A powerful typhoon damaged buildings, flooded roads and knocked out power to thousands of homes in South Korea today after battering islands in southern Japan and injuring dozens of people.

The Korea Meteorological Administration said typhoon Haishen was passing waters off the eastern coastal city of Sokcho today  after barrelling through South Korea's southern and eastern regions.

The typhoon was weakening, with its maximum winds measured at 108 kilometres per hour after blowing at 144 kilometres in the morning, and it was forecast to be downgraded to a tropical storm within 12 hours.

Japan's Fire and Disaster Management Agency said at least 38 people were injured, five of them seriously, after Haishen lashed southwestern Japan over the weekend with strong winds and rain. Schools and departmental stores were closed in Hiroshima and other cities in the country's southwest.

Countries across the world celebrate International Literacy Day today. International Literacy Day-2020 will focus on Literacy teaching and learning in the COVID-19 crisis and beyond with a focus on the role of educators and changing pedagogies. The theme will highlight literacy learning in a life-long learning perspective and  mainly focus on youth and adults.

This day was declared International Literacy Day by UNESCO on 26th October 1966 at the 14th Session of UNESCO's General Conference. It was celebrated for the first time in 1967 and its main aim is to highlight the importance of literacy to individuals, communities and societies.

Despite progress made, literacy challenges persist with at least 773 million adults worldwide lacking basic literacy skills today. According to the UNESCO’s ‘Global Monitoring Report on Education for All’ (2006), South Asia has the lowest regional adult literacy rate, at 58.6 per cent and the causes for this illiteracy range from severe poverty and the prejudice against women.

BCCI has announced the schedule for IPL 2020 to be held in UAE. The season will kickstart on 19th September in Abu Dhabi with a blockbuster clash between defending champions Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings. The action will shift to Dubai for the second game where Delhi Capitals will face Kings XI Punjab September 20. SunRisers Hyderabad and Royal Challengers Bangalore will also compete in Dubai on September 21, while Rajasthan Royals will host the three-time IPL champions CSK in Sharjah on September 22.

The evening matches of the tournament, which will be played in the United Arab Emirates, will start at 7:30 PM Indian time. There will be 10 double-headers, and the afternoon matches will begin at 3:30 PM.

Dubai will host 24 games, 20 matches will be played in Abu Dhabi while the remaining 12 matches are scheduled to be played in Sharjah.

The final of the tournament will be played on November 10. Venues for the playoff and the final are yet to be announced.

Metro services resumed this morning in different cities across the country after a gap of more than five months. These cities are Delhi, Lucknow, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad.

Secretary, Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs, Durga Shankar Mishra said that passengers will have to follow preventive measures against COVID-19 by maintaining social distance and wearing face masks.

In the first stage, Delhi Metro will operate in two shifts 7 AM to 11 AM and 4 PM to 8 PM. Normal operations will start from the 12th of this month. Metro Stations and entry-exit gates in containment zones will be closed. Only asymptomatic persons will be allowed to travel after thermal screening at entry into the stations. Sanitizers will be made available at entry points of stations for use by passengers.

In Chennai, the Metro Rail Services resumed this morning. Tamil Nadu Industries Minister MC Sampath inaugurated the services at 7 am by travelling by a train on Airport to Washermanpet route.

Teachers' Day is being celebrated throughout the country  today. The day is celebrated on the birth anniversary of educationist and former President Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan.

President Ram Nath Kovind will virtually confer National Awards to Teachers in New Delhi today. AIR Correspondent reports that Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank and Minister of State for Education Sanjay Dhotre will also be present on the occasion.

The national level awards are given to teachers on Teachers' Day to celebrate the unique contribution of some of the finest teachers in the country. President will honour 47 teachers, who through their commitment have improved the quality of school education.

The selected awardees have also enriched the lives of their students and community through various activities like improving enrolment and reducing dropouts, adopting joyful and experiential teaching-learning practices, promotion of nation building and national integration.

National Awards to Teachers will be broadcast live on AIR News, DD News and streamed live on https://webcast.gov.in/mhrd.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi interacted, with IPS Probationers during the Dikshant Parade Event at the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel National Police Academy (SVP NPA) on Friday, through video-conference.

131 IPS probationers including 28 Lady Probationers have completed 42 weeks of Basic Course Phase-I training at the Academy.

They joined the Academy on 17 Dec 2018 after completing their Foundation Course at Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration. Mussoorie and at Dr Marri Channa Reddy HRD Institute of Telangana. Hyderabad with other services like IAS, IFS etc.

