India formally joined the Paris Climate Change Agreement by submitting its instrument of ratification at UN headquarters in New York on Sunday - the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.
●    The instrument of ratification was deposited by India's permanent representative to the UN, Syed Akbaruddin.
●    By putting Gandhi seal on the climate deal, the country will now urge the global community to adopt 'Gandhian way of life to reduce their carbon footprints and protect the earth from adverse impact of climate change.
●    India will articulate its point vigorously during the next climate conference (COP22) at Marrakech in Morocco, beginning November 7.
●    Since European Union+ (28 nations) has also decided to submit its instrument of ratification on Tuesday.

Young filmmaker Katyayan Shivpuri, from Maharashtra, won the first prize at the Swachh Bharat Short Film Festival for his work Murga.
●    Information and Broadcasting Minister M Venkaiah Naidu awarded Katyayan with a certificate and a cash prize of Rs. 10 lakh.
●    The short film promoting the idea of clean India had Murga as the metaphor depicting the victims that citizens have made of themselves and of the children by not keeping the surroundings clean.
●    The second prize was shared by filmmakers Sudanshu Sharma, KVK Kumar and Akshay Danavale for their films Nahna Doot, Chembuku Moodindi (The Dying Vessel) and Sarkarmi Rati Wadho!,respectively. The third prize was awarded to six entries.

Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan will be the Chief Guest at the Republic Day celebrations on 26 January 2017. The Crown Prince has accepted the Indian invitation.
●    His visit will give a strong boost to the bilateral ties between the two nations in key areas like trade and security. 
●    This is his second visit to India, earlier he came on a three-day-visit in February 2016.
●    This acceptance of the invitation by Sheikh Al Nahyan, who is also the Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE armed forces, sends out an important message at a time when tensions between India and Pakistan are escalating. 
●    This can be treated as the masterstroke of the government, which is trying to isolate diplomatically over the issue of cross-border terrorism.
●    UAE is one of the closest allies of Pakistan and once the two nations along with Saudi Arabia recognised the Taliban government in Afghanistan.
 

The Swachh Bharat Week that began on the 25th of this month concludes today with Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh becoming the first States to declare all cities and towns in respective States as Open Defecation Free (ODF) and a few districts including Porbandar also declared ODF, on the 147th Birth Anniversary of Mahatama Gandhi which is also the second anniversary of Swachh Bharat Mission.
●    Porbandar, the native district of Mahatma and all the 180 cities and towns in Gujarat were today declared ODF in the presence of Union Minister of Drinking Water & Sanitation Shri Naredra Singh Tomar, Gujarat Chief Minister Shri Vijay Rupani at a special programme in Porbandar.
●    Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Shri N.Chandrababu Naidu declared all 110 cities and towns in the State as ODF at a programme in Tirupati.
●    Addressing the participants of the Porbandar programme through a video-link, Minister of Urban Development Shri M.Venkaiah Naidu said “Declaration of Porbandar district and other areas as Open Defecation Free today is an interim gift to Mahatma on the occasion of his birth anniversary today and the final gift of Swachh Bharat would be presented to Gandhiji on the occasion of his 150th birth anniversary on October 2,2019. The Mood of Developing India (MODI) being strongly for sanitation, Swachh Bharat Mission is becoming a people’s movement and Swachh Bharat will be realized with people leading the grand India Sanitation Alliance of all stakeholders”.
●    In a similar address to Tirupati programme, Shri Naidu urged the people to become ‘Swachhagrahis’ to make the country free from poor hygiene in the spirit of ‘Satyagrahis’ who won political freedom for the country under the leadership of Gandhiji. He said that Rs.186 cr has been sanctioned today for Andhra Pradesh for focusing on solid waste management in urban areas.
●    Shri Naidu complimented Chief Ministers, concerned Ministers, Mayors, Councilors, Municipal Commissioners, the people and all others concerned for making urban areas of Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh Open Defecation Free.
●    Speaking at a Short Film Festival on Sanitation, organized by the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting and National Film Development Corporation, Shri Naidu said “While Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi triggered interest of the people in Swachh Bharat, the Mission is a people’s movement and the credit for building Swachh Bharat would go to the people and all stakeholders including Chief Ministers, elected representatives of the people and others. Mind and body are inseparable like the Advaita. A clean mind resides only in a clean body. Clean individuals make clean environment. Individual actions result in collective effort needed for Swachh Bharat.”. He complimented young film makers who made 120 for making thought provoking short films on sanitation.
●    Shri Naidu also released a book ‘In the Footsteps of Mahatma : Gandhi and Sanitation’ published by the Publications Division of the Ministry of I&B. The book was authored by Prof. Sudarshan Iyangar, a veteran Gandhian.
●    On the last day of Swachh Bharat Week today, Shri Naidu also flagged off a Swachh Awareness Rally organized by NDMC. At a function, also organized by NDMC, Home Minister Shri Rajnath Singh administered Swachhata Pledge at Connaught Place.
●    A Postal Stamp on Swachhat was released today by Shri Venkaiah Naidu and Minister of Communications Shri Manoj Sinha in New Delhi.
●    405 cities and towns have so far claimed to have become Open Defecation Free along with 20,000 of the 82,000 urban wards in the country. Another 334 cities and towns would become ODF by March next year.
●    Maharashtra, Kerala, Himachal Pradesh, Mizoram and other North-Eastern States are on course to declare all urban areas as ODF soon.

