The Daily Brief – 3rd October, 2016

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• Militants mounted a suicide attack on an Army camp outside Baramulla town less than a week after the Indian Special Forces smashed seven terror launch pads during a surgical strike across the Line of Control (LoC). A BSF picket near the camp also came under heavy fire.
• India’s leading domestic airlines have opposed a request from the National Security Guard (NSG) to conduct anti-hijacking exercises on their fleet, fearing likely damage to the aircraft. Instead, the domestic airlines have conveyed to the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) that planes would be made available to the NSG only for familiarisation and orientation and “not for exercise purpose.”
• Karnataka will hold a crucial day-long special session of the legislature today, to decide its next course of action following the Supreme Court’s order to release Cauvery river water to Tamil Nadu from October 1 to 6. Both Houses of the State legislature are expected to discuss the implications of the September 30 court order on releasing of water to Tamil Nadu at the rate of 6,000 cusecs till October 6 and the formation of the Cauvery Management Board by October 4.
• October 3rd is noted to be the day of the first sepoy mutiny in India, during British rule. The Vizagapatam mutiny took place on October 3, 1780, and this was the first sepoy mutiny in India, as coined and recorded in the Gazetteer in the London Archives. It was 77 years before the Meerut Sepoy Mutiny of 1857, which is called as the First War of Independence, and much ahead of the Vellore mutiny of 1806 and the Barrackpore one of 1824.
• The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has received a total disclosure of Rs. 65,250 crores of black money in the form of cash and other assets under the Income Disclosure Scheme, 2016. The scheme launched in June 2016 has provided a one-time opportunity to those who had not paid full taxes in the past. It had provided four-month window for declaring undisclosed income or black money, and ended on 30 September 2016.
• Former Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leaders Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav have launched a new political party called Swaraj India. Mr. Prashant Bhushan said the decision to form the party was taken after ensuring principles of transparency, accountability and internal democracy in the organisation.
• As part of the Centre’s outreach programme in Jammu and Kashmir, Home Minister Rajnath Singh will visit Ladakh to interact with people. Mr. Singh will hold meetings with delegations of political parties, civil society groups and individuals in Leh and in Kargil and take their suggestions on resolution of Kashmir issue.

• Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, is likely to be the chief guest of Republic Day in 2017. Mr. bin Zayed has acknowledged the invitation and sent a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi appreciating the gesture.
• The India-Japan nuclear agreement, under discussion since 2008, is ready to be signed when Prime Minister Narendra Modi visits Japan for the annual bilateral summit later this year. The nuclear cooperation agreement also needs to be cleared by the Japanese parliament or Diet.
• Indian-American associate professor Vinaya Manchaiah has been named as the Future Leader of Audiology. He was inducted into the 2016 class of the ‘Jerger Future Leaders of Audiology’ by the American Academy of Audiology. Audiology is a branch of science that studies hearing, balance and related disorders.
• An Indian NGO, Swayam Shikshan Prayog, has bagged a UN climate award for 2016. The NGO, which trains women to become clean energy entrepreneurs across Maharashtra and Bihar, will be recognised at the forthcoming UN climate summit in Marrakesh, Morocco, in November. The UNFCCC, the nodal UN climate body, has applauded the project for building a rural distribution network of 1,100 women entrepreneurs facilitating access to clean energy, water and sanitation products and services in several communities.
• Rajasthan has become the first state in India to adopt the Central Government’s Street Lighting National Programme (SLNP) in all its urban local bodies.
• The National Mission on Bioeconomy has launched in Shillong, Meghalaya by the Institute of Bio-resources and Sustainable Development (IBSD). The mission is unique to south-east Asia and India has become one of the few countries to tap bio-resources.
• Noted music director and violinist Uttam Singh (68) has been named for the 2016 Lata Mangeshkar Award for Lifetime Achievement by the Maharashtra government. The coveted award was instituted by the Maharashtra government in honour of Bharat Ratna Lata Mangeshkar in 1992.
• A 16-year-old Indian-origin South African teen, Kiara Nirghin, has won a $50,000 scholarship, the grand prize at the annual Google Science Fair for her work using orange peel to develop a cheaper “super-absorbent material” that helps soil retain water. The Google Science Fair is a programme for budding scientists between the ages of 13 to 18, who are invited to solve the world’s biggest challenges using science and technology.
• Young filmmaker Katyayan Shivpuri, from Maharashtra, won the first prize at the Swachh Bharat Short Film Festival for his work Murga. The short film promoting the idea of clean India had Murga as the metaphor depicting the victims that citizens have made of themselves and of the children by not keeping the surroundings clean.
• National Award-winning director Praveen Sattaru’s film on Indian badminton champion Pullela Gopichand will be made in Telugu, Hindi and English. Actor Sudheer Babu, a former badminton player who had trained under Gopichand, will play the role of his coach on the big screen.
• Daniel Ricciardo defeated Lewis Hamilton to win the Malaysian Grand Prix.
• Joshna Chinappa lost to Hong Kong’s Annie Au in the women’s final of the inaugural JSW Indian Open squash, which concluded at Mumbai.
• India’s Gaganjeet Bhullar has won the Korean Open Golf Championship.
• Colombians voted in a referendum on whether to ratify a historic peace accord to end a 52-year war between the state and the communist FARC (The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia) rebels. The FARC were founded in 1964 as the armed wing of the Communist Party and follow a Marxist-Leninist ideology. The accord would have effectively ended what is seen as the last major armed conflict in the Western Hemisphere. The war has killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced millions. Voters, however, rejected the accord, with 50.24% voting against it.
• British Prime Minister Theresa May announced that her government will trigger Brexit negotiations by the end of March, putting the country on course to leave the European Union (EU) by early 2019.

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