The Daily Brief – 19th August, 2016

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• The Supreme Court has asked the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) to abide by its earlier judgement in 2011, and allow students to access their answer sheets under the Right to Information (RTI) Act.
• India Post Payments Bank will start its operations in 2017, and has received its certificate of incorporation, mandatory for all companies registered under the Companies Act. This will be the first public sector undertaking under the Department of Posts.
• In bilateral talks between Russia and India, Russia has announced that it will tap India as a global aeronautics manufacturing base and will partner with local firms in developing the aviation sector. India, on its part, has agreed to jointly develop iron ore and coal mines in Russian territory.
• China and India held their 8th high-level Financial and Economic Dialogue to strengthen trade and economic cooperation and build solidarity for the adoption of various economic policies.
• The Hindu Playwright Award 2016 has been awarded to Thomas Manuel for his play Hamlet and Angad. The award carries a prize of Rs. 2 lakh for the best unpublished and unperformed play script.
• The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Kanpur has adopted five villages in Uttar Pradesh under the Namami Gange programme. Namami Gange Programme is an integrated Ganga Conservation Mission that was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in May 2015.
• The Maharashtra Government became first state in the country to launch India’s first comprehensive ‘Crime Criminal Tracking Network System’ (CCTNS) in Mumbai. It was launched in order to combat growing cyber crimes.
• The Ministry of Mines unveiled a web portal for the easy access to information regarding the mining sector in India, including a framework for rating mines.
• India’s third largest software services provider Wipro has invested $1.5 million to acquire a minority stake of less than 20% in Tel Aviv based cyber security platform provider Insights Cyber Intelligence Limited.
• The State Bank of India’s board of directors has approved a merger of its five associate banks and Bharatiya Mahila Bank (BMB) with itself. These five subsidiaries are State Bank of Bikaner & Jaipur, State Bank of Hyderabad, State Bank of Mysore, State Bank of Travancore and Bharatiya Mahila Bank.
• Alibaba Group, China’s biggest e-commerce company unveiled its Mission Million Books. It invited Indian citizens to donate textbooks and educational material for the benefit of the underprivileged.
• P.V. Sindhu has made it into the final of the women’s singles badminton match, and will meet Carolina Marin of Spain in today’s gold medal match.
• Indian wrestler Narsingh Yadav has been ousted from Olympics as the Court of Arbitration of Sports slapped him with a four-year ban, while hearing the World Anti-Doping Agency’s appeal against the clean chit given to him in a dope scandal by National Anti Doping Agency (NADA).
• Usain Bolt won the gold medal in the Men’s 200m final. He won the medal at the previous Olympics in London too, but was unable to break his own record. Andre de Grasse of Canada won Silver, while Christophe Lemaitre of France took the bronze medal.
• Australia’s Melbourne city has been named the world’s most liveable city for the sixth consecutive year, according to the Global Liveability Ranking.
• The much-debated Hindu Marriage Bill 2016 that seeks to give a legal framework for marriages in the Hindu minority community in Pakistan, has been tabled in Pakistan’s National Assembly.

  

• For the first time since a cholera epidemic believed to be imported by UN peacekeepers began killing thousands of Haitians nearly six years ago, the office of Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has acknowledged that the United Nations played a role in the initial outbreak.
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