In a significant sign of successful trilateral cooperation, Iran President Hassan Rouhani inaugurated the first phase of the Shahid Beheshti Port in the country’s southeastern city of Chabahar as India, Iran, and Afghanistan discussed further transit options. The port opens a new strategic transit route between Iran, India, Afghanistan and other Central Asian nations bypassing Pakistan.
US pulls out of UN conference on migration
President Donald Trump’s America has pulled out of another global commitment. The US informed the UN on Saturday that it was “ending its participation in the Global Compact on Migration”, a world grouping started in September 2016 with the adoption of the New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants by the 193-member UN General Assembly to promote “safe, orderly and regular migration”.
The moon appears bigger and brighter in the sky as it moves closer to earth. The moon will appear 14% larger and about 30% brighter because it revolves around the earth in an ‘elliptical orbit’. The moon will be closest to earth at 2.15pm (IST) on Monday, the distance being 3,57,492km. Nasa has said that there will be two more supermoons—one on January 1, and the second one on January 31—calling it a supermoon trilogy, including the one on Monday. The space agency said the January 31 supermoon will be ‘extra special’ because it will also feature a total lunar eclipse.
Furthering the digital money initiative, Paytm Payments Bank has rolled out Paytm FASTag to make payment of tolls at highway booths smoother.
This would enable electronic toll-fee collection on highways across the country. The company has entered into tie-ups with a host of automobile makers to make its radio frequency identification tag (RFID) a part of the bundle they give with cars. It is working with leading car and commercial vehicle manufacturers and dealers — including Maruti, Hyundai, Tata, Mercedes, Renault, BMW, Volkswagen and Volvo, among others — to make Paytm FASTag available for new vehicles purchased across India.
This announcement is in line with the government’s move to make FASTag mandatory on every new vehicle sold December 1 onwards.
New direct tax code likely to cut rates
Lower income tax rates, and more tax-payers — that’s the overall aim of the new direct tax code being put in place by a committee appointed by the Narendra Modi government. It is unlikely individual taxpayers will get to celebrate anytime soon, although the official mentioned a timeline of 2019. The panel, set up in November, has been given six months to submit its report. The aim is to get more people to pay tax (currently only 4.5% of India’s 1.3 billion population does) and take the direct tax-to-GDP ratio to as close to 18% as possible.
IBM’s Revenue in India Tops $5 Billion
A little over a decade after it captured a landmark outsourcing contract from telecom firm Bharti Airtel Ltd, International Business Machines (IBM) has touched $5 billion in revenue in India—making it larger than a bunch of other top homegrown outsourcing firms like Tech Mahindra.IBM posted robust growth of nearly 41% in the April-March period, driven by strong technology spending in the domestic outsourcing market.
The latest figures make IBM the biggest technology services firm in the domestic outsourcing market, which is home to information technology (IT) giants such as Infosys Ltd and Tata Consultancy Services Ltd.
Shivam Mavi, a 19-year-old all-rounder from Noida, is all set to join the Indian Cricket Team for the upcoming Under-19 World Cup in New Zealand next year.
The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) announced the list of 15 players on Sunday evening along with five ‘reserve’ players for the tournament.Mavi attracted the attention of the selectors after his performance in the zonal level ‘Challengers’ tournament where he bagged 9 wickets in four matches.
Billed as the first such initiative in the world, a dedicated information technology park for persons with disabilities is being set up near Hyderabad. The Telangana government in association with Vindhya E- Infomedia Pvt. Ltd, will establish the IT campus in public private partnership mode at Shamshabad near Hyderabad international airport. The IT park will have facilities for training, residential quarters and delivery centres for domestic and international clients and will create jobs for 2,000 physically challenged persons over the next five years.
Legal framework for Int’l Solar Alliance takes effect
The International Solar Alliance (ISA), conceived as an exclusive group of countries lying fully or partially between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, is likely to extend its footprint beyond the tropics. The alliance, India’s brainchild, which was launched jointly with France on November 30, 2015, will come into force on Wednesday. Germany, South Korea, Mongolia and Nepal have approached the ISA for membership with voting rights. The global body will consider the issue in the meeting of its steering committee, which includes India and France, next year. The ISA was conceived by India as there was no exclusive body to address the solar technology deployment needs of solar resource-rich countries. Most of these countries are geographically located for optimal absorption of the sun’s rays. There is a great amount of sunlight for almost 300 days a year in these countries which can lead to cost-effective solar power.
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