DAILY GK 3-4 JULY 2025
1.
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON FINANCING FOR DEVELOPMENT
·
The 4th International
Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4) was
held in Sevilla, Spain.
·
The 4-day long conference brought together
more than 15,000 participants, including 50
Heads of State and Government.
·
The conference is organised once every 10 years by New York City based
United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN-DESA).
·
Union Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, led
the Indian delegation .
·
A new transformative EUR 4.26
Million ‘Resilient Remit’ initiative was officially
launched at FfD4. This new initiative aims to reduce remittance
transfer cost.
·
At the FfD4 conference, eight
countries, France, Kenya, Barbados, Spain, Somalia, Benin, Sierra
Leone, and Antigua & Barbuda, launched the ‘Aviation Solidarity
Coalition,’ aimed at imposing taxes on premium air travel, covering
first-class and business-class tickets as well as private jet flights.
2.
IRAN SUSPENDS IAEA COOPERATION
·
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian signed
a law suspending cooperation with the Vienna
(Austria) based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the
United Nations (UN) nuclear watchdog.
·
The suspension follows airstrikes by the
United States of America (USA) and Israel targeting Iranian nuclear facilities
at Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan.
·
The legislation was approved by Iran’s Parliament (Majlis).
·
It was then approved by the Guardian Council, Iran’s constitutional watchdog, before being
ratified by the President.
·
The
new law halts all IAEA inspections of Iranian nuclear installations
until Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) guarantees the security of
nuclear sites and scientists.
3.
MENTAL HEALTH AWARD 2025
·
SaimaWazed, Regional Director of
World Health Organisation (WHO) South-East Asia
Region (SEAR), was bestowed with the Mental
Health Award 2025 at the 24th Annual
International Mental Health Conference (IMHC) held at ICONSIAM, Bangkok
in Thailand.
·
SaimaWazed, daughter of former Bangladesh
Prime Minister (PM) Sheikh Hasina, officially assumed charge as Regional
Director for WHO-SEAR, one of the 6 WHO regions.
·
The 1st regional committee for WHO-SEAR
was established in November 1948, and WHO South East Asia
Regional Office (WHO-SEARO) is headquartered in New Delhi .
·
The committee comprises 11 member
nations from South-East Asia region: Bangladesh, Bhutan,
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, India, Indonesia, Maldives, Myanmar,
Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Timor-Leste.
4.
STAR ON HOLLYWOOD WALK OF FAME CLASS AWARD
·
California (USA) based Hollywood Chamber
of Commerce (HCC) announced that Indian actress Deepika Padukone will
be honoured with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame Class of 2026 in
the Motion Pictures category, making her the first Indian actress to receive this global
recognition.
·
The Hollywood Walk of Fame is a globally recognised sidewalk landmark,
featuring over 2,800 brass-and-terrazzo stars embedded since its establishment in 1960.
·
It honours personalities across five categories: Motion
Pictures, Television, Live Theatre/Performance, Recording, and Radio.
·
Before Deepika Padukone, the only
Indian-origin personality to be honoured on the Hollywood Walk of Fame was
actor Sabu Dastagir, who received a star in 1960 for
his contributions to early Hollywood cinema.
5.
INS TAMAL COMMISSIONED INTO INDIAN NAVY
·
Indian Naval Ship (INS) Tamal (F71),
a multi-role stealth guided missile
frigate, was commissioned into the Indian Navy (IN) at Yantar Shipyard
in Kalinigrad, Russia
·
INS Tamal is the last foreign-built major warship to be inducted into the IN
·
The ship is the eighth in
the series of Project 1135.6 (Talwar
class) and the second vessel in the follow-on Tushil-class of ships.
·
With a top speed exceeding 30 knot, the
125 metre (m) long, 3,900-tonne(t) frigate boasts a high tonnage-to-firepower
ratio, featuring cutting-edge Indian and Russian technologies.
6.
INDIGENOUS STEALTH FRIGATE ‘UDAYGIRI’
·
The Indian Navy (IN)
received the stealth frigate Yard 12652 (Udaygiri) from
Mumbai based Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Limited (MDL).
·
This is the second ship delivered
under Project 17A (P17A), which is the successor to
the Shivalik class (Project 17) frigates.
·
Project 17A involves constructing seven advanced
stealth frigates designed for operations in a blue water environment, capable
of countering both conventional and non-conventional threats.
·
The hull of Udaygiri is 4.54% larger than
the P17 frigates, improving stability and capacity.
·
It is designed to operate in a ‘Blue
Water’ environment, effectively countering both conventional and
non-conventional threats.
·
MDL is a public sector undertaking (PSU)
under the Ministry of Defence (MoD).
7.
