Mother Teresa on 4 September 2016 was proclaimed a Saint by Pope Francis in a ceremony at the Vatican.
Thousands of pilgrims attended the canonization of Mother Teresa in St Peter's Square.
During the ceremony, Pope Francis announced “We declare and define Blessed Teresa of Calcutta to be a saint and we enroll her among the saints, decreeing that she is to be venerated as such by the whole Church."
With this, Mother Teresa became the fourth Indian to be made saint. Those who received the honour before her include Father Kuriakose Elias Chavara, Sister Euphrasia and Sister Alphonsa. Saint Gonsalo Garcia, though of Portuguese parentage, was born in India, and is considered an India born saint.
•    Originally, individuals were recognized as saints without any formal process.
•    Later, different processes, such as those used by the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church were developed.
•    • There are four steps to canonization that the saints have to go through: Servant of God   →   Venerable   →   Blessed   →   Saint
•    After Mother Teresa's death in 1997, the Holy See began the process of beatification, the first step towards possible canonisation. This process required the documentation of a miracle performed from the intercession of Mother Teresa.
•    In 2002, the Vatican recognised as a miracle the healing of a tumour in the abdomen of an Indian woman, Monica Besra, after the application of a locket containing Mother Teresa's picture. Besra said that a beam of light emanated from the picture, curing the cancerous tumour.
•    Mother Teresa was beatified on 19 October 2003, becoming known by Catholics as "Blessed."
•    On 17 December 2015, the Vatican confirmed that Pope Francis had recognised a second miracle attributed to her, involving the healing of a Brazilian man with multiple brain tumours.
•    Saint Teresa of Calcutta was an Albanian-Indian Roman Catholic nun and missionary.
•    After having lived in Macedonia for eighteen years, she moved to Ireland and then to India, where she lived for most of her life.
•    In 1950, Teresa founded the Missionaries of Charity, a Roman Catholic religious congregation.
•    In 2012, the Missionaries of Charity consisted of over 4500 sisters and was active in 133 countries.
•    The Missionaries of Charity run homes for people dying of HIV/AIDS, leprosy and tuberculosis, soup kitchens, dispensaries and mobile clinics, children's and family counselling programmes,  orphanages and schools.
•    In 1962, she won the Ramon Magsaysay Peace Prize.
•    In 1979, she was honoured with the Nobel Peace Prize.

Union Government on 3 September 2016 approved the use of Pelargonic Acid Vanillyl Amide (PAVA) as an alternative to pellet guns for crowd control. 
•    Pellet guns will be used in the rarest of rare cases.
•    Pelargonic Acid Vanillyl Amide (PAVA) also called Nonivamide is chilli-based ammunition that is less lethal and immobilises the target temporarily. 
•    The shells actually contain an organic compound found in natural chilli.
•    The PAVA shells were under trial for over a year at the Indian Institute of Toxicology Research, a Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) laboratory in Lucknow.
•    Earlier in July 2016, the Home Ministry constituted a seven-member Expert committee headed by TVSN Prasad for exploring the other possible alternatives to pellet guns as non-lethal weapons. 
•    The Committee submitted its report to the Ministry recommending use of PAVA shells as an alternative. 
•    The Kashmir Valley is witnessing unrest following the killing of a Hizbul Mujahideen militant Burhan Wani on 8 July 2016.

Chennamaneni Vidyasagar Rao, Governor of Maharashtra, was sworn in as the acting Governor of Tamil Nadu on 2 September 2016 as the tenure of K. Rosaiah ended on 31 August 2016.
•    Rao was administered oath of office by the Madras High Court's Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul at the Raj Bhavan, Chennai.
•    Chennamaneni Vidyasagar Rao is the present Governor of Maharashtra.
•    He took oath as the Governor on 30 August 2014.
•    Previously, he served as the Union Minister of State for internal affairs in the Vajpayee-led BJP Government from 1999.
•    He was elected to 12th and 13th Lok Sabha from Karimnagar in Telangana as a Bharatiya Janata Party candidate.
 

After winning two consecutive assembly polls in West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee on Friday added yet another feather to her cap with her Trinamool Congress being extended the 'national party' status by the Election Commission.
•    Sources in the poll panel, quoting an order, said Trinamool Congress has satisfied one of the conditions mentioned in the Election Symbols (Reservation and Allotment) Order, 1968 to be recognized as a national party — having being recognized as a state party in at least four states.
•    It is a recognized state party in West Bengal, Manipur, Tripura and Arunachal Pradesh.
•    Now, India has seven recognized national parties — Congress, BJP, BSP, CPI, CPM, NCP and All India Trinamool Congress.
•    Recognition as a national or a state party ensures that the election symbol of that party is not used by any other political entity in polls across India. 
•    Other registered but unrecognized political parties have to choose from a pool of "free symbols" announced by the commission from time to time.

With a view to engage youth of Jammu & Kashmir in constructive sporting activities, a special package has been announced by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi for Rs. 200 crore. 
•    The package provides for construction of indoor sporting halls in all districts of the State with a view to provide playing facilities to youth during long winter in the state. 
•    Two stadia in the State capitals of Srinagar and Jammu will be upgraded to the international standards under the package while existing stadia at Poonch and Rajouri and Udhampur will be upgraded. 
•    In addition, water sport facilities will be provided at an estimated cost of Rs. 6 crore. 
•    For immediate engagement of youth in the state in sporting activities, a special programme 'Sports for AII' is being implemented through J&K State Sports Council which provides for village level competitions and development of popular sports, such as, football etc. 
•    An amount of Rs.5.00 crore has already been provided to J&K State Sports Council for organizing these village level sporting activities. 
 

