• India on August 23, 2021 carried out a naval exercise with the Philippines in the South China Sea.
• The Philippines government refers to the eastern parts of the South China Sea as the West Philippine Sea.
• Two Indian warships, INS Ranvijay, Guided Missile Destroyer, D55 and INS Kora, Guided Missile Corvette, P61, on deployment to the Western Pacific participated in the exercise with BRP Antonio Luna, Frigate, FF 151 of the Philippine Navy in the West Philippine Sea.

• Former Indian Footballer O. Chandrasekharan passed away in Kochi on August 24, 2021 at the age of 86.
• Chandrasekharan was part of the Indian team that participated in the 1960 Rome and the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.
• He was also a member of the Indian team that won the gold in 1962 Asian Games in Jakarta and the silver medal in Asian Cup in Tel Aviv the same year.
• He captained the Maharashtra team that won the 1963 Santosh Trophy.

• The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed an estimated 75 million to 80 million more people in developing Asia into extreme poverty as of last year compared with what would have happened without COVID-19, according to a new report by the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
• The ‘Key Indicators for Asia and the Pacific 2021’ says the pandemic is threatening Asia and the Pacific’s progress toward critical targets under the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
• Progress has also stalled in areas such as hunger, health and education where earlier achievements across the region had been significant.

• The Assam government has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with 37 microfinance lenders for implementation of the Assam Microfinance Incentive and Relief Scheme (AMFIRS), 2021.
• The scheme is aimed at providing financial relief to the microfinance borrowers in Assam to help them continue maintaining good credit discipline in covid-19 times.

The scheme will provide incentive to clients who are regular in repayments and help overdue clients become regular.

• Vedanta has made a natural gas discovery in a block in Gujarat that it had won in the open acreage licensing policy (OALP) round.
• It had notified the DGH and Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas of a gas and condensate discovery [named ‘Jaya’] in its exploratory well Jaya1.
• It was drilled in OALP Block in Bharuch District of Gujarat.