The Daily Brief – 3rd September 2019

The 72nd session of World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Committee for South-East Asia (SEA) was inaugurated by the Union Minister of Health, Harsh Vardhan in New Delhi. This is the second time India is hosting the event. Harsh Vardhan was unanimously elected as the chair of the 72^nd He called for a ‘mission-mode approach’ for creating and spreading public health success stories from the region.

The Ministry of Earth Sciences for deep ocean mining for rare minerals launched the ‘Samudrayaan’ project, which proposes to send three men into the deep sea in a submersible vehicle to a depth of about 6000 metres to carry out various deep underwater studies. The submersible vehicle, which will be indigenously developed, would be capable of crawling on the sea bed at a depth of 6 km for 72 hours. The project has been undertaken by the National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT).

The Central Board of Film Certification’s (CBFC) Chairman, Prasoon Joshi revealed the CBFC’s new logo and certificate identity at a first-of-its-kind film industry interaction between eminent industry leaders and CBFC board members held in Mumbai, Maharashtra. The new logo and certificate identity were designed by Rohit Devgun.

President of Indonesia Joko Widodo announced that the country is going to move its current capital from Jakarta (on the Island of Java) to East Kalimantan (on Borneo Island). The shifting of the capital city is a part of a broader strategy to decentralise Indonesia’s economic growth as Jakarta is home to 60% of the country’s population and accounts for over half of its economic activity. Kalimantan is almost four times bigger that Jakarta.

Google and the Union Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) signed a statement of intent to roll out ‘Build for Digital India’, a program to offer a platform to engineering students for developing market-ready, technology-based solutions that address key social problems. Google’s Developer Student Club network and other Google Developer networks will offer online and offline learning opportunities on key technologies such as machine learning, cloud and android.

Dindigul lock and Kandangi saree from Tamil Nadu have been accorded the Geographical Indication (GI) tag by the Geographical Indications Registry (GIR). With this, the total number of products from Tamil Nadu that have been accorded the GI tag comes up to 31. Darjeeling teabecame the first GI tagged product in India, in 2004-05 and since then, as of October 2018, 321 had been added to the list.

Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu inaugurated the country’s longest electrified rail tunnel with a length 6.3km between the Cherlopalli and Rapuru Railway Stations in Andhra Pradesh. The New Australian Tunnelling Method (NATM) was used to construct this tunnel. He also inaugurated the electrified railway line between Venkatachalam and Obulavaripalli at the Gudur railway station and also flagged off the Gudur-Vijayawada inter-city superfast express.