Actor Rishi Kapoor was felicitated at the opening ceremony of the first BRICS Film Festival for his and the Kapoor family’s contribution to the field of cinema.
•    The festival, which is an initiative by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, started in New Delhi on Friday. 
•    It will feature films from the five member countries and also has a competition section.
•    The five-day festival aims at providing a platform for people of the film industry of member countries to explore areas of cooperation in the domain of cinema, culture and cuisine.
•    The idea of BRICS film festival has been conceived to build bridges and bring harmony amongst the BRICS countries, i.e., Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
•    The opening film for the festival will be the world premiere of the Malayalam movie, Veeram.
•    The closing film will be the Chinese movie, Skiptrace, starring Jackie Chan directed by Renny Harlin.
•    In the course of 5 days of the event, 20 movies will be screened in the competition section, 4 from each of the countries.
 

Aiming to promote avian tourism, the Goa forest department will host its first "Bird Festival" in the state in November, state Environment and Forest Minister Rajendra Arlekar said on Friday. 
•    Goa is home to nearly a third of all the bird species in the country. 
•    The event will include bird-watching sessions at the state’s numerous wildlife sanctuaries.
•    The bird festival will be held over three days from November 11 to 13 and participants at the event will be treated to bird-watching sessions at the state’s numerous wildlife sanctuaries including Dr. Salim Ali bird sanctuary.
•    The participants will also watch a series of films screened on birds and their habitats, and engage with well known ornithologists who would be conducting technical sessions at the event.
•    Addressing a press conference in Panaji, Arlekar said that his ministry was in talks with the state Tourism Ministry, in order to promote avian tourism in Goa, which is home to 432 of the 1,224 bird species found in India.
 

India has improved its ranking in the World Bank Group's bi-annual "Logistics Performance Index 2016", jumping from 54th in 2014 to 35th in 2016. This was announced by the World Bank Group in its recent launch of the report. In the latest ranking India has gone past countries like New Zealand, Thailand, Saudi Arabia, Iceland, Latvia and Indonesia who were ahead of it in the index. India's jump of 19 positions in the ranking demonstrates the commitment of various Ministries and agencies of Government of India to make it easy to do business in India. Dr. Jim Yong Kim, President of World Bank met the Prime Minister of India recently and congratulated him on this achievement. 
•    India also improved significantly in the following sub-indices: 
•    The ability to track and trace consignments, improving from 57 to 33; 
•    The quality of trade and transport infrastructure, improving from 58 to 36; and
•    The competence and quality of logistics services, improving from 52 to 32. 
•    On the remaining two sub-indices - the ease of arranging competitively priced shipments and the frequency with which shipments reach consignees within scheduled or expected delivery times - by 5 and 9 places respectively. 
•    The World Bank Group's bi-annual report ‘Connecting to Compete 2016: Trade Logistics in the Global Economy’, launched on Wednesday, captures critical information about the complexity of international trade. The Logistics Performance Index (LPI) within the report scores 160 countries on key criteria of logistics performance.
 

After winning two consecutive assembly polls in West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee on Friday added yet another feather to her cap with her Trinamool Congress being extended the 'national party' status by the Election Commission.
•    Sources in the poll panel, quoting an order, said Trinamool Congress has satisfied one of the conditions mentioned in the Election Symbols (Reservation and Allotment) Order, 1968 to be recognized as a national party — having being recognized as a state party in at least four states.
•    It is a recognized state party in West Bengal, Manipur, Tripura and Arunachal Pradesh.
•    Now, India has seven recognized national parties — Congress, BJP, BSP, CPI, CPM, NCP and All India Trinamool Congress.
•    Recognition as a national or a state party ensures that the election symbol of that party is not used by any other political entity in polls across India. 
•    Other registered but unrecognized political parties have to choose from a pool of "free symbols" announced by the commission from time to time.
 

Government has notified National Apprenticeship Promotion Scheme. It is for the first time a scheme has been notified to offer financial incentives to employers. The Scheme has an outlay of Rs. 10,000 crore with a target of 50 Lakh apprentices to be trained by 2019-20.Apprenticeship Training is considered to be one of the most efficient ways to develop skilled manpower for the country. 
•    It provides for an industry led, practice oriented, effective and efficient mode of formal training. 
•    The National Policy of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, 2015 launched by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi focuses on apprenticeship as one of the key components for creating skilled manpower in India. 
•    The policy proposes to work pro-actively with the industry including MSME to facilitate tenfold increase opportunities in the country by 2020. 
•    25% of the prescribed stipend payable to an apprentice would be reimbursed to the employers directly by the Government of India. 
•    The scheme also supports basic training, which is an essential component of apprenticeship training by sharing of basic training cost with basic training providers in respect of apprentices who come directly to apprenticeship without any formal trade training (fresher apprentices). 
•    Online portal for ease of administering. All transactions including registration by employers, apprentices, registration of contract and payment to employers will be made as online mode. Eligible employers shall engage apprentices in a band of 2.5% to 10% of the total strength of the establishment. Employers need to register on the apprenticeship portal and must have TIN/TAN and any one of EPFO/ESIC/LIN. Employers are invited to register on the apprenticeship portal to avail benefits under the scheme. 
•    Brand Ambassadors will be appointed for states and for local industrial clusters to act as facilitators and promoters to promote apprenticeship training.