The Daily Brief – 26th September, 2016

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• Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to chair a meeting on the Indus Water Treaty (IWT) with Pakistan. The IWT between India and Pakistan was sealed in 1960. It was brokered by the World Bank, and was signed between the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and his Pakistani counterpart General Ayub Khan. This comes in light of Mr. Modi’s assertion that the government would take measures to isolate Pakistan diplomatically, following the Uri attacks.
• This morning, PSLV C-35 of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) launched SCATSAT-1, a satellite for weather studies, and seven other satellites into orbit. It was launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota.
• India will ratify its U.N. climate change commitments, the Paris agreement, next month to mark Mahatma Gandhi’s birth anniversary.
• India’s largest civilian research and development agency Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) celebrated its platinum jubilee. The platinum jubilee celebrations were inaugurated by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is also the President of the CSIR. CSIR is an autonomous body and the largest research and development (R&D) organisation in India, operational since 1942.
• India and United States (US) Joint Military Training Exercise Yudh Abhyas 2016 concluded at the Chaubattia Military Station in Ranikhet, Uttarakhand. The bilateral military exercise was the twelfth edition in the Yudh Abhyas series which started in the year 2004 under US Army Pacific Partnership Program.
• India’s Pinky Balhara has won the bronze medal in the sporting event of ‘kurash‘ at the 5th Asian Beach Games held at Da Nang, Vietnam. Kurash is a form of wrestling that originated in Uzbekistan.
• India’s squash player Velavan Senthilkumar has won the Under-19 Asian Junior Individual squash championship title.

• Ravichandran Ashwin became the fastest Indian to reach the milestone of 200 wickets, at the Green Park Stadium in Kanpur, in the ongoing test against New Zealand. He is also the the second-fastest to reach the mark after Australian leg-spinner Clarrie Grimmett. The fastest Indian before Ashwin was Harbhajan Singh who did it in 46 Tests. This was Ashwin’s 37th Test.
• Dominic Inglot and Henri Kontinen won the doubles title at the St. Petersburg Open, beating Leander Paes and Andre Begemann.
• The Indian Olympic Association president N. Ramachandran was conferred with the prestigious OCA Award of Merit by the Olympic Council of Asia for his outstanding contributions to sports in Asia. Ramachandran has also received the IOC’s Olympic Order for his contributions to the Olympic movement at the Rio Olympics. This makes Ramachandran the only IOA president to have received the two prestigious awards and that too in close succession.
• Rio Olympian Sajan Prakash set a new National record in the men’s 200m butterfly event on the second day of the National aquatics championship at Ranchi.
• Ajay Singh has been elected as the President of the Boxing Federation of India.
• Japan’s Aichi prefecture and its capital city Nagoya were confirmed as co-hosts of the 2026 Asian Games. South Korea is hosting the Winter Olympics at Pyeonchang in 2018, while Tokyo will host the 2020 Summer Olympics before the winter games go to Beijing in 2022. The 2018 Asian Games has already been awarded to the Indonesian cities of Jakarta and Palembang while the 2022 edition will be held in the Chinese city of Hangzhou.
• Young Indian shuttler Rituparna Das clinched the Polish Open title in the women’s singles final of the International challenge badminton event.
• The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has announced that Africa’s elephant population has suffered its worst drop in 25 years. The drop has been attributed to persistent poaching activities. Habitat loss is also increasingly threatening the species. The IUCN report was released at the world’s biggest conference on the international wildlife trade, taking place in Johannesburg. A booming illegal wildlife trade has put huge pressure on an existing treaty signed by over 180 countries — the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. The plight of Africa’s elephants, targeted for their tusks, will be one of the most debated topics at the meeting, which will consider several proposals on whether to tighten or ease controls on the trade in ivory.
• A new study suggests that Pluto may contain an ocean spanning over 100 km in thickness beneath its icy surface, with a salt content similar to that of the Dead Sea on Earth. Ever since NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft flew by Pluto last year, evidence has been mounting that the dwarf planet may have a liquid ocean beneath its icy shell.
• The world’s largest radio telescope in China began searching for signals from stars and galaxies and, perhaps extraterrestrial life, demonstrating China’s rising ambitions in space and its pursuit of international scientific prestige. It took five years and $180 million to complete and surpasses that of the 300-meter Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. Installation of the 4,450-panel structure, nicknamed Tianyan, or the Eye of Heaven, started in 2011 and was completed in July.
• The first military exercise between Russia and Pakistan named Druzhba-2016 (Friendship-2016) has kicked off in Pakistan. With this, Pakistani Army and Russian Ground Forces (RGF) have come together for the first time in military exercises reflecting growing military ties between the two former Cold War rivals.

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