• Ayushman Bharat call centre was formally inaugurated in Bengaluru by CEO  of Ayushman Bharat Dr. Indu Bhushan. This national call centre is operational since August 25.

• Axis Bank announced that Amitabh Chaudhry has been appointed as its managing director & CEO from January 1, 2019, for a period of three years.  Chaudhry will take the charge at India’s third largest private sector bank after incumbent Shikha Sharma steps down on December 31, 2018. Note: Shikha Sharma is the present CEO and Managing director of Axis Bank.

• Noted Odia poet Satrughna Pandav will be honoured with the prestigious ‘Sarala Puraskar’ for his poetry collection ‘Misra Dhrupad’.

• Naomi Osaka became the first Japanese woman to win a Grand Slam title after she registered a win over Serena Williams in the finals of the U.S Open. 

• In the US Open Tennis, Novak Djokovic of Serbia won the Men’s singles final.He defeated Juan Martin del Potro of Argentina.

• The Union Government has announced that the treatment of childhood cancer will be covered under Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana. Note: J.P.Nadda is the present Minister of Health and Family Welfare.

• The Reserve Bank of India has released amended Note Refund Rules for all notes which were introduced post note ban, or notes which were introduced as part of the Mahatma Gandhi New Series.  The Rs.2000 and Rs.200 (issued in November 2016 and September 2017 respectively) could not be governed by the old rules due to their difference in size. As per the new Reserve Bank of India (Note Refund) Amendment Rules, 2018, “the undivided area of the single largest piece of the note” for a damaged Rs.2000 note must be 88 square cm for a full refund, and 44 square cm for half refund. The Rs.2000 note is 109.56 square cm in dimension. For a damaged Rs.200 note, the criteria is 78 square cm for a full refund, and 39 square cm for half refund.

• Jack Ma,the charismatic co-founder of China’s largest e-commerce firm Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, will step down as chairman on Sept 10, 2019. Current Alibaba Chief Executive Daniel Zhang will replace him as chairman. Note: Jack Ma, who co-founded Alibaba in 1999, is one of China’s richest people with a net worth of $36.6 billion, according to Forbes.  

• Actress Aishwarya Rai was honoured with the Meryl Streep Award for Excellence at the Women in Film and Television (WIFT) India Award.

• Triple jumper Arpinder Singh has created history by becoming the first Indian to win a medal in the IAAF Continental Cup. At Ostrava in the Czech Republic, he clinched a bronze.

• India Blue thrashed defending champion India Red by an innings and 187 runs in the final to win the 57th Duleep Trophy at NPR College ground, in Dindigul, Tamil Nadu.

• The first ever mid-air refuelling of the indigenously developed light combat aircraft Tejas was successfully carried out, placing India in an elite group of countries having air-to-air refuelling capacity for military planes.

• BIMSTEC Military Exercise (MILEX-18),the first edition of Military Field Training Exercise for the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) nations, started at Aundh in Pune. Participating countries are Armies of India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Thailand. Nepal is not taking part in MILEX-18. Note: The BIMSTEC was formed in 1997 and it brings together Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Thailand.

• The first of its kind university in the country in the transport sector, the National Rail and Transportation Institute (NRTI), started operations. Currently, it is functioning out of the National Academy of Indian Railways, Vadodara.

• The 12 days long Indo-Mongolia joint exercise Nomadic Elephant-2018, commenced at Mongolian Armed Forces (MAF)Five Hills Training Area, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Exercise Nomadic Elephant is an annual, bilateral exercise since 2006 which is designed to strengthen the partnership between the Indian Army and Mongolian Armed Forces.

• India’s ace sprinter Hima Das was appointed as the first Sports Ambassador of Assam to inspire budding players of northeastern state to aim big and young generation to take up sports seriously. The announcement came after Hima Das recently became the first Indian woman to win gold at IAAF World U-20 Athletics Championships.

• For the first time,bus services between Bihar and Nepal have started.

• ‘Apsara’, the first research reactor in Asia became operational in Trombay campus of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in August 1956.

• Russia has launched its biggest military exercise since the Cold War named “Vostok-2018”,involving about 300,000 service personnel, in eastern Siberia. China is sending 3,200 troops to take part in “Vostok-2018”.

• HDFC Life appointed Vibha Padalkar as its new managing director and CEO for a period of three years. Note: HDFC Bank MD- Aditya Puri, Headquarters in: Mumbai.

