International Yoga Day 2022: History and Themes
International yoga day is celebrated on the 21st of June of every year. The first international yoga day was observed on 21st June 2015. It is celebrated on the 21st of June because it is said to be the longest day of the year in the Northern hemisphere and it shares special significance in many parts of the world. The initiative of international yoga day was proposed by the Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi during his speech at the United Nations General Assembly on 27th September 2014.
In the assembly, he stated that “Yoga is an invaluable gift of India’s ancient tradition. It embodies unity of mind and body; thought and action; restraint and fulfillment; harmony between man and nature; a holistic approach to health and well-being. It is not about exercise but to discover a sense of oneness with yourself, the world, and nature. Changing our lifestyle and creating consciousness, can help in well-being. Let us work towards adopting an International Yoga Day 2022”.
National Yoga Olympiad 2022
International Yoga Day: Themes
2015: in 2015 the first international yoga day was celebrated all around the world. The event was arranged by the Ministry of AYUSH. More than 35000 people including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and eminent personalities from 84 Nations performed 21 yoga asanas for 35 minutes in New Delhi. International yoga day was observed by millions of people across the world. The largest yoga performance simultaneously by a single uniform youth organization was recorded by the Limca Book of records which were performed by the NCC cadets at multiple venues. Guinness World Records were awarded to the ministry of AYUSH for the event at Rajpath, and it was received by Minister Shripad Yesso Naik.
2016: The ministry organized an event named “the national event of mass yoga demonstration” at Chandigarh which was attended by the Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi.
2017: In 2017 the Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi participated in an event at practice yoga with 51000 participants in Lucknow. Many eminent personalities were also a part of the event. At the international level, thousands of people gathered and practice yoga on Time Squares in New York, and Japan created a parliamentary league for the promotion of yoga just before the event in April 2017. In 2017 the theme of international yoga day was “Yoga for Health”.
2018: The theme for 2018 was “Yoga for Peace”. The international yoga event was conducted at the Forest Research Institute in Dehradun where Prime Minister Modi practiced yoga with 50000 volunteers to mark the 4th anniversary of international yoga day. Around 100000 people gathered at the yoga session in Rajasthan and performed yoga together, getting their name in the Guinness World record.
2019: In 2019 the international yoga day was celebrated in various parts of India and the meaning went was held at Ranchi where the Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi leads a crowd of 40000 people and practices yoga. The theme of 2019 was “Yoga for Heart”.
2020: The theme for 2022 was “Yoga at home and yoga with family”. For the international yoga day celebration, Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov recorded a special video message for Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
2021: The theme for 2021 was “Yoga for well-being”. Due to the Covid-19, the international yoga day was celebrated online throughout the world.
2022: The theme for 2022 is “Yoga for humanity“. This year’s theme of international yoga day will focus on the importance of yoga in serving better mental health in our life
MeitY declares HDFC, ICICI, NPCI’s IT resources as critical information infra
The Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) has declared the IT resources of ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and UPI managing entity NPCI as ‘critical information infrastructure’, implying any harm to them can have an impact on national security and any unauthorised person accessing these resources may be jailed for up to 10 years. The IT resources under CII include Core Banking Solution, Real Time Gross Settlement and National Electronic Fund Transfer (NEFT) comprising Structured Financial Messaging Server.
Key Points:
The persons authorized to access IT resources of ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, and NPCI are their designated employees, authorized team members of contractual managed service providers or third-party vendors who have been authorised by them for need- based access and any consultant, regulator, government official, auditor and stakeholder authorised by the entities on case-to-case basis.
This decision, to put their IT resources under CII, has been taken due to cyber attacks which raised the need for a protected system by all the banks and financial institutions.
What does CII imply?
It means any harm to this infrastructure can have an impact on national security and any unauthorized person accessing these resources may be jailed for up to 10 years, and also be liable to fine.
The Central Government, under the IT Act, 2000, has the power to declare any data, database, IT network or communications infrastructure as CII to protect that digital asset.
The National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre (NCIIPC), established in 2014, is the nodal agency for taking all measures to protect India’s CII.
NCIIPC will monitor and forecast national-level threats to CII for policy guidance, expertise sharing and situational awareness for early warning or alert
Beneficiaries of the PFRDA pension scheme increased by 24%
According to official figures, the number of subscribers to PFRDA‘s two flagship pension schemes increased by more than 24% year on year to 5.32 crore as of May 31, 2022. According to the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA), the number of subscribers in various NPS plans climbed to 531.73 lakh by the end of May 2022, up from 428.56 lakh in May 2021, a year-on-year rise of 24.07 percent.
