The Daily Brief – 19th January 2020

An industry meet for Wings India 2020, Asia’s largest civil aviation event, was held in Bengaluru. Wings India 2020, the flagship event of civil aviation will be held in Begumpet Airport of Hyderabad from 12^th to 15^th March, 2020. The event with the theme ‘Flying for All’, will see participation from various countries, state governments, and stakeholders. The event will help to introspect, analyze and finalize roadmap for making the civil aviation sector even more sustainable.

For the first time, Census 2021 will collect information from households on smartphones, DTH/Cable TV connection, internet access, number of members of households having bank accounts, ownership of house other than the rented accommodation of a household, bottled water availability and mobile number as part of the house listing procedure. It will also collect data of transgender headed houses and also about main cereal.

India’s Tuberculosis (TB) control programme ‘Revised National TB Control Programme (RNTCP)’ has been rechristened as the National Tuberculosis Elimination Programme (NTEP) on 1^st January, 2020. It is in line with the larger goal of eliminating the disease by 2025, five years ahead of the Sustainable Development Goals target.

A Concession Agreement for completing the 6.5-kilometre long Z-Morh tunnel in Jammu and Kashmir was signed on 17^th January, 2020 in New Delhi. Under the agreement, the two-lane bi-directional tunnel with parallel escape is to be completed in 3.5 years at a cost of 2379 Crore rupees. The tunnel will open NH-1 Srinagar-Sonmarg-Gumri highway throughout the year. The Tunnel construction process began in 2012 with Border Road Organization (BRO) as the implementation agency of the project. The project was however transferred to IL&FS in 2016.

The founder, chief executive officer, and president of Amazon.com, Jeff Bezos announced an investment of 1 billion USD to help small businesses digitise and this will enable $10 billion in exports of Indian products, to the rest of the world by 2025. It will also create an additional million jobs across the country by 2025. According to the National E-Commerce Policy, 2019, the Indian E-Commerce market is estimated to reach 200 billion USD by 2026.

Union Chemicals and Fertilizers MinisterV. Sadananda Gowdalaunched the logo and brand ‘APNA UREA – Sona Ugle’ of Hindustan Urvarak and Rasayan Ltd (HURL). HURL is a Joint Venture Company promoted by the three Maha Ratna Companies – Coal India Limited, NTPC Limited and Indian Oil Corporation Limited. HURL is in the process of reviving three sick urea units located at Gorakhpur (Uttar Pradesh), Barauni (Bihar) and Sindri (Jharkhand).

NITI Aayog and Union Territory of Ladakh on 17^th January, 2020 signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to promote the development of key infrastructure sectors through its key initiative ‘Development Support Services to States for Infrastructure Projects (D3S-i)’. A dedicated team of professionals is expected to be stationed at Ladakh for identification and development of projects in the UT, especially in tourism, solar energy and basic infrastructure.