The Daily Brief – 12th September 2018

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina jointly inaugurated three projects related to power supply rehabilitation of existing railway section. The projects are Rehabilitation of Kulaura-Shahbazpur section of Bangladesh Railways, 500 MW additional power supply from India to Bangladesh and Akhaura–Agartala Rail Link.

Regional Conference on Good Governance with Focus on Aspirational Districts was held in Bhopal, capital of Madhya Pradesh. It was organized by Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DAR&PG), Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions in association with Madhya Pradesh Government. So far, DAR&PG has organized 28 Regional Conferences.

Haryana Government has signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) to set up ethanol plant at Bohali village in Panipat district with an outlay of over Rs. 900 crore. The MoU will be valid for one year. This plant will motivate farmers in its 50 km radius area to manage crop residue and prevent straw burning and help to fulfil increasing demand of ethanol and also bio-fuels for consumers of petroleum product. The proposed capacity of this ethanol plant will be of producing 100 kilolitres of ethanol per day.

Aam Aadmi Party-led Delhi Government has launched scheme for doorstep delivery of 40 essential government services like caste and marriage certificates, driving license and new water connections. It is the first home delivery scheme of various essential government services in the country. It will help to deal with corruption in delivery of essential government services and promote transparent governance. These essential government services will be delivered by mobile sahayaks with fee of Rs 50.

India, Mongolia joint exercise Nomadic Elephant 2018 commenced at Mongolian Armed Forces (MAF) Five Hills Training Area in Ulaanbaatar (capital of Mongolia). Nomadic Elephant is annual bilateral military exercise started in 2006. The 12-day long exercise is designed to strengthen partnership between Indian Army and Mongolian Armed Forces. The thirteenth edition of exercise is aimed at developing mutual understanding and respect between armies of both countries and facilitate in tackling the world wide phenomenon of terrorism.

The first field training military exercise MILEX-18, as part of the Bay of Bengal initiative for multi-sectoral technical and economic cooperation (BIMSTEC) commenced at Foreign Training Node at Aundh in Pune, Maharashtra. All member BIMSTEC countries, except Thailand and Nepal will take active part in this exercise. Thailand and Nepal will only be sending group of observers. The theme of the exercise is counter-terrorism in semi-urban terrain. BIMSTEC was established on 6 June 1997 through Bangkok Declaration. It is headquartered in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

NITI Aayog, Intel, and the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) collaborated to set up a Model International Centre for Transformative Artificial Intelligence (ICTAI) with an aim to develop and deploy Artificial Intelligence-led application-based research projects. Aiming to solve major challenges in India, the centre will focus on application-based AI research in healthcare, agriculture and smart mobility.

The United States announced the closure of the Palestine Liberation Organisation’s (PLO) mission in Washington DC because PLO leaders had failed to engage with US efforts to bring about peace with Israel and attempted to prompt an investigation of Israel by the International Criminal Court. The PLO is an umbrella group that was created in 1964 to represent various Palestinian factions seeking self-determination. The PLO opened the mission in 1994.