Japan Prime Minister Cancels Trip to India and Philippines
Japanese PM Yoshihide Suga has cancelled plans to visit India and the Philippines during his country's extended holiday starting in late April amid a sharp rise in Covid cases, a senior government spokesman said on Wednesday. Japan is considering a state of emergency for Tokyo. Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato said, "It has been decided Prime Minister Suga won't take any overseas trips during the Golden Week."
Russia Warns West of Harsh, Swift Response amid Tension
President Vladimir Putin warned the West not to cross Russia's red lines, saying that Moscow would respond swiftly and harshly to any provocations and those responsible would regret it.
At a time of acute crisis in ties with the United States and Europe, with Russian troops massed near Ukraine and opposition leader Alexei Navalny on hunger strike in jail, the Kremlin leader used his state-of-the nation speech to project a message of Russian strength and defiance in the face of outside threats.
Meanwhile, the police detained 102 people at protests across Russia in support of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny.
Sudan Talks Tough with Ethiopia over River Nile Dam
Sudan is caught in the middle of a decade-long row between Ethiopia and Egypt over the dam Ethiopia is building on the River Nile and in recent months it has undergone a major shift in attitude, as Zeinab Mohammed Salih reports from Khartoum.
When discussing the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (Gerd), Sudan's rhetoric has moved from being broadly welcoming to being suspicious and belligerent.
This change, in large part, reflects the increasing influence of the military in the transitional government that is supposed to pave the way to a democratic system after the overthrow of long-serving leader Omar al-Bashir.
The diplomatic temperature has increased as Ethiopia's rainy season approaches and the reservoir behind the dam will fill up for a second year without any agreement on how it should be done.
The Blue Nature Alliance is a global partnership of five core partners and few other Non-Profit Organisations. The core partners are Conservation International, the Global Environment Facility, the Pew Charitable Trusts, Minderoo Foundation and Rob and Melani Walton Foundation.
The Blue Alliance was launched in April 2021.
The alliance aims to protect 5% of the world ocean in five years.
The alliance aims to target the following seven ocean locations: Antarctica, Seychelles, Canada, Palau, Western Indian Ocean, Fiji and Tristan da Cunha, an island in the South Atlantic Ocean.
Merger of TV18 Broadcast, Hathway, Den Networks into Network18 Called Off
A year after announcing the merger of Den Networks, TV18 Broadcast and Hathway Cable & Datacom into Network18 Media, Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries (RIL) called off the transaction.
Den Networks, a cable distribution company owned by RIL, said that it had decided against proceeding with the composite scheme of arrangement in which it was to merge into Network18 along with its sister concerns.
The development comes within a month of an offer for sale (OFS) launched by RIL to pare its stakes in Den and Hathway. RIL subsidiaries were looking to offload 19.1 per cent in Hathway and 11.63 per cent in Den for Rs. 853 crore and Rs. 269 crore, respectively.
DCB Acquires Stake in NBFC Techfino Capital
DCB Bank acquired 9 per cent stake in non-banking financial company Techfino Capital which is engaged in providing technology-based education and healthcare loans.
Techfino is a Bengaluru based non-banking financial company (NBFC) which using its modern technology platform to provide customised consumer loans in education and healthcare sectors.
DCB Bank and Techfino complement each other's strengths, and this is an opportunity for both organisations to grow the customer franchise.
Pankaj Gupta Quits as Google Pay Engineering Head
Pankaj Gupta is leaving Google Pay after leading the company's engineering in India and Asia-Pacific at a time when it competing with rivals for a share in the financial services market.
Google Pay competes with players such as Walmart-owned PhonePe, Amazon Pay, and Alibaba-backed Paytm, which are also making significant inroads into the financial services market as well as payments.
An alumnus of Stanford University and IIT-Delhi, Gupta was the founder and CEO of Bengaluru-based Halli Labs that sepcialised in artificial intelligence and machine learning. He joined Google after it acquired Halli Labs in 2017. He headed all engineering in APAC for Google Tez (now called Google Pay India) right from launch. He also headed global engineering across countries for Google Pay Consumer Products.
Microsoft is reportedly working on a new app store for Windows 10 that will introduce a modern and fluid user interface, as well as bring changes to the policies that govern what kind of apps can be submitted to the store by developers.
The new store will feature a new user interface (UI) and big policy changes for app developers.
The new app store will follow the same design refresh that the rest of Windows is following with Sun Valley, which is expected to ship towards the end of this year.
NASA's Mars Rover Makes Oxygen on another Planet
According to US space agency, NASA has logged another extraterrestrial first on its latest mission to Mars: converting carbon dioxide from the Martian atmosphere into pure, breathable oxygen.
The unprecedented extraction of oxygen, literally out of thin air on Mars, was achieved by an experimental device aboard Perseverance, a six-wheeled science rover that landed on the Red Planet in February after a seven-month journey from Earth.
In its first activation, the toaster-sized instrument dubbed MOXIE, short for Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilisation Experiment, produced about 5 grams of oxygen, equivalent to roughly 10 minutes' worth of breathing for an astronaut. Although the initial output was modest, the feat marked the first experimental extraction of a natural resource from the environment of another planet for direct use by humans.
India got its 68th Grandmaster when Arjun Kalyan, from Chennai, achieved the 2,500 ELO rating mark after he beat Dragan Kosic of Montenegro in the fifth round of the GM Round Robin "Rujna Zora-3" chess tournament in Serbia.
To become a Grandmaster, a player has to achieve at least three GM norms, plus his/her ELO rating has to have passed 2,500 at some point.
India Ranks 87th in Global Energy Transition Index
India has been ranked at the 87th position among 115 countries in the Energy Transition Index (ETI) that tracks nations on the current performance of their energy systems across various aspects.
