The Cabinet today approved the signing of guarantees for hosting FIFA Under-17 Womens' Football World Cup. Briefing media in New Delhi, Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Singh Thakur said, India will host the event from 11th to 30th October. The Football matches will be played in Navi Mumbai, Goa and Bhubaneswar. He added that teams from 16 countries will participate in the event. Mr. Thakur said, in 2017, India hosted the FIFA Under-17 Mens' Football World Cup.

Minister of State for Personnel, Pension and Public Grievances Dr. Jitendra Singh today launched Swachhata Portal for the Special Campaign 2.0. The campaign which is to begin on 2nd October is dedicated to Swachhata and reducing the pendency of work in Government offices.

On the occasion, Dr. Singh said,  the scope and mandate of Special Campaign 2.0 from 2nd October to 31st October 2022 has been expanded and all regional offices have been included in the campaign, apart from all Ministries, Departments  and attached offices. The Minister said, to date, more than 67 thousand  Sites have been identified by Ministries and  Departments for conducting cleanliness campaigns and it is likely to touch one lakh sites by the end of this month. Earlier, there were only six thousand sites in the first special campaign undertaken in October 2021.

The Election Commission today released a new digital publication ‘BLO e-Patrika’ at an interactive session held with Booth Level Officers BLOs spread across the States in India.

Over 350 BLOs joined through video-conferencing from the office of Chief Electoral Officers CEOs in States and UTs and 50 BLOs from the nearby states Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi joined the launch event physically in New Delhi.

The BLOs participated enthusiastically during the interaction with the Commission sharing their experiences, challenges they come across while performing their duties and success stories. Today's event was a first-of-its-kind direct interaction by the Commission with the BLOs across the country.

Union Cabinet has approved the inclusion of some castes of Chattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh in the list of Scheduled Tribes.

Briefing media in New Delhi, Tribal Affairs Minister Arjun Munda said, it was a long pending demand of these castes which has been fulfilled. He said the move will help them availing welfare benefits.
 
Cabinet also approved the signing of guarantees for hosting the FIFA Under-17 Women's Football World Cup.

Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Singh Thakur said India will host the event from 11th to 30th October. 

September 15, i.e, today is the last date for nominations for Padma Awards 2023. The online nominations or recommendations for the Padma Awards 2023 to be announced on the eve of Republic Day 2023, were opened on 1st May this year.

The nominations or recommendations for Padma Awards will be received online only on the Rashtriya Puruskar Portal,
awards.gov.in
.

Details in this regard are also available under the heading Awards and Medals on the website of the Ministry of Home Affairs
mha.gov.in
and on the Padma Awards Portal
padmaawards.gov.in

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said that the MoU signed between the Gujarat Government and the Vedanta-Foxconn Group for the manufacture of semiconductor will create a significant impact to boost economy and jobs.

In a tweet, Mr. Modi said, the MoU of 1.54 lakh crore rupees, is an important step towards India’s semi-conductor manufacturing ambitions. He said, this will create a huge ecosystem for ancillary industries and help the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises.

Minister of State for Science and Technology, Jitendra Singh has said that the first trial for Gaganyaan, India’s maiden human space mission, will be done by the end of 2023 or at the beginning of 2024.

He said the first test flight will be followed by sending a female-looking humanoid robot - Vyom Mitra to ensure that the final flight of Gaganyaan is flawless. Dr. Jitendra Singh said, on the basis of these two missions, our astronauts will go in the third mission.
With the launch of Gaganyaan, India will become the fourth nation in the world to launch a Human Spaceflight Mission after the US, Russia, and China. 

Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra and his Nepal counterpart Bharat Raj Paudyal held a bilateral meeting in New Delhi yesterday. The Foreign Secretaries reviewed the entire spectrum of bilateral cooperation between India and Nepal, including economic and commercial cooperation, enhancing connectivity, development cooperation, trade, culture, and people-people relations.
 
They noted the progress on many projects and initiatives announced during the recent visits of Nepal Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba to India in April this year and Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Nepal in May. Both Foreign Secretaries appreciated the recent progress in bilateral cooperation in power sector including through export of power from Nepal to India.

Union Health Minister Dr Mansukh Mandaviya will launch Raktdaan Amrit Mahotsav, a countrywide mega drive for voluntary blood donation from 17th September to 1st October this year. The special drive is a part of the Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav. 

The registrations for the Raktdaan Amrit Mahotsav have begun on the E-Raktkosh portal and Aarogya Setu app. 1st October is observed as the National Voluntary Blood Donation Day. 

Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) Startup Hub in collaboration with Meta will launch a  programme to support and accelerate XR technology startups across India.

This collaboration is part of the Government’s efforts for skilling in emerging and future technologies. Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar will launch the programme today. The world is looking toward India for supply technology, innovation, and talent to cater to the greater demand for digital products.

The MeitY Startup Hub is a national platform focused on promoting technology innovation, start-ups, and the creation of intellectual properties. Today, it has around more than three thousand tech startups supported, with a vision to ramp it up to more than ten thousand startups in the next three to five years.