The Daily Brief – 8th September 2018

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3-day Defence & Homeland Security Expo and Conference – 2018 was inaugurated by Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh in New Delhi with an objective to enable nation become self-reliant in Home Land Security (HLS) and defence sector there by making India stronger economy. It was jointly organised by PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry in association with Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME).
India and Bulgaria have signed four MoUs in fields of Civil Nuclear cooperation, investment, Tourism and establishment of Hindi chair at Sofia University. Both countries also signed program of Cooperation on science and Technology. President Ram Nath Kovind visited Bulgaria on the second leg of his three-nation visit (Cyprus, Bulgaria and Czech Republic) to Europe to continue India’s high-level engagements with the European countries. President Kovind was fifth Indian President to visit Bulgaria and first in 15 years.
Search engine giant Google has launched Dataset Search, a new search engine for scientific community that will help them make sense of millions of datasets present online. It will also help scientists, data journalists and geeks to find data required for their work and their stories or simply to satisfy their intellectual curiosity.
The third ASEM (Asia-Europe Meeting) Conference on ‘Global Ageing and Human Rights of Older Persons’ was held in Seoul, capital of South Korea. It was jointly organised by South Korea and National Human Rights Commission of Korea. Indian delegation was led by Union Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment Thaawarchand Gehlot. Established in March 1996, ASEM is informal process of dialogue and cooperation that brings 53 entities – including 51 countries (including India) from Asia and Europe and two regional bodies European Union (EU) and ASEAN. The first summit was held in Bangkok, Thailand.
Dr. Poonam Khetrapal Singh was unanimously re-elected as World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Director for South-East Asia for another five-year term beginning February 2019. She was re-elected by 11 member states of the Region during elections held at ongoing Regional Committee meeting of WHO South-East Asia. She had served as civil servant in India as member of Indian Administrative Services for over two decades. She was the first woman to be elected as Regional Director.
Poonam Khetrapal Singh
Union Ministry of Commerce & Industry has launched National Mission on Government eMarketplace (GeM) with an aim to promote inclusiveness, transparency and efficiency in public procurement and achieve cashless, contactless and paperless transaction. GeM provides online, end to end solution for procurement of commonly used goods and services for all Central Government Departments and State Governments, Public Sector Units and affiliated bodies.
SLINEX-2018 joint naval exercise of India, Sri Lanka was held at Trincomalee, Sri Lanka from September 7 to 13, 2018. Started in 2005, SLINEX exercise was previously held once in two years and now it has been converted to annual event this year onwards. The exercise was conducted in two phases, namely Harbour and Sea Phase. These exercises involved joint training, exchange of expertise, helicopter and maritime patrol aircraft operations, search and rescue, and maneuvers at sea. Sri Lanka Air Force personnel also participated in the exercise for first time.
India and France on September 6, 2018 signed an implementation agreement on ‘Mobilise Your City’ (MYC) in New Delhi to support three Indian cities- Nagpur, Kochi and Ahmedabad-in their efforts to reduce Green House Gas (GHG) emissions. The MYC agreement was signed by Mukund Kumar Sinha, OSD & Ex-Officio Joint Secretary in the Urban Affairs Ministry and the Regional Director of Agence Française de Développement (AfD), Nicolas Fornage.
India and France on September 6, 2018 signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to constitute a working group for Gaganyaan Mission, India’s first manned space mission at the 6th Bengaluru Space Expo by French space agency CNES President, Jean-Yves Le Gall. French-Indian space cooperation includes climate monitoring, with a fleet of joint satellites devoted to research and operational applications. GSLV Mk-III launch vehicle will be used to launch Gaganyaan.