current affairs 24 May 2022

Railway Ministry approves Rs 8.34 cr collaborative project with IIT Madras on Hyperloop technology.

• Union Minister of Railways, Communications, Electronics & IT Ashwini Vaishnaw approved a Rs 8.34 crore collaborative initiative on Hyperloop Technology, proposing high-speed transportation system, with the IIT Madras.
• Hyperloop works on a technology that would use magnetic levitation in low-pressure tubes to transport people and goods at airplane-like speeds.
• IIT Madras approached Ministry of Railways in March-2022 with a proposal for collaborative working on development of contactless pod prototype and development of first-of-its-kind Hyperloop Test Facility at its Discovery Campus.

National Geographic Society sets up world's tallest weather station on Mount Everest.

• A team of experts from the National Geographic Society has installed the world’s highest weather station on Mt. Everest at an altitude of 8,830 metres to automatically measure various meteorological phenomena.
• This automatic weather station was installed a few metres below the summit point (8,848.86 metres).
• The weather monitoring system, powered by solar energy, is supposed to measure various meteorological phenomena like air temperature, wind speed and direction, air pressure, change in surface height of snow, and incoming and outgoing short and long wave radiation.

Union Government appointed Gyanesh Bharti as Commissioner of Integrated Municipal Corporation of Delhi.

• The Centre appointed 1998 batch IAS officer Gyanesh Bharti as the new commissioner of unified Municipal Corporation of Delhi.
• The appointments will come into effect when the three municipal corporations of Delhi will be formally merged on May 22.
• The Municipal Corporation (Amendment) Act, 2022, will take effect on May 22.
• The Municipal Corporation of Delhi was trifurcated in 2011 when Sheila Dikshit was the chief minister of Delhi and the Congress-led UPA was in power at the Centre.

Goa Chief Minister launches 3 helicopter services to boost tourism.

• The Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant launched three helicopter services in Goa in association with BLADE India.
• State chief minister Pramod Sawant inaugurated the service at Aguada helipad in North Goa.
• BLADE has three landing points - North Goa (in Surla), South Goa and Old airport -- available to it for operating its services in the state, as per the company.

RBL Bank ties up with Amazon Pay to offer UPI payments.

• Private sector lender RBL Bank has tied up with Amazon Web Services (AWS)to offer UPI payments.
• The bank has partnered with Amazon Pay to offer peer-to-peer and peer-to-merchant transactions.
• The partnership will allow the bank to tap Amazon Pay’s growing customer base and transaction volumes.