• The Union Cabinet approved new Umbrella Scheme ‘Pradhan Mantri Annadata Aay Sanrakshan Abhiyan, PM-AASHA. The Scheme is aimed at ensuring remunerative prices to the farmers for their produce.

• To mark the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the launch of ‘Swachhata Hi Seva Movement’. The mission, which also celebrates the fourth anniversary of the Swaccha Bharat Mission will take place across the length and breadth of the country and will continue till Mahatma Gandhi’s 150th birth anniversary on October 2.

• The Union cabinet approved a proposal for the complete electrification of Indian Railways by 2021-22, reducing dependence on imported fossil fuel and saving revenue for the national carrier. Note: Piyush Goyal is the present Cabinet Minister of Indian Railways. Indian Railways is one of the largest rail networks in the world with 67,368 km of tracks and 22,550 trains that carry 22.24 million passengers and 3.04 million tonnes of freight every day.

• After launching the world’s largest mobile phone-manufacturing factory in Noida in July 2018, Samsung has now opened its biggest experience centre in Bengaluru, Karnataka.

• Hindi Divas is celebrated on 14 September because, on this day in 1949, the Constituent Assembly of India had adopted Hindi written in Devanagari script as the official language of the Republic of India. Under the Article 343 of the Indian Constitution, on 26 January 1950, Hindi, written in Devanagari script was adopted as the official language.

• The Union Cabinet of India has approved a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on the collaborative research of distributed ledger technology (DLT). The research will be jointly conducted by the Export-Import Bank of India (Exim Bank)and one bank from each BRICS member states.

• The President of India has appointed Justice Ranjan Gogoi as the next Chief Justice of India. He will assume the office of Chief Justice on 3rd October 2018 after the retirement of the current Chief Justice, Justice Dipak Misra.  Mr Gogoi is the 46th Chief Justice of India. Note: Justice Harilal Jekisundas Kania was the first Chief Justice of Independent India.

• Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya’s birthday is celebrated on 15 September as Engineer’s Day. Fondly referred to as Sir MV, M Visvesvaraya was a world-renowned civil engineer who was a master of irrigation design.

• The festival of Nuakhai is being celebrated in Odisha.

• The International Day of Democracy is observed globally on 15th September.  The theme for IDD is ‘Democracy under Strain: Solutions for a Changing World’.

• In an attempt to combat human trafficking, the West Bengal government has rolled out a scheme, Swayangsiddha, in different districts of the State. The scheme aims to empower young boys and girls to make informed choices so that they are less vulnerable to trafficking and child marriage. As the per the NCRB data, West Bengal has highest recorded case of trafficking among the States.

• For the first time in India,dog owners will have a dedicated dog park to visit. Set up in Hyderabad, the park is spread across an area of 1.3 acres.

• India ranks third globally in terms of number of family-owned businesses with 111 companies having a total market capitalisation of $839 billion.India closely follows China with 159 firms and the US with 121 firms.

• International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer was observed on 16th September throughout the world.The theme for International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer 2018 was ‘Keep Cool and Carry On: The Montreal Protocol’.

• PayU India has received Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) approval to operate its own non-banking financial company (NBFC).

• com Inc. founder Marc Benioff and his wife Lynne agreed to acquire Time magazine from Meredith Corp. for $190 million in cash.

• The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD)has approved Rs 65,634.93 crore loan so far to 93 prioritised irrigation projects under the government’s flagship scheme Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchai Yojana (PMKSY). Note: NABARD Chairman- Harsh Kumar Bhanwala, Headquarters- Mumbai, Established on-12 July 1982.

• NASA launched its Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite-2,known as ICESat-2, which will use an extremely precise laser to collect measurement data to track the Earth’s shrinking polar ice from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.The laser, known as ATLAS (Advanced Topographic Laser Altimeter System), splits into six beams and fires 10,000 pulses per second to collect very precise measurements for scientists to analyze.

• State-run Punjab National Bank (PNB)bagged the “Rajbhasha Kirti” award for outstanding performance in implementing the Official Language Policy during 2017-18. The award was given on the occasion of Hindi Diwas (14th September).

• Moutaz Mousa Abdallah has become Sudan’s new Prime Minister.

• Maldives have lifted the 2018 South Asian Football Federation (SAFF) Cup defeating defending champions India 2-1.