INDIA’S PRIVATE SATELLITE BROADBAND SERVICE
·
Hyderabad (Telangana) based Ananth
Technologies Limited (ATL) is set to become India’s
1st private company to offer satellite communication (satcom)
services using an locally-built geostationary satellite to users
across the country.
·
ATL is
planning to deploy a 4-tonne Geostationary (GEO)
communication satellite that will offer a data capacity of maximum 100 Gigabits
per second (Gbps) to users across the country.
·
LEO
satellites like those used by Starlink, Amazon and OneWeb, have
an orbital period of 1 to 2 hours (hrs), which allows for low-latency
broadband.
·
GEO
satellites have an orbital period of 24 hours (hrs),
which makes it the preferred choice for high-speed broadband from space.
·
Indian National Space Promotion and Authorization Centre
(IN-SPACe) Headquarters- Ahmedabad, Gujarat.
8.
GLOBAL PEACE INDEX 2025
·
Syndey based Institute for Economics and
Peace (IEP), a global think tank, released
the 19th Global Peace Index (GPI) 2025.
·
India is ranked at 115th with
the score of 2.229 in the 2025 index, improving by
one position from 116th rank in 2024.
·
Iceland remains the most peaceful country with GPI score of
1.095 for 17th time in a row, while Russia
(163) ranked as the least peaceful country in 2025 with the score of 3.441
for the first time.
·
The 2025 GPI report assessed 163
countries.
·
Scores on the GPI range from 1, indicating
the most peaceful, to 5, indicating the least peaceful.
9.
INDIA’S PERCENTAGE OF ZERO-DOSE CHILDREN TO THE TOTAL
POPULATION: UN REPORT
·
The United Nations Inter-Agency Group for Child
Mortality Estimation (UN IGME) 2024 report revealed
that the percentage of zero-dose children in India,
those who have not received even a single vaccine, dropped from 0.11% in 2023
to 0.06% in 2024.
·
The world has achieved significant
progress in lowering child mortality, with the global under-five mortality rate declining by 52% since the
year 2000.
·
Yemen (1.68%), Sudan (1.45%), Angola
(1.1%), Afghanistan (1.1%), Nigeria (0.98%), Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)
(0.82%), Ethiopia (0.72%), Indonesia (0.23%), Pakistan (0.16%), have far more
zero-dose children compared to India’s (0.11%) during 2023.
·
India has achieved a 78%
reduction in the Under-Five Mortality Rate (U5MR),
surpassing the global average decline of 61%.
·
India reduced its stillbirth
rate by 60.4% over the same period, significantly outpacing the
global average decline of 37%.
10.
GLOBAL UNICORN INDEX 2025
·
Shanghai (China) based Hurun
Research Institute released the 7th edition of “Global
Unicorn Index ” report, in which India secured the 3rd rank globally with a total of 64
unicorns.
·
The United
States of America (USA) continued to be in the top position with 758 unicorns,
accounting for 49.8% of the world total number of
unicorns. It was followed by China in the index with 343 unicorns.
·
The index listed a total of 1523
unicorns (up by 5% compared to 2024) in the world, based in 52
countries.
·
The USA
led the count with 108 new unicorns, followed by China with 36, and the
rest of the world contributing 59.
·
SpaceX (USA), with a valuation of USD
350bn has become the most valuable
company in the world, overtaking ByteDance(China).
·
The Tiger global(USA) management
retains the crown of ‘world’s most successful unicorn investor’
followed by Softbank(Japan), and Sequoia capital(USA) ranking third.
·
San Francisco retained the title
of “World’s Unicorn Capital” with 199 unicorns (Up 9),
followed by New York (USA) with 142 (up 9), and Beijing(China) with 75 (down
3).
·
Bengaluru (Karnataka) at 7th rank leads the index among the
Indian cities, followed by Mumbai (Maharashtra) at
22nd and Gurugram (Haryana) entered the list for the
first time at 27th position.
11.
22ND SCO DEFENCE MINISTERS’ MEETING
·
The 22nd Defence Ministers’
Meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO)
took place in Qingdao, China. China’s is SCO's 2025
Chairmanship .
·
Theme “Upholding
the Shanghai Spirit: SCO on the Move.”
·
The event brought together defence
ministers from all 10 SCO member states.
·
India
declined to sign the final joint statement, citing
inadequate condemnation of cross-border terrorism.
·
SCO Secretary-General Nurlan Yermekbayev.
12.
F1 AUSTRIAN GRAND PRIX
·
Lando Norris, British Formula
1 (F1) driver representing McLaren Racing Limited,
clinched the 2025 Austrian Grand Prix (GP) held at
the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg, Styria.
·
Oscar Piastri secure 2nd spot.
·
Charles Leclerc of Ferrari, secured the
3rd spot.