KEY POINTS:
By the end of May this fiscal year, the Atal Pension Yojana (APY), the largest contributor to the subscriber base, had grown by 31.6 percent to 3.72 crore.
The number of NPS members among federal government employees increased by 5.28 percent to 22.97 lakh, while the number of subscribers among state government employees increased by 7.70 percent to 56.40 lakh.
According to the data, the number of NPS subscribers in the corporate sector climbed by 26.83 percent to 14.69 lakh, while those in the all citizens category increased by 39.11 percent to 23.61 lakh by the end of May.
The number of subscribers in the NPS Lite category declined by 2.7 percent to 41.85 lakh in April 2015, when no new registrations were allowed.
As of May 31, 2022, the two plans’ total assets under management (AUM) had increased by 21.5 percent to Rs 7.38 lakh crore.
Atal Pension Yojana (APY): The Atal Pension Yojana, formerly known as the Swavalamban Yojana, is an Indian government-sponsored pension system aimed primarily at the informal sector. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley noted it in his Budget speech for 2015. Prime Minister Narendra Modi unveiled it in Kolkata on May 9, 2015. APY is primarily intended to provide social security benefits to those who work in the unorganised sector, which accounts for the majority of employment in the country.
US-Canadian author Ruth Ozeki wins Women’s Prize for Fiction
US-Canadian author, film-maker and Zen Buddhist priest, Ruth Ozeki has won the Women’s Prize for Fiction this year for her novel ‘The Book of Form and Emptiness”. Ozeki’s fourth novel, ‘The Book of Form and Emptiness’ tells the story of a thirteen-year-old boy who, after the tragic death of his father, starts to hear the voices of objects speaking to him. She was announced as the winner of the £30,000 prize at a ceremony in London, beating nominees including Elif Shafak, Meg Mason and Louise Erdrich.
Ozeki’s previous works include the 2013 Booker Prize-nominated A Tale for the Time Being, plus the novels My Year of Meats and All Over Creation. She also teaches creative writing at Smith College in Massachusetts and is affiliated with the Brooklyn Zen Center and the Everyday Zen foundation.
IISc Centre for Brain Research officially opened by PM Modi
Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the Centre for Brain Research and lay the foundation stone for Bagchi Parthasarathy Multispeciality Hospital at IISc Bengaluru. Government is pleased to launch the Centre for Brain Research at IISC Bangalore, Prime Minister Narendra Modi stated in a tweet. The happiness is heightened by the fact that the Prime Minister had the honour of laying the project’s foundation stone. This centre will be at the cutting edge of research into how to treat brain problems.
KEY POINTS:
PM also stated that at a time when every nation must prioritise healthcare, initiatives such as the Bagchi Parthasarathy Multispeciality Hospital are critical.
It will strengthen healthcare capacities and encourage pioneering research in the industry in the future.
The Centre for Brain Research is a one-of-a-kind research centre dedicated to undertaking critical research in order to develop evidence-based public health treatments to treat age-related brain illnesses.
The Bagchi Parthasarathy Multispeciality Hospital, with its eighty-two beds, will be built on the campus of IISc Bengaluru, assisting in the integration of science, engineering, and medicine at the prominent institute.
It will provide clinical research in the country a big boost, and it will work to identify new solutions that will assist the country’s healthcare systems improve.
A book titled “Gautam Adani: The Man Who Changed India” by RN Bhaskar
The biography of billionaire industrialist, Gautam Adani, titled “Gautam Adani: The Man Who Changed India” will hit the stands in October, announced Penguin Random House (PRHI). The book written by journalist-author RN Bhaskar, claims to bring to light, for the first time, the unknown aspects of one of the richest men in the world.
At the helm of a business empire that is now India’s largest player in ports and renewable energy, the Ahmedabad-based industrialist is currently also leading the country’s largest private sector player in sectors such as airports, city gas distribution, power transmission, thermal power, edible oil, and railway lines. The book, according to the publishers, delves deep, detailing a range of fascinating anecdotes from Adani’s life, illuminating his early childhood, his initiation into business, and the learnings and opportunities he pursue.