West Bengal government has decided to install monorail from Budge Budge in South 24-Parganas to Ruby Connector in Kolkata. 
●    This was informed by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on 29 September 2016.
●    The 14-kilometre-long monorail route will connect Budge Budge to Ruby via Taratala, New Alipore and Prince Anwar Shah Road and will come up at a cost of 4216 crore rupees. 
●    This new service will also connect commuters to the proposed metro rail network between New Garia to Kolkata airport.
●    For execution of the monorail project, the state transport department will sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Burn Standard Company Limited. 
●    Burn Standard Company Limited will be funding the project and the state government will provide land for the purpose.
●    The Chief Minister said that there would not be any problem over land acquisition as minimum land would be required to construct pillars and elevated tracks would be laid connecting them.
 

The Indian Air Force proudly celebrates its 84th anniversary on 08 Oct 2016.     
●    A scintillating air display by various aircraft will be the hallmark of the Air Force Day Parade cum Investiture Ceremony at Air Force Station Hindan (Ghaziabad).  
●    Rehearsals for the air display will commence from 01st October 2016 (Saturday).  
●    The general area over which aircraft will be flying at low levels are Wazirpur bridge – Karwalnagar – Afjalpur -  Hindan, Shamili – Jiwana – Chandinagar – Hindan, Hapur – Philkua – Ghaziabad – Hindan
●    The air display will commence with flag bearing sky divers of famous AKASH GANGA Team dropping out of AN-32 aircraft in their colourful canopies, at 0800 hours.
●    The flypast would include the vintage aircraft, modern transport aircraft and frontline fighter aircraft. The ceremony will conclude at 1130 hours with a scintillating aerobatic display.
 

19 States and the Union Territory of Chandigarh were today rewarded with performance incentive for promoting urban reforms under Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) during 2015-16. While Tamil Nadu topped the list of performing States, Chandigarh headed the list of Union Territories.
●    Minister of Urban Development Shri M.Venkaiah Naidu felicitated the lead performers with mementoes and cheques during INDOSAN Conference in New Delhi. He said that the focus of reforms during 2015-16 was on e-governance, Double Entry Accounting, collection of user charges and municipal taxes, water and energy audit, single window clearences and the focus of reforms during 2016-17 is online building permissions in all the 53 million plus cities, replacement of old water pumpsets with energy efficient ones, reuse of treated water and urban flooding mitigation planning.
●    Reform incentive distributed to 20 States/UT was : Tamil Nadu (Rs.61.34 cr), Karnataka (Rs.29.92 cr), Odisha (Rs.10.27 cr), Telangana (Rs.10.73 cr), Kerala (15.00 cr), Chattisgarh (Rs.13.00 cr), Andhra Pradesh (Rs.13.62 cr), MP (Rs.33.45 cr), Gujarat (Rs.26.72 cr), Bihar (Rs.15.04 cr), Rajasthan (Rs.20.80 cr), Mizoram (Rs.1.63 cr), Maharashtra (Rs.45.57 cr), UP (Rs.63.47 cr), Jharkhand (Rs.7.28 cr), Himachal Pradesh (Rs.3.54 cr), Tripura (Rs.1.70 cr), West Bengal (Rs.24.89 cr), Goa (Rs.1.34 cr) and Chandigarh (0.69 cr).
●    Rs.400 cr was earmarked for reform incentive during 2015-16. 23 States/UTs applied to the Ministry of Urban Development. After verification of claims States/UT scoring 70% marks were identified for giving reform incentive. Haryana, Jammu & Kashmir and A & N Islands could not qualify

