” On April 22, 2024, Ratan Tata, Chairman Emeritus of the Tata Group, received the esteemed Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS) Humanitarian Award for 2021 at his residence in Mumbai, Maharashtra. This recognition underscores his dedication to social progress and exemplary corporate leadership.Other Awardees:The 2022 award was presented to Rachel Ruto, the First Lady of the Republic of Kenya and the 2023 award was presented to Bill Gates, Former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Microsoft.”

Indian air force iaf successfully tested the new version of an air-launched medium-range ballistic missile known as rocks or crystal maze-2 from a su-30 mki fighter jet in the andaman and nicobar islands

” The defence research and development organisation(drdo) has developed india’s lightest bulletproof jacket for protection against 7.62 x 54 r api(armour piercing incendiary) ammunition, highest threat level 6 of bureau of indian standards(bis) 17051. the bulletproof jacket was developed by defence materials and stores research and development establishment(dmsrde), drdo lab based in kanpur, uttar pradesh(up). it was successfully tested at terminal ballistics research laboratory(tbrl), chandigarh as per bis 17051:2018.”

” Indusind bank limited became the 1st bank to successfully execute the reserve bank of india’s (rbi) programmable central bank digital currency (cbdc) pilot, to compensate farmers for carbon credits. this pilot project is executed in collaboration with circularity innovation hub india private limited (cih), as an alternate form of cbdc. as part of this pilot, indusind bank initiated the programmable cbdc disbursement to 50 farmers in ratnagiri district, maharashtra, and plans to cover 1000 farmers.”

” The department of administrative reforms and public grievances (darpg) under the ministry of personnel, public administration, and pensions (moppgp) signed a memorandum of understanding (mou) with the ministry of civil service, cambodia to strengthen bilateral exchange and cooperation in the field of human resource development (hrd) in civil service over the next 5 years. the mou will facilitate a dialogue between india’s personnel administration agencies and the agencies of the ministry of civil service of the kingdom of cambodia. it aims for “digitally empowered citizen and a digitally transformed institution”.”

” On 23rd april 2024, razorpay software private limited (razorpay), online instant payment company launched its own unified payments interface (upi) infrastructure with “upi switch”, a  next-generation cloud based innovation, in partnership with airtel payments bank. upi switch is powered by technology service providers (tsps) for banks. it is designed to handle up to 10,000 transactions per second (tps) at any given time. it will also enable 5 times faster access to upi innovations for businesses, compared to the industry standards of 10 months.note: in march 2024, total upi transactions in india increased by 55% to 13.44 billion.”

The national panchayati raj day nprd 2024 also known as national local self-government day was observed on 24 april 2024 across india to honour and recognise the establishment of the panchayati raj system and its pivotal role in decentralised governance at the grassroots the

” On 23rd april 2024, au small finance bank (au sfb)limited introduced a suite of financial products aimed at enhancing customer satisfaction. this included two new credit cards, the au spont rupay credit card and the secured credit card – nomo (no missing out) and atm (automated teller machine) insurance. the nomo credit card is au sfb’s first secured credit card, backed by a fixed deposit (fd). it was developed in collaboration with visa. the au spont rupay credit card was developed in collaboration with npci (national payments corporation of india) . atm insurance allows its customers to purchase insurance through atms using their debit cards.”

” National bank for agriculture and rural development (nabard) released its climate strategy 2030 document. the document was released by shaji k.v., chairman, nabard on the occasion of world earth day (22nd april, 2023).key pillars of climate strategy 2030:i.accelerating green lending across sectorsii.playing a broader market-making roleiii.internal  green transformation of nabardiv.strategic resource mobilisation”

Macquarie asset management of australia’s diversified financial giant macquarie group has launched an ev financing and end-to-end solution platform vertelo pledges a substantial usd 15 billion investment aimed at electrifying fleets of buses and