Notes:
Prime Minister Narendra Modi unveiled a 30-ft bronze statue of legendary freedom fighter Alluri Sitarama Raju on his 125th birth anniversary.
The 15-tonne statue was carved out at a cost of Rs 3 crore and installed by the Kshatriya Seva Samiti in Bhimavaram, Andhra Pradesh. The leader was known for the ‘Rampa Rebellion’ or ‘Manyam Uprising’, in the Rampachodavaram forest area, which was undertaken against the mighty British forces.

Notes:
Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the Digital India Week 2022 in Gandhinagar in Gujarat. The theme for Digital India Week is Catalyzing New India’s Techade.
The Prime Minister also launched ‘Digital India Bhashini’ to enable easy access to the internet and digital services in Indian languages. ‘Digital India GENESIS’ – a National Deep-tech Startup Platform, to support successful start-ups in Tier-II and Tier-III cities with a total outlay of 750 crore rupees was also launched. A global repository of key projects implemented under India Stack ‘Indiastack.global’ was launched.

Notes:
Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), Ministry of Commerce and Industry has released ‘Start-ups Ranking 2021’.
The ranking focuses on seven reform areas. Gujarat, Karnataka and Meghalaya were categorised as best performers while Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Mizoram and Ladakh have an emerging start-up ecosystem. Kerala, Maharashtra, Odisha, Telangana and Jammu and Kashmir were ranked as the top performers section.

Notes:
The UN Ocean Conference 2022 concluded with the unanimous adoption of the Lisbon Declaration “Our Ocean, our future, our responsibility.”
More than 150 countries agreed to scale up science-based and innovative actions to address the ocean emergency. The Lisbon Declaration takes into account the capacity challenges being faced by the developing countries, mainly the Small Island Developing States and Least Developing Countries.

Notes:
Weaver ants, whose scientific name is Oecophylla smaragdina, are present in Mayurbhanj district, Odisha.
The people of the district especially the tribals, make a food item with the ants called the Kai Chutney. Scientists from Odisha are in the process of presentation for the geographical indications (GI) registry of Kai Chutney.