The government has  announced that 15 more companies, including Adani Copper Tubes, LG Electronics India, have been selected under the 2nd round of the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme in White Goods.

After evaluation of the 19 applications received in the second round, 15 applicants with committed investment of Rs 1,368 crore have been chosen, an official statement said. "These include six for manufacturing ACs components with committed investments of Rs 908 crore and nine for LED Lights components with committed investments of Rs 460 crore."

These 15 companies will have total production worth Rs 23,960 crore over five years and generate additional direct employment of 4,300 persons, according to the statement.

In November last year in the first round, 42 firms, including Daikin, Panasonic, and Havells, with a committed investment of Rs 4,614 crore were selected.

Applicants provisionally selected for the scheme in the second round include Adani Copper Tubes (with committed investment of Rs 408 crore), LG Electronics India (Rs 300 crore), Mitsubishi Electric India and Kaynes Technology India (Rs 50 crore each), Jindal Poly Films (Rs 360 crore), Sahasra Semiconductors Pvt Ltd (Rs 20 crore), Wipro Enterprises (Rs 12 crore), and Crompton Greaves Consumer Electricals (Rs 10.15 crore) among others.

"The PLI Scheme on White Goods is designed to create a complete component ecosystem for Air Conditioners and LED Lights Industry in India and make India an integral part of the global supply chains," says the statement by the government.

"The Scheme extends an incentive of 6% to 4% on reducing basis on incremental sales for a period of five (5) years subsequent to the base year and one year of gestation period. Domestic Value Addition is expected to grow from the current 15-20% to 75-80%."

The Union Cabinet had given approval to the Production Linked Incentive Scheme for White Goods on 7th April 2021, to be implemented from FY 2021-22 to FY 2028-29 with an outlay of Rs 6,238 crore.

Altogether, the centre informs, 61 applicants approved in both the Rounds are expected to bring investments in component manufacturing eco-system of ACs and LED Lights industry to the tune of Rs 6,632 crore and generate approx. 46,707 direct employment opportunities.

Skipper Chamari Athapaththu struck a counter-attacking 48-ball 80 as Sri Lanka outplayed India by seven wickets in the third and final T20I to avoid a whitewash  in  Dambulla  on june 28 .

The 32-year-old Chamari smashed 14 boundaries and one six and in the process became the only cricketer from the island nation to get to the 2000-run mark in T20Is.

Tillakaratne Dilshan (1889) is the highest run-scorer among the male cricketers from Sri Lanka.

Chasing a modest 139 to avoid a clean sweep by the Indians, Sri Lankan batting finally came good as the hosts hunt down the target with three overs to spare to claim a consolation win.

The three-match T20I series thus ended 2-1 in favour of India

Ace sprinter Sekar Dhanalakshmi ran her personal best time to win 200m gold at the Qosanov Memorial Athletics Meet while the likes of shot putter Tajinderpal Singh Toor and javelin thrower Rohit Yadav returned to India without competing in the event  in Almaty  on june 27.

Dhanalakshmi ran a creditable sub-23 second, clocking 22.89s to better her earlier personal best of 23.14s she had come up last year.

She had won a 200m gold in the national Inter-Sate Championships in Chennai earlier this month with a time of 23.27s.

She missed the automatic qualification mark of 22.80s for World Championships (July 15 to 24) in Oregon, USA, but will have to see if she can make it to the showpiece through world ranking quota.

The World Championships qualification deadline ends on june 27  midnight.

Dhanalakshmi is only the third Indian woman to run sub-23s after national record holder Saraswati Saha (22.82s) and Hima Das (22.88s).

Another Indian Dutee Chand was third with a time of 23.60s.

Olympic and World Cup medallist Varinder Singh, who was an integral part of some of India's memorable victories in the 1970s, died in Jalandhar on june 28.

Singh was 75. He was part of the gold-medal-winning Indian team at the 1975 men's Hockey World Cup in Kuala Lumpur. This remains India's only gold medal at the prestigious tournament where the country had beaten arch-rivals Pakistan 2-1 in the final.

