• India’s market capitalisation to GDP ratio has touched a 13-year high of 122%.
• This means, the listed companies in India are worth 122 per cent of India’s latest annualised gross domestic product (GDP).
• This is the highest since December 2008, when it reached an all-time high of around 150 per cent.
• India’s current m-cap to GDP ratio is nearly 55 per cent higher than the 15-year median ratio of 79 per cent.

• India has recently hosted the 8th BIMSTEC Agriculture Experts Meeting, in a virtual mode.
• The meeting was chaired by Dr Trilochan Mohapatra – Director General of Indian Council of Agricultural Research.
• Experts of the Agricultural Ministries from Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Thailand participated in the meeting.
• The Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC)  is an international organisation of seven South Asian and Southeast Asian nations, which is Headquartered at Kathmandu.

• Indian Army is participating in Exercise ZAPAD 2021, a multination exercise at Nizhniy, Russia from 3 to 16 September.
• The two-week military exercise named ‘ZAPAD 2021’ aimed at boosting anti-terror cooperation.
• More than a dozen countries from Eurasia and South Asia will also participate in the same exercise.  China and Pakistan are also expected to take part in the exercise as observers.
• A contingent of 200 personnel of the Indian Army will participate in an exercise.

• Social networking and Micro-blogging giant Twitter has launched a new feature named “Super Follows”.
• This feature allows content creators on the platform to provide exclusive premium content to subscribers.
• It allows creators to earn monthly revenue by sharing the premium content with their followers.

• The Central banks in Australia, Singapore, Malaysia and South Africa are set to conduct a cross border payments trial using different central bank digital currencies (CBDC).
• Bank of International Settlement (BIS) Innovation Hub is leading the scheme.
• This latest project aims to develop prototype shared platforms for cross-border transactions using multiple CBDCs
• Another BIS-led project exploring using CBDCs for cross border payments is also underway involving central banks from China, Hong Kong, Thailand and the UAE.

• The International Coconut Community (ICC), an intergovernmental organization of coconut producing countries.
• It functions under the aegis of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UN-ESCAP).
• International Coconut Community (ICC) is based at Jakarta, Indonesia.
• To commemorate the foundation day of ICC, World Coconut Day is observed on September 2, 2021.
• The theme for the 23rd World Coconut Day celebrations this year is “Building a safe, inclusive resilient and sustainable coconut community amid Covid-19 pandemic and beyond”.
• In India, Coconut Development Board celebrates Coconut Day every year to promote awareness on the importance of coconut and focus national and international attention on coconut sector.

Presently, various medical and paramedical institutions of the state are affiliated to different universities. This bill has been passed amidst strict opposition from various fronts.

This deal would enhance HDFC Life’s agency business by 40 per cent and agent base by 30%. Also, it would raise the assets under management of the company to over Rs 2 trillion.

INS Dhruv can also map ocean beds for research and detection of enemy submarines. This nuclear missile tracking ship will be operated by the Indian Navy with the Strategic Forces Command (SFC).

Chandrayaan-2 has completed more than 9,000 orbits around the Moon. The imaging and scientific instruments on board have been relaying the required data. ISRO Chairperson also released the documents based on data from Chandrayaan-2, along with data from spacecraft’s orbiter payloads.