Top leadership of the country including the Prime Ministers, Chief Ministers and Ministers from States and Union Territories today signed a Declaration of Commitment to make India Open Defecation Free and Clean by 2019.
●    Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, Union Ministers and Chief Ministers of Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Chattisgarh, Goa, Haryana, Maharashtra and Goa besides Ministers from States and UTs signed the Declaration during the INDOSAN (India Sanitation Conference) here today. Other elected representatives from rural and urban local bodies, District Collectors, Municipal Commissioners also signed a similar Declaration.
●    Addressing the inaugural session of INDOSAN, Minister of Urban Development Shri M.Venkaiah Naidu said ‘’Largest ever mass mobilization is taken place under Swachh Bharat Mission. With people leading the India Sanitation Alliance, cleanliness in rural and urban areas has been mainstreamed with political leadership at various levels for the first time. 21st century India has to get free from illiteracy and LITTERATI people who throw litter in the open”.
●    Shri Naidu said “Mood Of Developing India”(MODI) over the last two years has been for a Clean India and after a  slow start, Swachh Bharat Mission has gained momentum over the last one year with good progress in implementation in both rural and urban areas.
●    The Minister informed that as on date 405 cities and towns have come to be Open Defecation Free and 739 would become ODF by March next year. 24 lakh individual household toilets have so far been built in urban areas and another 19 lakhs under construction. 20,000 of the 82,000 urban wards have become ODF. 90,000 community and public toilet seats have been built and another 1.29 lakh seats under construction.
●    11 institutions and organisations have been felicitated by Prime Minister for significant work to ensure cleanliness. These were: Chandigarh and Mysurr (Clean Cities in million plus population category), Gangtok (Cleanest Tourism Destination), Pune Municipal Corporation and SWaCH Cooperative Society(Best in Solid Waste Management), Rani Ki Vav, Patan, Gujarat (Cleanest Cultural Heritage Site), Surat Railway Station(Cleanest Station), Post Graduate Institute of Medical Research & Education, Chandigarh (Cleanest Hospital), Mandi district, Himachal Pradesh (ODF and Cleanest district in hilly areas), Sindhugurg district, Maharashtra (ODF and Cleanest district in plain areas) and National Cadet Corps, NCC(Exemplary nation-wide cleanliness activities)

Google will open a new 'Cloud Region' in Mumbai that will help the tech giant offer its cloud platform services to developers and enterprise customers in India.

●    Expected to be live in 2017, the local region in India will help make Google cloud platform services even faster for Indian customers, Google said in a statement.
●    The announcement was made at the Horizon event in San Francisco. However, the company did not disclose any financial details. 
●    The business-to-business (B2B) based Cloud services have also been re-branded as Google Cloud.
●    The move is expected to help the American company catch up with bigger rivals Microsoft and Amazon Web Services in the cloud marketplace in the country.
●    Brian Stevens, Vice President of Google Cloud said that by expanding to new regions, Google will be able to deliver better performance to customers.
●    The company has announced locations of seven new Google Cloud Regions -- Singapore, Sydney, Northern Virginia, Sao Paulo, London, Finland and Frankfurt -- that will come online through 2017, like the one in Mumbai.

The Indian aviation regulator has lifted the restriction on carrying the new Note 7 phone in aircraft. 
●    The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has said its September 9 order banning flyers from carrying Samsung Galaxy Note 7 in check-in bags and from switching them on or charging in flight does "not apply to Samsung Galaxy Note 7 purchased after September 15, 2016." 
●    The modified DGCA order issued on Wednesday draws a distinction between Note 7 sold before and after the mid-September date.
●    Those purchased before September 15 — on which restrictions remain — "have been recalled by Samsung and have white battery charge indication on their screen". 
●    The ones purchased after that date have "green battery charge indication on their screen and can be carried on board without any restrictions". 
●    The Note 7 is yet to be launched in India but DGCA's worry stems from the fact that people get these high-end phones from abroad ahead of India launch and then fly with them here.