Singh was also part of the bronze medal-winning team at the 1972 Munich Olympics and the silver medal at the 1973 World Cup in Amsterdam. He also had to his credit a silver medal at the 1974 and 1978 Asian Games, respectively. The Indian hockey stalwart was also featured in the 1975 Montreal Olympics.

In 2007, Varinder was conferred with the prestigious Dhyan Chand Lifetime Achievement Award.

Q1. Name the country which has banned the entry of wife and daughter of US President Joe Biden ?

1. North Korea
2. Russia
3. Yemen
4. Iran
5. None of These

Q2. Name the billionaire realtor and industrialist and Chairman Emeritus of the venerable Shapoorji Pallonji Group who  passed away recently ?

1. Cyrus P. Mistry
2. Noel Tata
3. Ratan Tata
4. Pallonji Shapoorji Mistry
5. None of These

Q3. Name the senior journalist and co-founder of the popular fact-checking website Alt News who has been  arrested for allegedly hurting religious sentiments?

1. Mohammed Shahid
2. Nehal Kidwai
3. Mohammed Zubair
4. Saeed Ansari
5. None of These

Q4. In which year was the Banking Regulation Act passed?

1. 1949
2. 1955
3. 1959
4. 1969
5. None of These

Q5. When did the National Bank of Agriculture and Rural Development establish?

1. July, 1982
2. July, 1969
3. June, 1951
4. June, 1961
5. None of These

Answers

1----------------------------2   Russia

2----------------------------4   Pallonji Shapoorji Mistry

3-----------------------------3    Mohammed Zubair

4------------------------------1     1949

Senior TMC leader Mukul Roy on june 27  submitted his resignation as chairman of Public Accounts Committee in West Bengal Assembly to Speaker Biman Banerjee citing ill health.

Roy, who won the Krishnanagar Uttar constituency in Nadia district on a BJP ticket in the state election last year, had defected to the ruling Trinamool Congress in the state just a month later in June 2021.

He did not, however, resign as a legislator despite being asked to do so by the saffron party.

The speaker had appointed Roy as PAC chairman in July last year, while the opposition BJP had wanted its MLA Ashok Lahiri to head the committee.

The Indian Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe) has started authorising Indian private firms, marking the beginning of private space sector launches in India.

IN-SPACe is an autonomous, single window nodal agency; formed to promote, authorise, monitor and supervise the space activities of Non-Governmental Private Entities (NGPEs) in India.

Dhruva Space Pvt.Ltd., Hyderabad and Digantara research & technologies Pvt.Ltd. Bengaluru, were authorised by IN-SPACe on June 24 to launch their payloads.

Dhruva Space's Dhruva Space Satellite Orbital Deployer – (DSOD 1U), a technology demonstration payload, and Digantara's ROBust Integrating Proton Fluence Meter (ROBI), a Proton dosimeter payload, were authorised, an IN-SPACe statement said.

The payloads would fly onboard PSLV Orbital Experimental Module (POEM) of PSLV-C53 scheduled to be launched on June 30.

Dhruva Space is a space technology start-up focused on building full-stack space engineering solutions, involved in building application-agnostic satellite platforms.

Digantara research and technologies is engaged in development of end-to-end solutions focused on safe and sustainable space operations through its Space Situational Awareness sensor network, platform and data products.

PSLV-C53 is the 55th mission of ISRO's scheduled to be launched on June 30 at 18:00 hours IST from Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota.

Digantara will launch a weather satellite which will be used for weather monitoring from space using their patented technology.

Dhruva Space  will test its Satellite deployer technology which in future can be deployed for international customers.

Meanwhile, National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC), ISRO, has organised a three-day training course on 'Bhuvan' portal utilisation.

Bhuvan is a Geoportal platform of ISRO.

V Krishnamurthy, a former chairman of steel PSU SAIL and Maruti Udyog Ltd (now Maruti Suzuki), passed away on june 26  at the age of 97 in Chennai.

V Krishnamurthy was the chairman of SAIL from 1985 to 1990.

He was Chairman of many other PSUs also.

The industry veteran had also been the chairman of Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL), Maruti Udyog and GAIL.