i. The Government on 25 August 2015 launched a health service called SEHAT (Social Endeavour for Health And Telemedicine) along with Apollo Hospitals, which will connect 60,000 Common Service Centres (CSCs) across the country to a common network.

ii. This will provide healthcare access to millions of citizens irrespective of geographical location or connectivity through the CSCs. The Minister for Communications and IT, Ravi Shankar Prasad, who inaugurated the service, said quality and affordable healthcare is one of the emerging needs of citizens in rural areas

i. Justice Madanlal Laxmandas Tahaliyani has sworn-in as the new Lokayukta of Maharashtra. He was administered the oath of office by the Governor Vidyasagar Rao at the oath taking ceremony held in Raj Bhavan in Mumbai.

ii. Justice Tahaliyani will succeed Justice PB Gaikwad whose term as Lokayukta had ended on July 2014. He is a retired judge of the Bombay High Court.

i. YES Bank co-founder Rana Kapoor has got approval from the Reserve Bank of India for his re-appointment as MD and CEO of the bank for 3 years.

ii. This will be with effect from September 1, 2015.

iii. With reference to above, pursuant to the approval of the board of directors and the approval of shareholders at the 11th AGM held on June 6 2015, YES BANK has received approval from the Reserve Bank of India for re-appointment of Mr Rana Kapoor as MD & CEO for a period of three (3) years.

i. Bandhan Financial Services, on 23 August 2015 started operations as a SCB and it will be called as Bandhan Bank. The banking services were inaugurated by the Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in Kolkata.

ii. With this, Bandhan became the first micro finance company in the country to start operations as a full-fledged commercial bank. It is also the first commercial bank from Eastern India to get RBI clearance since independence.

i. Delhi Jal Board (DJB) on 23 August 2015 commissioned the first ever Hydro-power plant in the city. The power plant set up at Chilla area of east Delhi will be run through the Hydraulic Turbine propelled by treated effluents coming out of a Sewerage Treatment Plant.

ii. An official release said that the treated effluents will fall through the height of 4.8m and create pressure and velocity that will propel rotation of the turbine thereby generating power. It is a Pilot Project which has been set up free of cost and will produce 20000 KWH of electricity per year.

iii. The release also termed the technology as pollution free, as no fossil fuel is being used in the generation of the power.

i. A Syria-based woman journalist Zaina Erhaim won the prestigious 2015 Peter Mackler Award for Courageous and Ethical Journalism.

ii. She was bestowed with this award for her efforts to train citizen reporters in her war-ravaged country. She has trained about 100 citizen reporters (third of them are women) from inside Syria over the last two years. She also has helped in establishing new, independent newspapers and magazines in the war-torn country.

i. Veteran actor-director Amol Palekar has been appointed as chairman of India’s Oscar jury, which will select the country’s official entry in the best foreign film category of the 88th Academy Awards.

ii. The “Gol Maal” star, 70, whose film “Paheli” was India’s official entry for the Academy Awards in 2005, will be heading the 17-member jury.

1. Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka has set a Guinness World Record for spending longest time in space with a total of 804 days as on July 2015. With this he broke the previous record of 803 days, nine hours and 41 minutes set by Russian cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev (now retired) across six missions from 1998 to 2005.
2. Gennady Padalka was selected as a cosmonaut candidate at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in 1989.
3. Currently, he is the commander of the International Space Station (ISS) which is orbiting the Earth. He is associated with ISS from 2000 and had taken part in various space expeditions.
4. Padalka is going to return to Earth in September 2015. When he will return to Earth, he would have spent record total 877 days or around 2.5 years in space.

1. India today bagged the full membership of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) along with Pakistan.
2. Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated Pakistan on joining the SCO.

Modi is on a three-day visit to Russia to attend the BRICS and SCO summits

3. Indian PM Narendra Modi has accepted an invitation from his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif to attend a regional summit in Islamabad next year.

1. Defence PSU Bharat Electronics made Akash inducted into Indian Air Force.
2. BEL, the nodal agency and supplies major sub-systems, today at a ceremony held at Air Force Station, Gwalior, handed over the missile system.
3. Akash is a great success story of the ‘Make in India’ initiative and Bharat Electronics Limited is proud to be a part of it. Barring a few electronic components, every bit of Akash has the ‘Made in India’ tag. Almost 92 per cent of the total cost of inputs is sourced within India.
4. The induction of Akash into the Indian Air Force was marked by the symbolic handing over of the ‘key’ of the weapon system by S K Sharma, Chairman and Managing Director, BEL, to the Defence Minister, Manohar Parrikar, who in turn handed over the key to Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha, Chief of the Air Staff. S Christopher, Director General, DRDO, was present. The ceremony was also attended by senior dignitaries of the Ministry of Defence, Indian Air Force, DRDO and Defence PSUs.