current affairs 30 january 2022

Google to invest upto $1 Billion in Bharti Airtel to boost country’s digital ecosystem.

• Indian telecom company Bharti Airtel and Google have announced a long-term partnership agreement on January 28, 2022 to accelerate the growth of India's digital ecosystem.
• Under the deal, Google will invest USD 1 billion in Airtel.
• From the total investment, Google will invest USD 700 million to acquire 1.28 percent stake in Bharti Airtel Limited.
• The remaining USD 300 million will go towards multi-year commercial agreements with Airtel, including equipment made together by the two tech giants.
• The USD 1 billion funding is part of Google's USD 10 billion Google for India Digitization Fund launched in 2020.

India’s 1st Graphene Innovation Centre to be set up in Kerala’s Thrissur.

• This will be the 1st graphene research and development (R&D) incubation center in India.
• The project will be set up by Digital University Kerala (DUK) jointly with Center for Materials for Electronics Technology (C-MET).
• The estimated cost of the project is Rs 86.41 crore.
• Tata Steel Limited will be the industrial partner of the Centre.
• The new center will accelerate the development of the state in the knowledge industry sector.

Former finance secretary Subhash Garg pens book titled "The $10 Trillion Dream".

• Former Finance Secretary of India, Subhash Chandra Garg has announced his 1st book titled The $10 Trillion Dream.
• The book is due to hit the end of February 2022.
• The new book explores the critical policy issues that India is facing today and suggests reforms for it to become a US$ 10 trillion economy by the middle of 2030.
• It is published by Penguin Random House India (PRHI).

Global gold demand grew 10% to 4,021 tonnes in 2021.

• The World Gold Council (WGC) has informed in its Gold Demand Trends 2021 report that global gold demand grew by 10 percent to 4,021.3 tonnes in 2021.
• The total gold demand during 2020 stood at 3,658.8 tonnes.
• Meanwhile, India's total gold demand grew by 78.6 per cent to 797.3 tonnes in 2021 from 446.4 tonnes during 2020.

India's largest EV charging station inaugurated in Gurgaon.

• India's largest Electric Vehicle (EV) charging station was inaugurated at Sector 52, Gurugram on the Delhi-Jaipur National Highway on January 28, 2022.
• The charging station is installed and operated by tech-piloting company Alektrify.
• The new station has a capacity of 100 charging points for four wheelers.
• This includes 72 units as AC slow charger and 24 units as DC fast charger.
• Earlier, the largest EV charging station in India was located in Navi Mumbai, consisting of 16 AC and 4 DC chargers.