The Daily Brief – 30th July 2019

Renowned Indian sand artist and Padma Shri Awardee Sudarsan Pattnaik won the People’s Choice Award for his sand art on plastic pollution with the message ‘Stop Plastic Pollution, Save Our Ocean’, at the 2019 Revere Beach International Sand Sculpting Festival in Boston, US. Established in 1895, Revere Beach is the first public beach in the US. Hosted by the Revere Beach Partnership, the annual festival is being organised every year since 2004.

Prime Minister of Nepal KP Sharma Oli inaugurated the India-Nepal Logistics Summit with the theme ‘Transforming Logistics Landscape’ in Kathmandu, Nepal on 28^th July 2019. Since India and Nepal have significant volume of tourism, trade, investment, and cross border people-to-people movement, smooth and quality logistics including easy transit facilities are very essential.

Union Minister of Minority Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi Minister, while addressing National Conference of State and Union Territories Waqf Boards, announced that the Central Government has set a target to achieve 100% Digitization of Waqf properties across country in its first 100 days. The Minister also presented national awards to waqf boards for excellence in management. Under Wakf Act, 1954 (now a sub section the Wakf Act, 1995), Central Wakf Council, India was established in 1964 by the Government of India.

K R Ramesh Kumar, Karnataka assembly speaker, announced his resignation, after the assembly adopted the confidence motion moved by the Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa and passed the Appropriation Bill. Ramesh Kumar was holding the post of Assembly Speaker for the second time. Earlier, he served as the speaker during 1994-1999.

An inter-ministerial panel has sanctioned 5645 electric buses for operations in 65 cities and for inter-city operations to 8 state transport undertakings. The GST Council had decided to cut the tax rates on e-vehicles from 12 per cent to 5 per cent with effect from 1^st of August.

Parliament passed the Banning of Unregulated Deposit Schemes Bill, 2019 which seeks to build a proper mechanism to ban the unregulated deposit schemes other than deposits taken in the ordinary course of businesses and to protect the interest of depositors. The bill provides for the attachment of properties or assets and subsequent realization of assets for repayment to depositors.

India and Myanmar signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on defence co-operation in New Delhi on 29^th July, 2019, after the talks between Minister of State for Defence, Shripad Yesso Naik and Commander-in-Chief of Defence Services of Myanmar, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing. Myanmar is a key pillar of India’s Act East Policy for prioritising relations with its East Asian neighbours.