📝 SMILE scheme[1][2]
🚀 SMILE – Support for Marginalised Individuals for Livelihood and Enterprise: Launched in 2022 by the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment ⇒ 2 sub-schemes: Central Sector Scheme for Comprehensive Rehabilitation for Welfare of Transgender Persons and Central Sector Scheme for Comprehensive Rehabilitation of persons engaged in the act of Begging.
👉🏽 Focuses on rehabilitation, medical care, counselling, education, and skill development.
📝 National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI)[3]
🚀 Founded in 2008 ⇒ A public sector company that operates retail payments and settlement systems in India ⇒ An initiative of the RBI and the Indian Banks’ Association (IBA) under the provisions of the Payment and Settlement Systems Act (PSSA), 2007.
🚀 Not-for-profit organisation registered under the Companies Act 2013 ⇒ Public sector banks hold the bulk of its shareholding.
💡PSSA, 2007 mandates that organisations involved in clearing transactions in bulk have to be majority-owned by public sector banks.
💡Unified Payments Interface (UPI): An Indian instant payment system introduced by the NPCI in 2016 ⇒ Facilitates inter-bank peer-to-peer (P2P) and person-to-merchant (P2M) transactions ⇒ Regulated by the RBI.
👉🏽 Every UPI transaction is routed through NPCI ⇒ Sometimes, NPCI cannot handle the large number of transactions, which causes significant disruptions in payments on UPI-enabled apps like GPay and PhonePe.
📝 Shimla Agreement[4]
🚀 Signed by Indira Gandhi and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (Pak) in Shimla on July 2, 1972, after the 1971 Bangladesh War, in which India defeated Pakistan.
🚀 Focused on two major issues: the Future of post-war ties between India and Pakistan, and the resolution of the dispute regarding Jammu and Kashmir through peaceful negotiations.
👉🏽 The agreement saw the first formal recognition of Bangladesh as a sovereign entity in a bilateral treaty.
📝 Sarvam AI[5]
🚀 Founded in 2023 ⇒ 1st company to receive govt support to build an indigenous AI large language model (LLM) ⇒ Will have access to a pool of graphics processing units (GPUs) acquired under the government’s IndiaAI Mission.
👉🏽 This AI model will have reasoning capabilities, be designed for voice, and be fluent in Indian languages.
🤔 Bro, what even is a GPU and an LLM? One helps games run better, and the other writes stories like Munshi Premchand! 💻🧠 Discuss HERE
📝 Miscellaneous [6][7]
🚀 Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) reported a record cargo movement of 145.5 million tonnes in FY25 ⇒ Key cargo commodities like coal, iron ore, iron ore fines, sand, and fly ash made up over 68% of the total cargo transported.
🚀 Shahid Rajaee Port: Near Bandar Abbas, Hormozgan Province, Iran ⇒ Located on the north shores of the Strait of Hormuz.