Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment Dr. Virendra Kumar today launched the 'SMILE: Support for Marginalised Individuals for Livelihood and Enterprise' initiative in New Delhi. The Initiative aims to make cities, towns and municipal areas begging-free and make a strategy for comprehensive rehabilitation of the persons engaged in the act of begging through the coordinated action of various stakeholders.

The Ministry has allocated a total budget of a hundred crore rupees for the project till 2025-26. Through the project, the Ministry envisions developing a support mechanism for holistic rehabilitation of those engaged in the act of begging and building an India where no person is forced to beg in order to survive and fulfill their basic needs.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will host all the medal winners of the Commonwealth Games 2022 at his official residence in New Delhi at 11 AM today. In the recently concluded Commonwealth Games 2022, Indian athletes have won 61 medals including 22 gold, 16 silver and 23 bronze.

Nearly 200 Indian athletes competed for medals across 16 different sports at the Commonwealth Games held in Birmingham from 28th July to 8th August. 

The 'Har Ghar Tiranga' campaign to encourage people bring the Tiranga home and hoist it to mark the 75th year of India's independence will kick off from today. The campaign initiated as part of 'Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav,' to commemorate India's 75th anniversary of independence will run till 15th August. The program envisages inspiring Indians everywhere to hoist the national flag at their home. More than 20 crore national flags have been made available to people since the announcement of the campaign.

In his Mann ki Baat programme last month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had appealed to people to strengthen the 'Har Ghar Tiranga' movement by hoisting or displaying the national flag in their homes from 13th August to 15th August. The idea behind the initiative is to invoke the feeling of patriotism in the hearts of the people and promote awareness about the tri-colour. Apart from houses, the flag will be hoisted in PSUs, local self-government bodies, government, educational institutions, commercial establishments and private firms. The flag can be displayed even in the night of 13th August and 14th August. 

Union Cabinet has approved continuation of Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana-Urban (PMAY-U) - Housing for All Mission up to 31st December 2024. Financial assistance is being provided for the completion of already sanctioned over 122 lakh houses till 31st March 2022. The scheme is one of the major flagship programmes being implemented by Central Government to provide all-weather pucca houses to all eligible beneficiaries in the urban areas of the country through States, Union Territories, and Central Nodal Agencies.

The continuation of the scheme based on the request of States and UTs upto 31st December 2024 will help in completion of already sanctioned houses under Beneficiary Led Construction, Affordable Housing in Partnership, and In-situ Slum Redevelopment verticals. Central Assistance approved since 2015 is two lakh three thousand crore rupees against 20 thousand crore rupees in 2004-2014.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi today noted people's enthusiastic participation in Har Ghar Tiranga Abhiyan. In a tweet, Mr Modi said, this spirit symbolizes the country's unity and integrity. He said, this spirit will take India to a new height in the Amritkaal.

He also shared a video where he interacted with youngsters on Rakshabandhan and gave them the Tricolor. Mr Modi said, it was an unforgettable Raksha Bandhan for him. The Prime Minister said, every Indian has a special bond with the Tiranga.  

On the occasion of the 150th Birth Anniversary of Maharshi Aurobindo and the 75th Year of  Independence, the Union Ministry of Culture is commemorating the life and philosophy of Shri Aurobindo by undertaking Spiritual Programmes in 75 prisons across the nation from today till 15th of this month.

The purpose of these programmes is to transform the lives of prison inmates through inculcation of the philosophy of Shri Aurobindo and by the practice of Yoga and Meditation.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said that there is a need for the transformation of life of inmates in jails through self-thinking and realization and prisons all across the country should organize programmes on the life of Maharishi Aurobindo so as to enable the inmates to embark upon a new journey of life.

The 13th Edition of the Indo-US Joint Special Forces exercise “Ex Vajra Prahar 2022” commenced at the Special Forces Training School at Bakloh of Himachal Pradesh yesterday. The Vajra Prahar series of joint exercise aims to share best practices and experiences in areas such as joint mission planning and operational tactics as also to improve inter-operability between the Special Forces of both the Nations. This annual exercise is hosted alternatively between India and the United States. The 12th edition was conducted at Joint Base Lewis Mcchord, Washington (USA) in October last year.

The Ministry of Defence in a statement said, this joint exercise is a significant step in strengthening the traditional bond of friendship between the special forces of both Nations as well as improve bilateral defence cooperation between India and the USA.

National Testing Agency has declared the final scores for Joint Entrance Examination- JEE (Main) - 2022 for  Paper -1 (B.E. and B.Tech.).

A total of 24 candidates have scored 100 percentile in the examination. National Testing Agency had  conducted the JEE  (Main) - 2022 for Paper- 1 in two sessions in Computer-Based Test  mode. The first session was conducted in June while the second one in the month of July. The examination was conducted at 622 Examination Centres in 440 cities including 17 cities outside India.

The examination was conducted in 13 languages namely Assamese, Bengali, English, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu. NTA has said that on account of using unfair means, results of five candidates have been withheld. NTA Score and Result for Paper 2-A (B.Arch.) and Paper 2-B (B. Planning) will be declared separately.

Cooperation Minister Amit Shah will e-launch the onboarding of cooperatives on the GeM portal in New Delhi today. With this, all eligible cooperatives will be able to start placing orders on the Government e-Marketplace (GeM) portal. National Cooperative Union of India (NCUI) has compiled a list of cooperatives with turnover and deposits of 100 crore rupees and forwarded this information to GeM for starting the onboarding process.

The Cooperation Ministry said, 589 cooperatives have been shortlisted as eligible for onboarding. NCUI has written to all cooperative federations and conducted virtual meets of national and state federations to apprise them about the benefits of the GeM portal.

The 13th Edition of the Indo-US Joint Special Forces exercise “Ex Vajra Prahar 2022” commenced at the Special Forces Training School at Bakloh of Himachal Pradesh yesterday. The Vajra Prahar series of joint exercise aims to share best practices and experiences in areas such as joint mission planning and operational tactics as also to improve inter-operability between the Special Forces of both the Nations. This annual exercise is hosted alternatively between India and the United States. The 12th edition was conducted at Joint Base Lewis Mcchord, Washington (USA) in October last year.

The Ministry of Defence in a statement said, this joint exercise is a significant step in strengthening the traditional bond of friendship between the special forces of both Nations as well as improve bilateral defence cooperation between India and the USA.

During the exercise, teams of both armies would jointly train, plan and execute a series of Special Operations, Counter Terrorist Operations, Air Borne operations in simulated conventional and unconventional scenarios in mountainous terrain.