The report from the World Economic Forum (WEF) released and prepared in collaboration with Accenture also draws on insights from ETI.
The top 10 countries in the index are Western and Northern European countries, and Sweden is in the first position followed by Norway (2nd) and Denmark (3rd).
Other countries in the top 10 are Switzerland (4), Austria (5), Finland (6), the United Kingdom (7), New Zealand (8), France (9) and Iceland (10).
China (68) and India (87), which collectively account for a third of global energy demand, have both made strong improvements over the past decade, despite coal continuing to play a significant role in their energy mix.
Delhi Government Puts off DSGMC Elections
Following a Covid surge, the April 25 elections to the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee (DSGMC) have been postponed. Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal took the decision and sent the proposal to Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal.
India Likely to Step-up Military Training and Assistance for Afghanistan
India is likely to step-up military training and assistance to Afghanistan, even as US troops are set to withdraw from the war-ravaged country later this year.
As per reports, steps to enhance bilateral defence cooperation were discussed in a meeting between Army Chief General M. M. Naravane and Afghan ambassador Farid Mamundzay.
India has over the years supplied military hardware, including four Mi-25 armed helicopters, to Afghanistan as well as trained thousands of its military personnel in counter-terrorism operations, military field-craft, intelligence-gathering and information technology, among other fields.
BAE Launches UK Navy's Fifth Astute-Class Attack Submarine
BAE Systems has launched the UK Royal Navy's fifth Astute-class nuclear submarine, Anson, at its Barrow-in-Furness site in Cumbria.
The company is building a total of seven Astute-class boats for the service.
In December last year, the fifth Astute-class nuclear submarine was named Anson in a virtual ceremony.
The 97 m-long, 7,400t submarine will now move forward with the next phase of its test and commissioning programme. It will leave for sea trials in 2022.
The Astute-class boats are capable of 'circumnavigating the globe submerged, producing their own oxygen and drinking water'.
All these boats feature advanced nuclear technology and never require to be refuelled.
Chinese President Xi Jinping to Attend Biden's Climate Summit
Chinese President Xi Jinping will take part in US President Joe Biden's climate summit being organised virtually in which several world leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, will participate.
Biden has invited 40 world leaders, including Modi, to the two-day conference beginning April 22, which according to a While House statement will underscore the urgency and the economic benefits of stronger climate action.
Earth Day
Earth Day is an annual event on April 22 to demonstrate support for environmental protection. First held on April 22, 1970, it now includes a wide range of events coordinated globally by EARTHDAY.ORG (formerly Earth Day Network) including 1 billion people in more than 193 countries.
In 1969 at a UNESCO Conference in San Francisco, peace activist John McConnell proposed a day to honor the Earth and the concept of peace, to first be observed on March 21, 1970, the first day of spring in the northern hemisphere. This day of nature's equipoise was later sanctioned in a proclamation written by McConnell and signed by Secretary General U Thant at the United Nations. A month later a United States Senator Gaylord Nelson proposed the idea to hold a nationwide environmental teach-in on April 22, 1970.
The Earth Day 2021 theme is Restore Our Earth and features five primary programs: The Canopy Project, Food and Environment, Climate Literacy, the Global Earth Challenge, and The Great Global CleanUp.
Piyush Goyal Launches Startup India Seed Fund Scheme
Union Minister for Commerce and Industry, Piyush Goyal launched the Startup India Seed Fund Scheme (SISFS). The Fund aims to provide financial assistance to startups for proof of concept, prototype development, product trials, market entry and commercialization. An amount of Rs. 945 crore corpus will be divided over the next 4 years for providing seed funding to eligible startups through eligible incubators across India. The scheme is expected to support an estimated 3,600 startups through 300 incubators.
Mr. Goyal said that the SISFS will Secure seed funding, Inspire innovation, Support transformative ideas, Facilitate implementation, and Start startup revolution. He said that this Scheme will create a robust startup ecosystem, particularly in Tier 2 and Tier 3 towns of India, which are often deprived of adequate funding. The Minister said that he would like to especially encourage innovators from rural areas to come forward and benefit from this scheme.
Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham in World Top 100 Institutes
Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham in Tamil Nadu is the only Indian university to make it to the world's top 100 educational institutions doing the most in the fight towards sustainability, according to new global rankings. The university is ranked 81st in the overall ranking table of the 'Times Higher Education (THE) Impact Rankings 2021', previously ranking in the 301-400 band.
Ex-Pakistan Envoy's Memoir 'Hostility: A Diplomat's Diary on Pakistan-India Relations'
Narendra Modi's first tenure as the Prime Minister of India in 2014 brought with it a fresh hope to normalise relations between India and Pakistan. However, subsequent events proved otherwise.
In his memoir 'Hostility: A Diplomat's Diary on Pakistan-India Relations', former Pakistan High Commissioner to India Abdul Basit traces the highs and lows of his tenure in what is easily among the most difficult diplomatic postings anywhere in the world between 2014 and 2017.
Published by HarperCollins, the book was released in April 2021.
In his book, the former ambassador recounts how the relationship between the two arch rivals has only strained over time, the ups and downs it has seen and the many stalemates that have happened. But that is not all.
Prahlad Singh Patel inaugurates First-ever Online Exhibition on Ramayana
The Union Minister of State for Tourism and Culture, Prahlad Singh Patel virtually inaugurated the first-ever Online Exhibition on Ramayana, the Epic by Maharishi Valmiki.
The online exhibition has been titled "Rama Katha: The Story of Rama Through Indian Miniatures". It showcases 49 miniature paintings collections from different art schools of India, from the 17th through the 19th century. The collection of the painting has been taken from National Museum, New Delhi.
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