Notes:
The Andhra Pradesh Cabinet has recently approved an unemployment allowance scheme “Mukhyamantri Yuva Nestam” through which an allowance of Rs 1000 per month will be provided to unemployed youth in the state. Unemployed youths with a degree or diploma between the ages of 22 and 35 years are eligible to avail the benefit. The state government will set up a website for the scheme by the end of August, where a 15-day registration window will be open for potential beneficiaries of the scheme. The amount will be directly transferred into their bank account. The state government decided to implement this scheme to benefit as many as 12 lakh youths of the state. It has also been decided that 20,000 job vacancies, 9,000 teacher posts and other department vacancies will be filled.

Notes:
The President of India, Ram Nath Kovind presented the Outstanding Parliamentarian Award (OPA) for the years 2013-2017 in New Delhi on August 1, 2018. Dr Najma Heptullah, the Manipur’s governor and 5-times Rajya Sabha member, won the award for 2013. Meanwhile, BJP’s Lok Sabha member Hukum Dev Narayan was the recipient of OPA for 2014, Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad for 2015, Trinamool Congress’ Dinesh Trivedi for 2016 and Bhartruhari Mahtab of the Lok Biju Janata Dal (BJD) for 2017. The OPA is an award given by the Indian Parliamentary Group (IPG) to an outstanding sitting Member of Parliament (MP) for overall contribution in the Parliament. It was instituted in 1992 by Shivraj Patil, who was the Speaker of Lok Sabha from 1991 to 1996.

Notes:
The Telangana government will setup a state of the art “B-Hub” for biotech and biopharma sector in Genome Valley, Hyderabad. It’s a first-of-its-kind initiative in the country, aimed at providing much-needed support to the biopharma research and development activities, featuring a scale-up manufacturing facility along with a turnkey incubator, lab space module at GLP grade spreading over a built-up area of 40,000 sq.ft. This end-to-end biopharma scale-up manufacturing facility will give domestic companies the required impetus here on par with Korea, China and France who have taken lead in biopharma innovation. The estimated project cost of B-Hub is Rs 60 crore and the facility is to be set up through Public-Private Partnership (PPP) in Genome Valley, which is the India’s first organised cluster for life sciences R&D and clean manufacturing activities.

Notes:
Sashi Cheliah, an Indian origin prison guard from Adelaide, has clinched the title of MasterChef Australia 2018 after scoring 93 out of 100 points. He defeated fellow contestant Ben Borsht, who scored 77 out of 100. For the first round, Cheliah made a sambal prawns starter, which got him a perfect 30 while his second recipe for the grand finale was a fish curry and cumin rice dish that he made to honour his aunt. The winner took home the MasterChef Australia trophy and a winning amount of $2,50,000 (almost Rs 1.7 crore) while the first runner-up was awarded $40,000 (around Rs 27 lakh).

Notes:
Lewis Hamilton, a British racing driver who races in Formula One for Mercedes AMG Petronas, has won the 2018 Hungarian Grand Prix at the Hungaroring circuit. It is his sixth Hungarian Grand Prix title and also 67th career victory.

Notes:
The Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) has launched a dedicated portal – Forum of Cargo Owners and Logistics Operators (FOCAL) – to connect cargo owners and shippers with real time data on availability of vessels. The landmark e-connect measure will enable direct interaction among the vessel operators, shippers and cargo owners as currently, there is no platform to know the availability of vessels in the market. It has been designed and developed by the in-house IT Department and the traffic wing of IWAI as part of its preparedness for optimal use of its ongoing capacity development on various National Waterways. FOCAL will facilitate responses from the logistic operators against the requirement raised by cargo owners and vice-versa. The users can register on the portal to key in the availability and details of vessels or the available cargo, as the case may be. Cargo owners will be able to put details like the origin, destination, type of cargo etc.

Notes:
On August 10, the NITI Aayog will host an Investors’ Conference for the Holistic Development of Islands at Pravasi Bharatiya Kendra and will be inaugurated by Amitabh Kant (CEO of NITI Aayog). The purpose of the conference is to attract investments for the sustainable development of eco-tourism projects on a Public Private Partnership (PPP) basis in the Andaman & Nicobar and Lakshadweep Islands. Approx 11 anchor tourism projects are proposed to be implemented with private sector participation under suitable risk-sharing model and through open-competitive bidding.

Notes:
Following the publication of the final draft of National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam, the Manipur government has constituted two committees – state and district level – to deal with a possible influx of illegal immigrants. The State Level Monitoring Committee will monitor the entry or presence of illegal immigrants in the state and take steps for creating adequate public awareness to counter the situation. It will be headed by Special Secretary (Home) while the Deputy Commissioners and Superintendents of Police as its members. The district level committee will be headed by the concerned deputy commissioners while Superintendent of Police, SDOs, SDPO, SDCs, OCs will be the members. The committee with local bodies would likely to conduct headcounts if needed.

Notes:
Jalees Sherwani (70), the veteran screenplay writer, has passed away in Mumbai. Maharashtra on August 1, 2018. He had penned lyrics for several Salman Khan films like “Dabangg”, “Wanted” and “Tere Naam”. Apart from writing dialogues for “Sangam” and “Loafer”, Sherwani also penned lyrics for films like “Partner”, “Hello”, “Garv” and “Hello Brother”.

Notes:
NITI Aayog has launched a global mobility hackathon ” Move Hack” to crowdsource solutions for future of mobility in India. Focused on 10 themes and open to individuals from all nationalities, the hackathon will have an online leg, followed by a Singapore leg, and the finals in New Delhi. The purpose of MoveHack is to bring about innovative, dynamic and scalable solutions to problems pertaining to mobility. It has two-pronged campaign approach: (a) “Just Code It”: aimed at solutions through innovations in technology / product / software and data analysis, and (b) “Just Solve It”: innovative business ideas or sustainable solutions to transform mobility infrastructure through technology. The hackathon is organized in partnership with Government of Singapore and is powered by Hacker Earth. PwC is the Knowledge Partner and NASSCOM is the Strategic Partner.