The Daily Brief – 6th March 2019

The Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) has decided to reintroduce Cricket in the 2022 Asian Games to be held at Hangzhou, China. Earlier Cricket had featured in 2010 and 2014 Asian Games but was dropped from the 2018 Asian Games held at Incheon of Indonesia. The OCA has agreed to invite Oceania countries including Australia to compete at the 2022 Asian Games. The first Asian Games were held at New Delhi, India in 1951.

During his two day visit to the state of Gujarat, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the development works at the state which include the first phase of the Ahmedabad Metro Rail project, Launching of the National Common Mobility Card- NCMC, 51 kilometre long Patan- Bindi Railway line etc. These projects would give a boost to the socio-economic development of Gujrat.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched a National Common Mobility Card (NCMC), which can be used to make payments across public transport anywhere in the country, including Metro, bus and suburban railways, for toll and parking, and for retail like any credit or debit card. The National Common Mobility Card (NCMC) was envisaged as part of the National Urban Transport Policy (NUTP) in 2006 by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.

India, Bhutan, Nepal, Indonesia and Malaysia have signed the New Delhi Declaration on Asian Rhinos 2019 declaration for the conservation and protection of the species namely Greater one-horned rhinoceros, Javan rhino, and Sumatran rhino at the Second Asian Rhino Range Countries Meet organised by the Environment, Forest and Climate Change Ministry in collaboration with IUCN Asian Rhino Specialist Group, WWF- India and Aaranyak.

Built by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), the ‘Azaadi ke Diwane’ museum that was dedicated to the unsung heroes of the country’s freedom struggle was inaugurated at the Red Fort premises. The museum is a part of Kranti Mandir Series which is India’s tribute to the revolutionary zeal and courage of the great freedom fighters. Other Museums which are part of this series are Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Museum, Yaad-e-Jallian Museum and Museum on 1857.

The Indian Space Research organisation (ISRO) has launched the Young Scientist Programme (Yuva Vigyani Karyakram) to impart basic knowledge on space technology, space science and applications to the young ones to arouse their interest in space activities. ISRO will also launch Six incubation centres will be established in various parts of the country to allow students to use these centres for R&D purposes. The first such centre was established in Agartala of Tripura.

TVS Motor Company has bagged the international sustainability award Green Era Award for Sustainability on 10 February, 2019 in Lisbon, Portugal. Tata Motors also won the Quality and Business Excellence Award in acknowledgement of its endeavour to create new benchmarks in product quality.

As per the World Air Quality Report 2018 released by IQAir AirVisual and Greenpeace on March 5, 2019, seven of the top 10 most polluted cities in the world are in India. India’s Gurugram led the list of most polluted cities in the world in 2018, followed by Ghaziabad, Faridabad, Noida, and Bhiwadi in the top six worst-affected cities.