The Daily Brief – 31st October 2019

The Union Ministry of New and Renewable Energy is scheduled to host the 2^nd assembly of the International Solar Alliance (ISA) on 30^th October and 31^st October, 2019 in New Delhi. French Deputy Minister Brune Porison along with Union Minister of State for New and Renewable Energy Raj Kumar Singh will co-chair the assembly. The ISA is an alliance of 121 countries initiated by India to work for efficient exploitation of solar energy to reduce dependence on fossil fuels.

Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel’s birth anniversary, which falls on 31^st October, is celebrated across India as “National Unity Day” or “Rashtriya Ekta Diwas” as a tribute to the country’s first home minister, who led the task of integrating princely states into the Union of India after Independence in 1947. On this occasion in 2019, Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh have officially become Union Territories. The day is being celebrated since 2014.

The Harvard Business Review (HBR) released ‘The Best-Performing CEOs in World, 2019′, a list including 100 best-performing Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) around the world. Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA, an American technology company, topped the list. Three Indian-origin CEOs, who have been included in the top 10, are Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen (6^th), MasterCard CEO Ajay Banga (7^th) and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella (9^th). The list also includes India-born CEO of DBS Piyush Gupta on the 89^thspot.

The State Disaster Management Authority organised the Odisha Disaster Preparedness Day and National Day for Disaster Reduction on 29^th October, 2019 with the theme ‘Empowering Community for Disaster Resilience’. The State government has been observing the Disaster Preparedness Day on 29^th October every year to commemorate the Super Cyclone in 1999 that had hit the state’s coast killing more than 10,000 people.

Union Minister of State for Road Transport V.K. Singh addressed the 5th International Conference on Road Tech (sustainable roads and highways) in New Delhi on 30^th October, 2019. He said that the infrastructure will propel the growth of the economy and to achieve this growth, the country needs sustainable and environment friendly roads and highways.

The 9^th edition of the Bangladesh-India Friendship Dialogue, being organized jointly by the India Foundation and the Bangladesh Foundation for Regional Studies, will be held at Cox Bazar in Bangladesh on 1^st and 2^nd November, 2019. A wide range of issues like trade and investment, connectivity, technology, regional security, extremism and sustainable development will be discussed at the event. The last session of the Bangladesh-India Friendship Dialogue was held at Guwahati in July, 2017.

The SEED Awards 2019 winners were announced on 24^th October, 2019. Fourteen startups, which include four Indian startups, have been selected for the awards this year. The SEED Awards for Entrepreneurship in Sustainable Development is an annual awards scheme designed to identify the most innovative and promising locally led start-up eco-inclusive enterprises in developing and emerging economies. The SEED Awards were first presented in the year 2005.

Rafael Mariano Grossi of Argentina will succeed late Yukiya Amano as the new Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), a United Nations’ nuclear watchdog. 58-year-old Gossi, the sixth head of the IAEA will have a tenure of four years. Established through its own international treaty, the IAEA Statute, on 29^th July, 1957 with its headquarters in Vienna, Austria, the IAEA is an autonomous organisation with 171 member states.