During the Basic Course Training at SVP NPA, probationers are imparted training in various indoor & outdoor subjects like law, investigation, forensics, leadership & management, criminology, public order & internal security, ethics & human rights, modern Indian policing, field craft & tactics, weapon training & firing.

The Government has blocked 118 mobile apps including PUBG which are prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, Defence of India, Security of State and Public Order. The move will safeguard the interests of crores of Indian mobile and internet users. This decision is a targeted move to ensure safety, security and sovereignty of Indian cyberspace. The 118 banned mobile apps include PUBG MOBILE Nordic Map: Livik, PUBG MOBILE LITE, WeChat Work, WeChat reading, Cyber Hunter, LifeAfter and Warpath.
 
The decision to ban such Apps was taken by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology as it has received many complaints from various sources including several reports about misuse of some mobile apps available on Android and iOS platforms for stealing and surreptitiously transmitting users’ data in an unauthorized manner to servers which have locations outside India. The Ministry in a statement  said, the compilation of these data, its mining and profiling by elements hostile to national security and defence of India, which ultimately impinges upon the sovereignty and integrity of India, is a matter of very deep and immediate concern which requires emergency measures.
 
It said, the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre, of Home Ministry has also sent an exhaustive recommendation for blocking these malicious apps. It said, there have been similar bipartisan concerns, flagged by various public representatives, both outside and inside the Parliament of India. The Ministry said, there has been a strong chorus in the public space to take strict action against Apps that harm India’s sovereignty as well as the privacy of citizens.

The Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has given its nod to Mission Karmayogi - National Programme for Civil Services Capacity Building. The scheme will lay the foundation for capacity building for Civil Servants so that they remain entrenched in Indian culture while they learn from best practices across the world.
 
Mission Karmayogi aims to prepare the Indian Civil Servants for future by making them more creative, constructive, imaginative, innovative, proactive, professional, progressive, energetic, enabling, transparent and technology-enabled. Briefing media yesterday, Union Minister Prakash Javadekar said, the Karmayogi scheme will be the biggest Human Resource development programme of the government.
 
The institutional framework will consist of Prime Minister's Public Human Resources (HR) Council, Capacity Building Commission, Special Purpose Vehicle for owning and operating the digital assets and the technological platform for online training, and Coordination Unit headed by the Cabinet Secretary.

Today is World Coconut Day. The main objective of celebrating this day is to create awareness across the globe about the importance of the coconut and its benefits. The day is especially marked in countries under Asian and Pacific regions by the Asian and Pacific Coconut Community (APCC) as they house most of the world’s coconut growing production centres.
 
The first celebration of World Coconut Day was in the year 2009. The occasion is to commemorate the foundation day of APCC, which operates under the flagship authority of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UN-ESCAP). The theme of World Coconut Day this year is – ‘Invest in Coconut to save the world’.
 
In India, Kerala tops the production in coconut, but Tamil Nadu and Karnataka are also picking up in this sector. In Tamil Nadu, the annual production is around two crore 17 lakh nuts and the productivity is being further increased by such initiatives like the Integrated Coconut Plantation Scheme.
 
The National Coconut Board is also overseeing the production and development of value-added varieties from coconut like soft drinks, chips and jams.Handicrafts based on coconut shell and wood are also being given further encouragement. 

Coal India Ltd (CIL) will invest over 1.22 lakh crore rupees on development of nearly 500 projects related to coal evacuation, infrastructure, project development, exploration and clean coal technologies in the country. The investment aims at making India self-reliant in terms of coal and achieve the production target of 1 billion tonnes by 2023-2024.
 
Addressing a stakeholders meet organized by CIL, Coal and Mines Minister Pralhad Joshi said involvement of all concerned stakeholders in company’s affairs will reduce and uncover the project risks. He informed that the national miner, CIL, will be investing around 14 thousand 200 crore rupees over the next 3 to 4 years, in two phases for its 49 First Mile Connectivity projects. First Mile Connectivity is the transportation of coal from pitheads to dispatch points. Computer-aided loading technology of coal is being developed to replace the existing methodology of transportation via road.
 
Coal India has also identified 15 greenfield projects which will be operated under the Mine Developer and Operator (MDO) model. Overall nearly 34 thousand 600 crore rupees will be invested through this route. In the meeting, Coal India also announced an array of measures for relaxations and exemptions for greater participation of its stakeholders. The experience criteria has been brought down from 65 per cent to 50 per cent for mining tenders, while work experience criteria are relaxed by 50 per cent in turnkey contracts.