The Daily Brief – 8th December 2019

Union Minister of State (I/C) for Youth Affairs & Sports Kiren Rijiju, on the 50^th Fit India Plogging Run held in Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, announced the appointment of Ripu Daman Bevli as the Plogging Ambassador of India. The minister also launched the Plogging Ambassador Mission to nominate Indians who have been running and cleaning their cities, towns or districts as Plogging Ambassadors of their region.

King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia of Sweden with Prime Minister Narendra Modi

King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia of Sweden inaugurated the 14 million litres per day (MLD) Sarai Sewage Treatment Plant (STP) in Haridwar. It is the first STP to be constructed under the Hybrid Annuity (HAM) Based Public Private Partnership Model (PPPM), constructed at a cost of Rs.41.40 crores under the Central Government’s Namami Gange Programme. The Swedish King and Queen are on a five-day visit to India to strengthen bilateral ties.

Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal inaugurated the 3^rd edition of the National Public Procurement Conclave (NPPC) organized by the Government e-Marketplace (GeM) in association with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) on 5^th December & 6^th December, 2019 in New Delhi. It provided an opportunity for industry, academia and government organizations to interact and also served as a platform for sellers on the GeM to showcase their products and services.

An early delivery request has been made by India for the Meteor air-to-air missiles from France. These missiles are crucial for India to take on the AMRAAM missiles, which were supplied by the USA, of the Pakistan Air Force. The Meteor missiles have a delivery range that could possibly take over all the other air forces in the region. The delivery was scheduled for late 2020 but India is now insisting for immediate delivery of at least ten such missiles along with the first set of Rafale fighter jets. The range of these missile is 150 kms and they have a no escape zone of 60 km, which is the largest in the world, according to its manufacturers.

India has been ranked as the fifth worst country in terms of extensive and invasive use of biometric data. This is based on a report from Comparitech, which is a British tech research firm. However, the poor ranking of India is relatively lower in the list of worst countries for biometric data collection after the law enforcement authorities were not given permission to access the national biometric database known as Aadhar. The worst country on the list is China while the best country is the United Kingdom is terms of collection, storage and use of biometric data.

The 2^nd edition of the Startup India Global Venture Capital Summit will be held from 6^th December to 7^th December 2019 in Goa for the fund managers and limited partners of Top Global Venture Capital firms. This summit is being organized by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade that comes under the Union Ministry of Commerce and Industry and the Government of Goa. The theme for the summit is ‘India Opportunity – Investing in tomorrow together.’ The first edition of the summit was held in 2018, also in Goa. The objective of the summit is to showcase the opportunity that India potentially has in sectors of EdTech, E-Mobility, FinTech, MedTech, Genomics, Enterprise Software and Life Sciences.

The Indian Space Research Organization is setting up Space Technology Cells at five premier institutes in the country – IISc Bengaluru, IIT-Kharagpur, IIT-Bombay, IIT-Madras and IIT-Kanpur. These cells will carry out research activities related to space technology and will consist of professors and scholars associated with the university. At present, IIT-Roorke, DRDO and ISRO are working together on “thin membrane-based technology to develop parachutes for fighter aircraft” for over past three decades.