• The Delhi government signed an MoU on the’Friendship and Cooperation Agreement’  with the Seoul Metropolitan Government to work closely in the fields of environment, tourism, wastewater and solid waste management, infrastructure and public health.

• All-women crew of INSV Tarini has bagged the prestigious Tenzing Norgay National Adventure award for beating the odds in water with their enduring skills and sailing across the world for eight long months.

• The government has proposed amalgamation of Bank of Baroda, Vijaya Bank, and Dena Bank to create India’s 3rd largest globally competitive Bank. Note: Bank of Baroda Headquarters in  Vijaya Bank Headquarters in Bengaluru. Dena Bank Headquarters in Mumbai.

• The Union Cabinet has approved an ordinance making triple talaq a punishable offence. Though the ordinance has been cleared for now, it must be placed before the Parliament and the bill would still need to be passed.

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bangladesh counterpart Sheikh Hasina jointly launched the construction of India-Bangladesh Friendship Product Pipeline Project through video conferencing. The 130-kilometre pipeline will connect Siliguri in West Bengal in India and Parbatipur in Dinajpur district of Bangladesh. This will be the first such pipeline through which refined diesel will be supplied to Parbatipur depot from Numaligarh of Assam in India.

• A loan agreement for IBRD credit of US$74 million equivalent for the Uttrakhand Workforce Development Project (UKWDP)was signed between India and the World Ban The Project objective is to improve the quality and relevance of training at priority Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) and to increase the number of labor-market-relevant workers through short-term training in Uttrakhand.

• India and Sri Lanka signed an MoU for construction of a 5000-metric ton temperature controlled warehouse in Dambulla, Sri Lanka. The warehouse will be constructed with an Indian grant assistance of 30 crore Sri Lankan rupees.

• Germany has rolled out the world’s first hydrogen-powered train. The two Coradia iLint trains were built by French train-maker firm Alstom.

• Actors Varun Dhawan and Anushka Sharma have been signed on to promote and endorse the Skill India Mission, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Note: Dharmendra Pradhan is the present Minister of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship.

• Chairman and MD, JK Tyre & Industries Ltd., Dr Raghupati Singhania has been conferred with ‘Mexican Order of the Aztec Eagle’,the highest honour accorded to non-nationals by the Government of Mexico.

• The government has incorporated provision of penalties for States and Insurance Companies for the delay in settlement of insurance claims under the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY). According to the new guidelines, the farmers will be paid 12% interest by insurance companies for the delay in settlement claims beyond two months of prescribed cut-off date. State Governments will have to pay 12% interest for the delay in the release of the State share of subsidy beyond three months of prescribed cut-off date or submission of requisition by insurance companies.

• The Asian Paralympic Committee(APC) confirmed that Hangzhou in China will host the fourth edition of Asian Para Games in 2022. Note: The Third Asian Para Games- 2018 will be played in Jakarta, Indonesia.

• India’s first woman IAS officer after Independence, Anna Rajam Malhotra,who served in the Madras State under then Chief Minister C. Rajagopalachari and at the Central government, died in Mumbai.

• Tripura Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb inaugurated ISRO’s first Space Technology Incubation Centre (STIC) at the National Institute of Technology Agartala via remote from Bengaluru. Note: Headquarters of ISRO- Bengaluru, Karnataka.

• State-owned India Post Payments Bank (IPPB)and Private Life Insurer Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance Co Ltd (BALIC) entered into a strategic partnership to provide life insurance solutions, especially at the doorstep of every household in the country. Note: IPPB has begun operations with 650 branches and 3,250 access points across the country. IPPB CEO- Suresh Sethi.

• The government of India cleared the appointment of Chief Executive Officers and Managing Directors (CEOs and MDs) at 10 Public Sector Banks (PSBs).

1. Padmaja Chundru – Indian Bank.
2. Mrutyunjay Mahapatra – Syndicate Bank.
3. Pallav Mohapatra – Central Bank of India.
4. Packirisamy -Andhra Bank.
5. Karnam Sekar -Dena Bank.
6. SS Mallikarajuna Rao -Allahabad Bank
7. AS Rajeev -Bank of Maharashtra
8. Atul Kumar Goel -UCO Bank
9. S Harisankar -Punjab & Sind Bank.
10. Ashok Kumar Pradhan – United Bank of India