• The National Green Tribunal has formed a committee to submit a report on alleged violation of norms in the construction of a reservoir across the Cauvery river at Mekedatu in Karnataka.

• NGT bench consisting of Justice K Ramakrishnan took suo motu cognizance of newspaper report regarding the dam.

• Report states Karnataka proposes to construct a dam across Cauvery river even though proposal was deferred by Cauvery Water Management Authority twice in past because of opposition from Tamil Nadu government.

• The committee comprises of senior members from the Integrated Regional Office, MoEF, Bangalore, Cauvery Water Management Authority, Cauvery Neeravari Nigam Limited and the Forest Department not below the rank of Additional Conservator of Forest, Karnataka.

• GM Hou Yifan of China won the FIDE Chess.com Women's Speed Chess Championship.

• She beats GM Harika Dronavalli from by 15-13 in the final.

• Hou, a four-time women's world champion and the winner of the 2017 Biel tournament, added another prestigious title to her resume.

• Hou clinched the $20,000 first prize in a tight match where she won the final two bullet games.

• Harika won $12,000 for second place.

• United Arab Emirates (UAE) has become the first Gulf state to open an embassy in Israel.

• UAE embassy is situated in the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, Israel, followed by the inauguration of Israel’s embassy in the UAE last month.

• Normalisation of ties between UAE and Israel were discussed for the first time on trade and investment opportunities across various fields, including economy, air travel, technology and culture.

• Sudan and Morocco have since also moved to establish ties with Israel

• Mastercard, Mumbai Metro and Axis Bank announced the launch of ‘One Mumbai Metro Card’, to ensure contactless and cashless travel for Mumbaikars.

• It is a prepaid, open loop contactless card which can be used as a part of the daily transit journey with just a tap. With this solution, Mastercard has continued to contribute in changing the way India commutes and helping the transit eco-system go completely digital.

• This is a card that can be used for all daily purchases from food, groceries, medicines as well as tickets.

• Google Pay has tied up with a clutch of leading Indian banks to offer tokenized card services to customers on its UPI app.

• It has now added debit cards by SBI, IndusInd Bank and Federal Bank and Credit cards by IndusInd Bank and HSBC India to its tokenized offerings.

• It is a feature that enables users to make debit or credit card payments through a secure digital token attached to their phone.

• The network partner for these transactions is Visa.

• Goods and Services Tax (GST) is observed every year on 1st July to mark the roll-out of the historic tax reform.

• The date of July 1 has been designated by the central government as 'GST Day' in 2017 (this year is its fourth anniversary).

• During these years, several key policy initiatives were taken by the government to make the GST system and compliance mechanism simple, transparent and technology driven.

• The Goods and Services Tax (GST) is an indirect, multi-stage, comprehensive tax in India, imposed on the supply of goods and services.

• On roll-out, GST subsumed almost all the other domestic indirect taxes.

• Anindya Dutta, a banker turned author, penned a new book titled “Advantage India: The Story of Indian Tennis”, a chronicle of Indian Tennis.

• Advantage India is a well-researched account of the journey of Indian tennis, with a special section on the Doubles game and on women’s tennis in India.

• The book is published by Westland publications.

• The book provides the extensive history of Indian tennis on both men’s and women’s side.

• The book is the result of the detailed research of Anindya Dutta on the data from the archives of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and British newspapers from the past 200 years.

• Over the years, card payments in India have become popular and contactless cards like Visa’s payWave and Mastercard’s PayPass are also becoming mainstream.

• These contactless cards today are gaining a lot of traction. They are not only helping people make small transactions quickly but are also doing away with the need for PINs.

• Contactless cards are embedded with integrated circuits that can store and process data and communicate with a terminal using Near Field Communication (NFC) technology.

• These cards also have an antenna and magnetic strip embedded in the plastic that completes a transaction.

• Capital Small Finance Bank (formerly Capital Local Area Bank Ltd) is India's first small finance bank started its banking operations in April 2016 in Jalandhar, Punjab.

• The bank got the license of Small Finance Bank from Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in March 2016.

• Ambuja Cement Foundation has joined hands with National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) for implementation of its employability through skill initiative project’s second phase.

• The foundation received grant assistance from NABARD under the Gramya Vikas Nidhi, a fund created for the development of off-farm sector activities.

• The project will provide skill training across 19 locations for two years in 12 trades. It has already reached over 4,000 youth despite the pandemic, the foundation said in a statement.

• Besides skill training, the course also includes soft skills and leadership skills as part of the training module.

• On completion of training, the students will be provided with placement and hand-holding support post placement.