Nayab Saini is new CM of Haryana

• Haryana BJP chief Nayab Singh Saini was sworn in as state’s new Chief Minister on March 12.

• Saini, the 54-year-old OBC leader, was administered oath by Governor Bandaru Dattatreya at the oath-taking ceremony held at the Raj Bhawan in Chandigarh.

• Saini is the sitting MP from Kurukshetra.

• Earlier, Manohar Lal Khattar resigned from the post along with his cabinet ministers.

• The switch in Haryana came amid the ruling BJP-Jannayak Janata Party (JJP) coalition coming apart. 

• JJP leader Dushyant Chautala was the deputy CM and there were two other members of his party in the Khattar-led government.

• Saini was a minister in the first Khattar cabinet. He was an MLA when he fought the Lok Sabha polls in 2019.

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Amitav Ghosh awarded Erasmus Prize 2024 

• Indian author Amitav Ghosh has been awarded the Erasmus Prize 2024 for his passionate contribution to the theme ‘imagining the unthinkable’ for bringing forth the global crisis of climate change through the written word.

• Author of the bestsellers such as ‘Sea of Poppies’, ‘The Nutmeg’s Curse’, ‘The Hungry Tide’, ‘The Great Derangement’ among others, Ghosh, 67, was awarded the prize by the Netherland’s Praemium Erasmianum Foundation.

• Born in Kolkata in 1956, Ghosh studied social anthropology at Oxford and divided his time between India and the US. He has won multiple prizes, including the 2018 Jnanpith Award, the highest literary prize in India.

Erasmus Prize

• The Praemium Erasmianum is a cultural institution active in the fields of humanities, social sciences and the arts. It was founded in 1958 by Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands. 

• The Foundation awards the annual Erasmus Prize and organises cultural and academic activities around the award ceremony. 

• The King of Netherlands is the patron of the Foundation.

• The Praemium Erasmianum Foundation derives its name from the Dutch humanist scholar Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536).

• The Erasmus Prize is awarded annually to a person or institution that has made an exceptional contribution to the humanities, the social sciences or the arts, in Europe and beyond. The award consists of a cash prize of €150,000. 

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Gorsam Kora Festival concludes in Arunachal Pradesh

• The Gorsam Kora Festival was held in Arunachal Pradesh’s Zemithang from March 7 to 10. 

• The festival symbolises the enduring friendship between India and Bhutan.

• The festival was celebrated at the Gorsam Chorten Stupa in Arunachal Pradesh’s Zemithang.

• The 93-foot-high Gorsam Chorten Stupa was built in the 13th century AD and is modelled after the Boudhanath Khasti Stupa of Nepal. 

• Zemithang village in the Tawang district is the last administrative division of India on the border with Tibet. It shares its western border with Bhutan. It is located close to the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with China.

• Thousands of devotees, including a large number of Bhutanese nationals, visit during Gorzam Kora festival to observe the virtuous occasion during the last day of the first month of the lunar calendar.

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Govt launches Khelo India Rising Talent Identification (KIRTI) programme

• Union Minister Anurag Thakur inaugurated Khelo India Rising Talent Identification (KIRTI) programme in Chandigarh on March 12. 

Aimed at school children between nine and 18 years, the nationwide scheme will have two main objectives: 

i) To hunt talent from every nook and corner of the country.

ii) To use sports as a tool to curb addiction towards drugs and other gadgetry distractions.

• As many as 50,000 applicants are being assessed in the first phase across 10 sports, including athletics, boxing, wrestling, hockey, football and wrestling. 

• KIRTI aims to conduct 20 lakh assessments across the country throughout the year to identify talent through notified Talent Assessment Centres.

Khelo India

• Khelo India – National Programme for Development of Sports was launched in 2016. The revamped Khelo India scheme was launched in October 2017.

• The scheme aims to infuse sports culture and achieve sporting excellence in the country and also to encourage sports all over the country thus allowing the population to harness the power of sports through its cross-cutting influence, namely, holistic development of children & youth,

community development, social integration, gender equality, healthy lifestyle, national pride and economic opportunities related to sports development.

The following verticals are implemented by the ministry of youth affairs & sports: 

i) Playfield development

ii) Utilisation and creation/upgradation of sports infrastructure

iii) Sports for peace and development.

The following verticals are implemented by Sports Authority of India (SAI):

i) State level Khelo India centres

ii) Annual sports competitions

iii) Talent search and development

iv) Sports for women

v) Support to national/regional/state sports academies

vi) Promotion of sports among persons with disabilities

vii) Promotion of rural and indigenous/tribal games

viii) Physical fitness of school going children.

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