The Daily Brief – 26th July 2019

Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries Ltd. (RIL) jumped 42 places to become India’s highest-ranked company with a rank of 106 in the Fortune Global 500 list of 2019. Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) ranked 117 as the top-ranked, state-owned, Indian company. Walmart, United States’ (US) retail giant, topped the list. Fortune Global 500 is an annual ranking of top 500 corporations worldwide as measured by revenue. It is also known as Global 500.

Union Cabinet has approved to dissolve an autonomous Institute of Union Ministry of Mines’ (MoM’s) – National Institute of Miners’ Health (NIMH) and merge it with Indian Council of Medical Research-National Institute of Occupational Health (ICMR-NIOH), Ahmadabad, under Union Ministry of Health & Family Welfare (MoH&FW) with all assets and liabilities. National Institute of Miners’ Health (NIMH) was set up in 1990 by Government of India.

Priti Patel has taken charge as United Kingdom’s first Indian-origin Home Secretary in the Boris Johnson-led Cabinet. She will succeed Pakistani-origin Sajid Javid, who was elevated as the first ethnic minority Chancellor of the Exchequer. She was appointed as the Secretary of State in the Department for International Development (DfID) in 2016 but was forced to quit in 2017.

The Supreme Court asked the Centre to set up courts within 60 days and appoint sensitised prosecutors to deal with sexual assault cases against children. The court directed the setting up of centrally-funded exclusive court in districts with over 100 cases registered under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.

Karnataka Legislative Assembly Speaker, KR Ramesh Kumar has disqualified three MLAs- R Shankar, Ramesh Jarkiholi and Mahesh Kumatahalli- for the rest of the tenure of the current Assembly for anti-party activities till 2023 when the 15th Assembly comes to an end.

The government is working on the introduction of e-passports and aims to issue 22 million in the first phase. External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar said that the personal particulars of the applicants will be digitally signed and stored in the chip which will be embedded in the present form of physical passport booklet. If anyone tampers with the chip, the system will be able to identify it resulting in the failure of the passport authentication.

The 20th Anniversary of Kargil Vijay Diwas is being celebrated with the theme ‘Remember, Rejoice and Renew’ on 26^th July, 2019. The day is named after the successful Operation Vijay in 1999, when India regained the control on the high outposts which had been stealthily taken over by Pakistan.