The Daily Brief – 26th August 2019

Bahrain King Hamad bin Isa bin Salman Al Khalifa conferred the King Hamad Order of the Renaissance upon Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Manama, the capital of Bahrain in recognition of his efforts to strengthen bilateral relations with Bahrain, the key Gulf nation. It is the 7^th international award conferred on PM Modi, since he assumed office in 2014.

PV Sindhu became the first Indian to win a Badminton World Championships gold by beating Nozomi Okuhara of Japan with 21-7, 21-7 held at St. Jakobshalle in Basel, Switzerland. Sindhu is also the 2^nd women shuttler to have 5 medals and 3^rd to have medals in all three colours. This is P V Sindhu’s 5^th medal at the World Championships.

The Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) has constituted the Advisory Board for Banking Frauds (ABBF) to examine bank frauds of over Rs. 50 crore and recommend action. It is a reconstituted and rejigged version of erstwhile Advisory Board on Bank, Commercial and Financial Frauds. Former Vigilance Commissioner T M Bhasin will be the Chairman of this four member body. The tenure of the Chairman and members will be for period of two years from August 21, 2019.

NITI Aayog released the Composite Water Management Index (CWMI 2.0) Report 2019, which ranked 25 states and 2 UTs for the reference year 2017-18 against the base year 2016-17. Gujarat topped the list followed by Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Goa, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. On an average, 80% of the states assessed on CWMI 2.0 over the last three years have improved their water management scores with an average improvement of +5.2 points.

During his two-day visit to Bahrain, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the $4.2 million re-development project of 200-year-old Shreenathji or Lord Sri Krishna temple in Manama, the capital of Bahrain. This is the first ever visit by an Indian Prime Minister to the Gulf Nation. The Sri Krishna Temple located in Manama is the oldest temple in region, which is estimated to have been established around 1817.

The world’s first floating nuclear reactor called Akademik Lomonosov was launched by Russia, sending it on an epic journey across the Arctic. It was launched and loaded with nuclear fuel from the Arctic port of Murmansk for its 5,000 kilometres voyage to Pevek in northeastern Siberia. On arriving in Pevek, it will replace local nuclear plant and closed coal plant. It will by fully operational by the end of 2019 and it will mainly serve as the region’s oil platforms in Arctic.

Chairman of Chiefs of Staff Committee (COSC) and Chief of the Air Staff- Air Chief Marshal Birender Singh Dhanoa will represent India at the Indo-Pacific Chiefs of Defence (CHOD) Conference 2019, which will be held in Thailand’s capital city Bangkok. The theme for the conference is “Collaboration in a free and Open Indo – Pacific”. The Chiefs of Defense Conference is an annual conference of the chiefs of defense of the nations in the Asia–Pacific region.