DAILY GK 24-25 JUNE 2025
1.
PM MODI’S VISIT TO CYPRUS, CANADA, AND CROATIA
·
Prime Minister (PM) of India Narendra
Modi undertook a four-day official
visit to the Republic of Cyprus, Canada, and Croatia, highlighting India’s
deepening global partnerships.
·
During his visit, PM Modi received Cyprus’s highest civilian honour and
attended the 51st G-7(Group of seven) Summit in
Canada.
·
MoU was inked between NPCI International
Payments Limited (NIPL), a wholly owned subsidiary
of the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), and Eurobank Cyprus to
introduce the Unified Payments Interface (UPI).
·
India and Croatia signed four
agreements covering agriculture, cultural exchange, science and
technology cooperation, and the establishment of a Hindi chair at the
University of Zagreb.
2.
THE UNIVERSITY IMPACT RANKINGS 2025
·
London based Times Higher Education (THE) released
the University Impact Rankings 2025.
·
Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham in
Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu (TN), ranked 41st and
Jalandhar (Punjab) based Lovely Professional University
(48) are among the top 50
universities.
·
Mysuru (Karnataka) based JSS Academy of
Higher Education & Research (JSS AHER) (56) and Bajhol, Himachal Pradesh
(HP) based Shoolini University of Biotechnology and Management Sciences
(96) are among the top 100 of THE University Impact Rankings 2025.
·
The 2025 ranking is topped by the Western
Sydney University in Australia with a score of 98.7 for
the fourth consecutive year.
·
University
of Manchester (98.4) in the United Kingdom (UK) is ranked at the second place.
3.
51ST G7 SUMMIT
·
The 51st Group
of Seven (G7) Summit was held in Kananaskis,
situated in the province of Alberta, Canada.
·
The summit was hosted under Canada’s G7 Presidency, led by Prime Minister(PM) Mark
Carney.
·
The summit marked 50 years of
partnership and cooperation among G7 member nations since the
inaugural G7 meeting in 1975 (Rambouillet, France).
·
The 52nd G7 Summit is
set to take place in June 2026 in Évian-les-Bains city located in Haute-Savoie,
France.
·
Canada invited leaders
from Australia, Brazil, India, Mexico, South Africa (SA), South Korea, and
Ukraine to take part in the Outreach
Sessions of the summit.
·
Prime Minister (PM) of India, Narendra
Modi visited Canada to participate in the 51st G7 Summit at the
invitation of PM of Canada Mark Carney.
·
During the closing of the 51st G7 Summit,
PM of Canada Mark Carney announced over USD 2 bn in
new military aid for Ukraine this year, along with a USD 2.3 bn loan
under the G7 Extraordinary Revenue Acceleration (ERA) Loans
mechanism.
·
The
member countries include Canada, France, Germany, Italy,
Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
·
Several
non-G7 nations were invited as outreach partners.
4.
OECD REPORT: DROUGHTS EXPECTED TO BE 35% MORE COSTLY BY 2035
·
Paris
(France) based Organisation for Economic Cooperation and
Development (OECD) released its latest report
titled ‘Global Drought Outlook: Trends, Impacts and Policies to
Adapt to a Drier World’.
·
This report warned that without effective
adaptation measures, the economic costs
of droughts are expected to increase
by at least 35% worldwide by 2035, compared
to current levels.
·
The report highlighted that in recent
decades 40% of
world’s land area has faced an increase in both frequency and intensity of
droughts, which is mainly driven by change of global climate patterns like: rising temperatures
intensify evaporation, reduce soil moisture and compromise the natural
replenishment of aquifers.
·
The report highlighted that severe droughts can decrease fluvial trade
volumes by up to 40% and reduce hydroelectricity
production by over 25%, affecting supply chains and
energy availability.
5.
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT REPORT 2025
·
United Nations (UN) Sustainable
Development Solutions Network (SDSN) released the 10th edition
of the Sustainable Development Report (SDR) titled “Financing
Sustainable Development to 2030 and Mid Century”.
·
For the first time, India entered the top 100 on the 2025 Sustainable
Development Goals Index(SDGi) , ranking 99th out of 193 countries with a score of 66.95, improving from
109th place in 2024.
·
Finland has secured the first place with a score of 87.02,
followed by Sweden with 85.74 and Denmark with 85.26.
