The Daily Brief – 4th September 2019

Union Minister of Defence Rajnath Singh and Defence Minister of Japan Takeshi Iwaya co-chaired the Japan–India Defence Ministerial Meeting in Tokyo, Japan. They discussed various issues of mutual concern, including ways to further strengthen existing bilateral co-operative arrangements and adopt new initiatives towards achieving peace and security in the region.

Banking details of Indians with accounts in Switzerland will now be available to tax authorities as the automatic exchange of information regime kicked off between the two countries from September 1, 2019. It is the first automatic exchange of financial account information under the Common Reporting Standard, which will provide the information of the year 2018. The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) framed a policy for the Income-Tax Department.

The 4^th General Assembly of Association of World Election Bodies (A-WEB) will be hosted by the Election Commission of India (ECI) at Bengaluru, Karnataka from 2^nd to 4^th September, 2019. It will be presided over by the Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora. India will also take over as the A-WEB’s Chair for the period of 2019-21 during the meeting. Established in 2013 with the permanent secretariat located at Seoul, South Korea, A-WEB is the largest and the first global association of Election Management Bodies (EMBs) worldwide.

Union Minister of State for Culture and Tourism Prahlad Singh Patel inaugurated the first-ever architectural LED illumination at Qutb Minar in New Delhi. The move is aimed at the promotion of tourism in line with Prime Minister’s goal of doubling foreign and domestic tourists in next five years. Qutb Minar is a UNESCO World Heritage Site (WHS) and is one of the most visited historical sites in the national capital.

The first ever Terracotta Grinder was launched by the Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) at Sewapuri in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh to reuse wasted pottery. Designed by the KVIC Chairman Vinai Kumar Saxena, the machine will be used for grinding the wasted and broken pottery items for re-using them in pottery-making. The Terracotta Grinder was fabricated by a Rajkot-based engineering unit. KVIC was founded in 1956 with an aim to plan, promote, facilitate, organise and assist in the establishment and development of khadi and village industries.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be honoured with an award by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for his ambitious project Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan (SBA), during his visit to the United States in September 2019. He had launched the Swachh Bharat Mission on October 2, 2014, as a national movement which aims to achieve the vision of a ‘Clean India’ by 2^nd October, 2019 to mark the 150^th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is reported to be the largest private foundation in the world. It was founded by Bill and Melinda Gates in 2000.

The first ASEAN-US Maritime Exercise (AUMX) between the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the United States kicked off at the Sattahip Naval Base in Thailand. The five day naval exercise is co-led by the navies of US and Thailand. It will stretch into the international waters in Southeast Asia, including Gulf of Thailand and South China Sea and conclude in Singapore. It will see the participation of navies of all the 10 member countries of ASEAN.

‘Garvi Gujarat’, the second state bhavan of the Gujarat government was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi. This is the first eco-friendly state bhavan in New Delhi. It is built in more than 7,000 sq metres of area at a cost of around Rs. 131 crores by Gujarat Government.