The Rajaji National Park (RNP) is an Indian national park and tiger reserve located in the three districts of Uttarakhand: Haridwar, Dehradun and Pauri Garhwal and covers an area of over 820 km2. It is home to Asian elephant, Bengal tiger, Leopard, Jungle cat, Striped hyena, Goral, Indian hare, Sloth bear, etc. The park was named after C. Rajagopalachari, a prominent leader of the Freedom Struggle, the second and last Governor-General of independent India and one of the first recipients of India’s highest civilian award Bharat Ratna (in 1954).

The Union Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) has launched two Mobile apps – India Quake and Sagar Vani to send alerts on earthquake parameters and oceanic disturbances. The ‘India Quake’ will automatically disseminate earthquake parameters like location, time and magnitude, after the occurrence of earthquakes. The app will make information dissemination faster with no restrictions on the number of recipients. Any citizen can download this App and get the real time earthquake location information on his/her mobile. While, the ‘Sagar Vani’ will disseminate ocean related information and alerts like high waves and Tsunami early warnings, to the user community in timely manner for their safety. The apps are developed by the National Centre for Seismology (NCS). The NCS is an office of the MoES and is tasked with providing earthquake monitoring and hazard reports to governmental agencies.

The World Hepatitis Day (WHD) is observed every year on July 28 to raise awareness of the global burden of viral hepatitis and to influence real change. The 2017 theme is “Eliminate Hepatitis”. Hepatitis is a viral infection which causes inflammation in the liver. It is a group of infectious diseases known as Hepatitis A, B, C, D, and E. The ‘ 2017 WHO Global hepatitis’ report indicates that a large majority of these people lack access to life-saving testing and treatment. As a result, millions face risk of chronic liver disease, cancer, and death. As per estimates of World Health Organisation (WHO), 4 crore people in India live with chronic Hepatitis B and an additional six lakh with Hepatitis C, which accounts for 40% and 20% of Hepatitis B and C infections in south-east Asia. Thus, hepatitis affects hundreds of millions of people worldwide, causing acute and chronic disease and killing close to 1.4 million people every year.

Microsoft India has officially launched ‘Kaizala’ a Made for India app for businesses and organizations, which is powered by Azure Cloud platform. It is designed for large group communications and work management, and works even on 2G networks. The app would help organisations communicate, collaborate and complete tasks and bring together desktop users and mobile-only users who may be within or outside their organisations.

According to 2017 Dell Women Entrepreneur Cities (WE Cities) index, Bengaluru (40th) and Delhi (49th) are the only Indian cities among the top 50 global cities that foster high-potential women entrepreneurs. The list is topped by New York, followed by Bay Area, London, Boston, Stockholm and Los Angeles.   The index ranks cities in terms of its ability to attract and foster growth of women-owned firms. It provides a diagnostic tool to advise entrepreneurs and policy-makers on how to improve conditions to enable businesses founded by women to thrive. The index also  ranked cities based on the impact of local policies, programmes and characteristics in addition to national laws and customs.

Recently, the Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) has started a full-fledged merchant banking operations to help Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) utilise capital markets for their funding requirements. The purpose of the initiative is to enhance the access of MSMEs to the capital markets, including the SME Trading Platform and Institutional Trading Platform. This move will prove beneficial to the SME exchange as well as investors seeking liquidity or exit from their investment. The bank has supported over 125 venture capital funds and thus can provide help for listing the investee companies on SME exchanges via its merchant banking operations. The headquarters of SIDBI is located at Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh.

Ajay Singh from India has won bronze medal in 77 kgs men’s junior category at the Asian Youth and Junior Weightlifting Championships at Kathmandu, Nepal. With this, India medals tally goes to three. Apart from him, S. Nirpupama Devi had won bronze in 69 kgs women youth category and Konsam Ormila Devi had won gold in 44kg weight category.

Axis bank has acquired Snapdeal-owned mobile wallet FreeCharge in an all-cash deal worth Rs 385 crore to strengthen its position in the payments space. This acquisition is expected to help the bank take a significant step towards digital distribution of financial products. The platform provides access to agile customer-facing technology, which will help the bank to serve its existing customers better and approach new digitally native customers in an efficient manner.

Mumbai Metro One will launch the India’s first Mobile Ticketing System ‘OnGo’ which will help commuters pass the Automated Fare Collection (AFC) gates using their mobile phones. The system is in the final advanced stage of testing and will be implemented by mid-August. The commuters will be able to buy tickets or monthly passes using the Mumbai Metro app on their smartphone. Once they make the payment using their mobile wallet or e-wallet, a QR code will be generated. The gate’s sensor will then scan this code and let them access the platform. The ‘OnGo’ will be particularly convenient for those commuters wanting to book their journey through tokens or passes at their own convenience even from outside the Metro stations and avoid queues before ticketing windows.

India’s first bullet train project “Mumbai–Ahmedabad High-Speed Rail (MAHSR) corridor” will be launched during the visit of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in September 12-14, 2017. Abe and Prime Minister Narendra Modi will jointly inaugurate the bullet train project with the laying of foundation stone and a ground breaking ceremony. This is expected to take place in Ahmedabad or Gandhinagar (Gujarat). This is Rs 1 lakh crore project which involves construction of a 505-km line using Japanese ‘Shinkansen’ technology. For this, Japan will provide a soft loan worth $12 billion, at a cost of 0.1%, for a 50-year period including a 15-year moratorium. The Japanese government will be bearing 80% of the total project cost and the increase in cost estimate has to be borne by both India and Japan.