Wider acceptance and adoption of digital payments will play a key role towards financial inclusion, according to the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI’s) recommendation for sustainable financial inclusion during 2019-20.

Along with traditional banking outlets, payments banks, small finance banks, co-operative banks and other non-bank entities such as fertilizer shops, fair price shops, should also promote efficiency and transparency through digital transactions, the banking regulator said in the National Strategy for Financial Inclusion (NSFI) report on Friday.

The report has called for increasing outreach of banking outlets of scheduled commercial banks, payment banks, among others to provide banking access to every village within a 5 km radius of 500 households in hilly areas by March 2020.

The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), has launched paperless licensing process for road tankers for transportation of petroleum. This is a significant move towards paperless and green India that will provide simpler mechanism, ease of living and business to the petroleum road tanker owners.
 
Moving towards digitization, the process will include filing the applications online. Applicants, at each stage of processing of the application, will be intimated via SMS and email, whether discrepancy or grant of licence or approval.
AIR correspondent reports, this extraordinary and forward looking initiative is directly going to benefit more than one lakh petroleum road tanker owners.

Gymnasts Priyanka Dasgupta and Jatin Kumar Kanojia grab spotlight with all-around gold medals at day one of Khelo India Youth Games 2020 in Guwahati yesterday. Tripura's Priyanka Dasgupta clinched the three gold medals and girls Under-17 all-around crown in gymnastics. Daughter of a driver, Priyanka missed out on a podium finish in last games at Pune by a mere 0.05 points. Jatin Kumar Kanojia of Uttar Pradesh also claimed the boys Under-17 all-around crown with two gold medals. Asmi Ankush Badade and Shreya Pravin Bhangale made it a 1-2 for Maharashtra in the girls Under-17 rhythmic gymnastics all-around competition, but it was the self-taught Upasha Talukdar who captured the hearts of the capacity crowd by winning a bronze, Assam's first medal in the Games.
     
Tripura is leading the medal tally with three gold, Maharashtra is on second position with 9 medals including two gold and Uttar Pradesh settle for third spot wining two gold with total five medals.
     
On the second day of games today there would be several events including archery, athletes, gymnastics,  judo, kabaddi, shooting, table tennis and volleyball.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah today inaugurated the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) and also dedicated National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal to the nation today. This state-of-the-art Centre is located in New Delhi. The scheme to set up I4C was approved in October 2018 at an estimated cost of around 416 crore rupees to deal with all types of cyber-crimes in a comprehensive and coordinated manner. At the initiative of Home Ministry, 15 States and UTs have given their consent to set up Regional Cyber Crime Coordination Centres.

On the other hand, National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal (www.cybercrime.gov.in) is a citizen-centric initiative that will enable citizens to report cyber-crimes online through the portal. All the cyber-crime related complaints will be accessed by the concerned law enforcement agencies in the States and Union Territories for taking action as per law.

Embassy of India in Beijing celebrated the Pravasi Bhartiya Diwas today.

The event saw huge participation by enthusiastic Indian diaspora in China. Addressing the gathering, Ambassador Vikram Misri said there are various initiatives put in place by government to connect Pravasis more closely with their motherland to get benefitted from their knowledge and expertise.

He urged the Indian community in China to be in touch with the Embassy by registering themselves. Indian community also presented some cultural programs durign the event and showcased the activities taken up by them round the year.

The gathering also listened to the live address by the External Affairs Minister Dr. S. Jaishankar through video conferencing from New Delhi.

Today is World Hindi Day. The day is commemorated every year with the objective to promote use of Hindi language abroad. Special functions are being organized to mark the occasion. On this day in 2006, the First World Hindi Conference was organized in Nagpur to promote the language worldwide. Since then 10th January is being observed as World Hindi Day.

Ministry of External Affairs and Indian Missions abroad are observing the day annually. Extending his best wishes to citizens on the occasion, Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar said, Hindi and Indian languages are very beautiful. He said, their use on web and mobile is increasing.

The RBI on Thursday amended the KYC norms allowing banks and other lending institutions regulated by it to use Video based Customer Identification Process (V-CIP), a move which will help them onboard customers remotely.

The V-CIP, which will be consent-based, will make it easier for banks and other regulated entities to adhere to the RBI's Know Your Customer (KYC) norms by leveraging the digital technology.

"… with a view to leveraging the digital channels for Customer Identification Process (CIP) by Regulated Entities (REs), the Reserve Bank has decided to permit V-CIP as a consent based alternate method of establishing the customer's identity, for customer onboarding," the RBI said in a circular.

The stage has been set for the grand inauguration of the third Khelo India youth games at Guwahati in Assam today. Chief Executive Officer of the games, Avinash Joshi said, all preparations have been made for the inaugural ceremony.

Chief Minister Sarbanand Sonowal, Union Sports minister Kiren Rijjju and several star players would grace the opening ceremony. Entries are free for the entire event including the opening and closing ceremonies. 

Census India-2021 will begin on 1st of April this year and will end on 30th of September. Census India-2021 will be conducted through a mobile phone application, moving away from the traditional pen and paper.  

Enumerators of the census will seek the information of mobile number of the head of the family, information related to toilets, TV, Internet, vehicles owned, source of drinking water besides asking other questions during the house listing phase of the exercise.

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs has approved a Capital Grant as the Viability Gap Funding to Indradhanush Gas Grid Ltd for setting up the North East Natural Gas Pipeline Grid.

This viability gap funding would be capped at 60 per cent of the estimated cost of 9,265 crore (including interest during construction) for the project. “The quantum of VGF would be capped at 60 per cent of the estimated project cost and would not be linked with upward capital cost variation,” an official statement said.

“A total of 5,559 crore has been earmarked as VGF. As per the plan, a 1,656-km gas pipeline grid would connect the eight states of the North-Eastern region, namely, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura,” Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas, Dharmendra Pradhan said.