The Daily Brief – 19th November 2019

Government of India, with effect from 16^th November, 2019, has decided to extend the Visa-on-Arrival facility to the nationals of the United Arab Emirates to further strengthen people to people and trade links as well as strategic ties between the two countries. The facility will be available to the UAE nationals for a period of up to 60 days with double entry for business, tourism, conference and medical purposes.

The Institute of International Education (IIE) has released its “2019 Open Doors Report on International Educational Exchange” on 18^th November, 2019. As per the report, the largest source of foreign students to the USA is China, while India is the second largest source with around 202,000 students being sent to the USA in the academic year 2018-19. India remained the largest source for the 10^thconsecutive year. Open Doors is a comprehensive information resource on international students and scholars in the United States published annually by IIE since 1919.

Union Minister for Agriculture & Farmers Welfare Narendra Singh Tomar will inaugurate the 8^thInternational Conference on Agricultural Statistics (ICAS-VIII), organized by the Ministry of Agriculture in New Delhi from 18^th November to 21^st November 2019. Bill Gates will be the chief guest for the conference being organised under the theme ‘Statistics for Transformation of Agriculture to Achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)’. The conference is being organised in India for the first time. The last conference was held in Rome, Italy in 2016.

Justice Dr Ravi Ranjan was sworn in as the 13^th Chief Justice of Jharkhand High Court by the Governor of Jharkhand Draupadi Murmu. He will succeed Justice Anirudh Bose who was appointed as a judge of the Supreme Court in May 2019. Ranjan was serving as a judge in the Punjab and Haryana High Court prior to this appointment. He was appointed as a permanent judge of Patna High Court on 16^th January, 2010. He has also served as the Acting Chief Justice of Patna High Court in 2018.

The World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims is observed every year across the world on the 3^rd Sunday of November. This year it was observed on 17^th November with the theme ‘Life is not a car part’. It is observed as the appropriate acknowledgment of victims of road traffic crashes and their families. It was started by the British road crash victim charity, RoadPeace, in 1993 and was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 2005.

Union Minister for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Narendra Singh Tomar inaugurated the first ever National Agrochemicals Congress in Pusa, New Delhi. The meeting was held from 13^th November to 16^th November, 2019 under the theme ‘Country’s Status on various fronts of Agro chemicals’. It focused on sustainable production of sustainable agri-food systems along with the climatic conditions.

Indian paddler Harmeet Desai won the men’s singles title at the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) Challenge Indonesia Open 2019 held at Batam, Indonesia on 17^th November, 2019. Harmeet defeated compatriot Amalraj Anthony by 11-9, 9-11, 11-9, 11-9, 10-12, 11-9 score. He had earlier won the Commonwealth Championship in July 2019 held in Cuttack, Odisha.

Renowned sand artist Sudarsan Pattnaik became the first Indian to receive the Italian Golden Sand Art Award 2019 in Rome. Pattnaik represented India at the International Scorrano Sand Nativity event held in Lecce, Italy from 13^th November to 17^th November, 2019. At the event, Pattnaik along with Pavel Minilkov from Russia created an eight-foot-high sand sculpture of Mahatma Gandhi on his 150^th birth anniversary. Earlier in 2013, he won the International Sand Sculpture Competition in Russia.