Monitoring Framework
5. Model Policy for States
6. Whole-of-Government Approach
📝 Research Development and Innovation (RDI) Scheme[10]
✅ A ₹1-lakh crore scheme approved by the Union Cabinet to scale up Research, Development and Innovation in Strategic and Sunrise Domains ⇒ Was announced in the Interim Budget 2024.
👉🏽 Aims to incentivise the private sector to invest in RDI.
✅ Governing Board of Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF), chaired by the PM, will provide overarching strategic direction ⇒ An Empowered Group of Secretaries (EGoS) led by the Cabinet Secretary, will be responsible for approving scheme changes, sectors and types of projects as well as reviewing the performance of the Scheme.
✅ Department of Science and Technology(DST): Nodal department for implementation.
✅ 2-tiered funding mechanism:
First Level: A Special Purpose Fund (SPF) within the ANRF ⇒ Custodian of funds.
Second Level: Shall be allocated from the SPF, mainly in the form of long-term concessional loans at low or nil interest rates ⇒ Financing in the form of equity may also be done.
📝 PM To Visit 6 Nations[11][12][13][14]
✅ PM Modi has left today for his visit to Ghana, Trinidad and Tobago, Argentina, Brazil, and Namibia. 🔍Google the capitals of these nations.
👉🏽 He will address the Parliament of Ghana and the Joint Session of the Namibian Parliament.
👉🏽 His visit to Argentina will be the 1st bilateral visit by an Indian PM in 57 years.
👉🏽 He will attend the 17th BRICS Summit (6-7 July) in Rio de Janeiro and travel to Brasilia for a bilateral State Visit, the 1st by an Indian PM in nearly six decades.
✅ These visits will reinforce India’s bonds across the Global South and deepen engagements in multilateral platforms such as BRICS, the African Union, ECOWAS and the CARICOM.
💡 Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS): Formed in 1975 ⇒ Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger officially withdrew from ECOWAS in January, 2025 ⇒ Current member states (12): Benin, Cabo Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Sénégal and Togo.
💡Caribbean Community (CARICOM): Formed in 1973 (Treaty of Chaguaramas)
Group of 21 countries (15 member states + 6 associate members) ⇒ Member states: Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Montserrat, Saint Lucia, St Kitts and Nevis, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago.
👉🏽 Except for Belize (Central America) and Guyana and Suriname (South America), all Members and Associate Members are island states.
📝 Miscellaneous[15][16][17][18][19][20][21]
✅ Exercise Shakti-2025: Joint military exercise between India and France ⇒ 8th edition was held from 18th June to 1st July at La Cavalerie in France.
✅ Paetongtarn Shinawatra: Thailand’s PM ⇒ Suspended by the Constitutional Court of Thailand pending an ethics investigation over a leaked phone call with a senior Cambodian leader.
✅ 10th Quad Foreign Ministers’ Meeting: The Secretary of State of the US and the Foreign Ministers of Australia, India, and Japan met in Washington, D.C., on July 1, 2025.
✅ Mahayogi Guru Gorakhnath AYUSH University: Inaugurated (1 July 2025) by President Droupadi Murmu in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh ⇒ UP’s 1st AYUSH University ⇒ Foundation stone was laid in 2021 by the then President Ram Nath Kovind.
✅ The Coast Guards of India, Japan, the US, and Australia have launched the first-ever ‘QUAD at Sea Ship Observer Mission’ under the Wilmington Declaration ⇒ To strengthen maritime security and interoperability in the Indo-Pacific and pave the way for a future ‘QUAD Coast Guard Handshake’ ⇒ Reflects the vision laid out at the QUAD Leaders’ Summit in September 2024.
✅ 4th International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4): Organised (30 June – 3 July 2025) by the United Nations in Seville, Spain ⇒ To assess the progress made in the implementation of the Monterrey Consensus, the Doha Declaration and the Addis Ababa Action Agenda ⇒ FM Nirmala Sitharaman will lead the Indian delegation.