·
China
also
showed strong performance, ranking 49th
with a score of 74.39, thus entering the top 50.
·
A decade after the adoption of the SDGs, progress is alarmingly behind
schedule, with fewer than 20% of targets
expected to be met by 2030.
·
Only 17% of the
targets are on track to be achieved worldwide.
·
Bhutan
is ranked 74th with a score of 70.5, Nepal (85) with a score of 68.6, Bangladesh (114) with 63.9 and Pakistan (140) with 57 points.
·
19
of the top 20 countries are in Europe.
6.
GLOBAL TOBACCO EPIDEMIC REPORT 2025
·
Geneva (Switzerland) based World Health
Organization (WHO) released a report titled, “Global
Tobacco Epidemic 2025: Warning about the dangers of Tobacco”, at the World Conference on Tobacco control (WCTC),
held in Dublin, Ireland.
·
According to the report, 6.1 billion
people, over 75% of the world’s
population, are now protected by at
least one of the Monitor, Protect, Offer, Warn, Enforce, Raise (MPOWER)
measures, compared to 1 billion in 2007.
·
The
report focuses on the six proven WHO MPOWER tobacco
control measures to reduce tobacco use, which claims over 7
million a year.
·
According
to the report, India is among the
countries identified as having best-practice-level graphic health warning
labels in 2024.
·
India was recognised among six countries to
receive the 2025 Bloomberg Philanthropies Awards for
Global Tobacco Control for its focused efforts in promoting tobacco cessation
across the country.
·
Other
recipient countries included Mauritius,
Mexico, Montenegro, Philippines, and Ukraine.
7.
INDIA -SOUTH AFRICA 9TH JDC MEETING
·
The 9th Joint
Defence Committee (JDC) meeting between India and South
Africa was held in Johannesburg, South Africa,
·
During
the meeting, two agreements in the domain of submarine cooperation were
formally exchanged between the two countries.
8.
1ST AFRICAN COUNTRY TO ACHIEVE WHO GOLD TIER IN ENDING
HIV TRANSMISSION
·
Botswana has become the 1st African
country, as well as the 1st high-burden HIV country worldwide; to achieve WHO’s Gold Tier status for the elimination
of vertical (mother-to-child) transmission of Human Immunodeficiency Virus
(HIV) as a public health issue.
·
Earlier,
Botswana became the world’s 1st country to meet the criteria for silver tier
status on the path to elimination of HIV in 2021.
·
Cuba was the 1st country in
the world which received WHO certification for eliminating the
mother-to-child transmission of HIV and Syphilis in 2015.
·
Till
date, 19 countries and territories have
been certified for eliminating the mother-to-child transmission of HIV and
Syphilis, with 11 of them are Caribbean countries.
·
Botswana Capital – Gaborone.
9.
NATO SUMMIT
·
·
This was for the 1st time since the formation of NATO in 1949 that the Netherlands hosted a NATO summit.
·
NATO
Secretary-General Mark Rutte announced that NATO
countries have agreed to increase
defence spending to 5% of their Gross Domestic
Product (GDP) annually.
·
All member countries of NATO are expected
to achieve this new spending target over the next 10 years (by
2035).
·
NATO is a political and military alliance of countries in Europe
and North America.
·
It was formed on April 04, 1949 by the foreign ministers of 12 countries, which
signed the North Atlantic Treaty (also known as Washington Treaty) in
Washington D.C., the USA.
·
Headquarters- Brussels, Belgium.
·
Members Countries- 32 (Sweden
joined NATO in March 2024 as its 32nd member).
10.
UNESCO’S TENTATIVE LIST OF WORLD HERITAGE SITES
·
Salkhan Fossils Park,
also known as Sonbhadra Fossils Park, located in
Salkhan village, Sonbhadra district of Uttar Pradesh (UP), was added to
the Tentative List of United Nations Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Sites.
·
India has a total of 63 sites on UNESCO’s
Tentative List as of June 2025.
·
Fossils are estimated to be around 1.4
billion years old, dating back to the Mesoproterozoic era (1.6 to
1.0 billion years ago).
·
Embedded in Bhander limestone of
the Kaimur range, part of the Vindhyan Supergroup (UP), one of the
oldest and best-preserved Proterozoic rock formations in the world.
