The Daily Brief – 15th January 2020

Indian Railways has signed MoU with RailTel, a miniratna PSU under Ministry of Railways, for the implementation of phase 2 of the project under which RailTel will register 39000 users over 34 Railway divisions on NIC e office platform by 30^thJune 2020. The Phase 1 execution of NIC e office for 50000 users in 58 units has been successfully completed. NIC e-Office is a cloud enabled software developed by National Informatics centre (NIC).

South Central Zone of Indian Railways and State Bank of India signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for Doorstep Banking for direct pickup of earnings covering all 585 Railway stations over SCR Zone. The direct pick up of cash from all the railway stations on SCR as per the MoU dispenses with the tedious and complex activity of movement of cash earnings through “Cash Safes” by trains. This will enable hassle free collection of traffic earnings by SBI and remittance into Government account avoiding delay in transmission of traffic cash earnings.

Since 2017, Armed Forces Veterans Day is observed every year on 14^th January as a mark of respect and recognition of the services rendered by Filed Marshal KM Cariappa OBE – the first Indian Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Armed Forces who retired on that day. Commemoration of Armed Forces Veterans Day acknowledges and honours the selfless devotion and sacrifice of our veterans in the service of the nation.

The Raisina Dialogue, a multilateral conference held in New Delhi annually since 2016, will be held between January 14^th and January 16^th and will be organized by the Ministry of External Affairs and the Observer Research Foundation. A number of foreign ministers from countries such as Russia, Iran, Maldives, Morocco, Estonia, Czech Republic, Bhutan, Australia, Denmark, etc. are expected to attend the dialogue. The theme for this year’s dialogue is “21@20 : Navigating the Alpha Century”. The Raisina Dialogue is considered to be the flagship conference in India on geo-economics and geo-politics and it aims at exploring opportunities of integration in the continent of Asia.

Tejas, the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) successfully landed on INS Vikramaditya, becoming the first aircraft to make an arrested landing on a naval ship. The LCA was made by the Defence Research Development Organization (DRDO) and due to this achievement, India has entered the ranks of those nations whose aircrafts are capable of landing and taking off from an aircraft carrier deck, which is barely 200 metres wide.

In order to ease the auction of coal mines, an ordinance was promulgated by the Government of India to amend coal mining laws like the Mines and Minerals Development and Regulation Act, 1957 and Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Act, 2015. The amendment will enhance the east of doing business and will democratize the coal sector, opening it up for anyone to invest in. Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) will be promoted through this amendment and any kind of previously existing eligibility criteria and restrictions will be removed.

The birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda is celebrated every year on January 12^th as National Youth Day. The Government of India commemorates his birth anniversary by organizing the National Youth Festival, which will be held between January 12^th and January 16^th 2020, and is being organized by the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports and the State Government of Uttar Pradesh. The theme for this year is “Fit Youth, Fit India” and was chosen to align with the Fit India Movement launched by the Government of India. Apart from fitness, the festival also pays attention to culture and several classical dance programmes such as Bharatnatyam, Odissi, Manipuri and Kuchipudi are held.