Nepal Investment Summit to be organised on March 29-30
The Government of Nepal is organizing “Nepal Investment Summit 2019” on March 29-30 in Kathmandu.The main objective of the event is to project Nepal as a favourable investment destination.The summit will unveil potential opportunities for investment in various sectors in Nepal including Hydropower, Tourism, Infrastructure, Industry, Transport, Agriculture and Information and Communication Technology.Over 600 investors and delegates from 40 countries including India will participate in the two-day event.
- Singapore airport named world’s best, New Delhi’s IGI gets 59th
Singapore’s Changi Airport has been crowned the world’s best aviation hub for the seventh time in a row.New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport featured at number 59, according to the Skytrax World Airport Awards.The list has been compiled by the UK-based Skytrax, a consultancy firm which runs an airline and airport review and ranking site, featuring 100 airports.The prestigious accolade was awarded at the Passenger Terminal Expo 2019 in London.The Skytrax World Airport Awards are voted for by customers in a global airport customer satisfaction survey.
- UGC prohibited distance learning degree courses in agriculture
The University Grants Commission (UGC) has prohibited imparting distance degree programmes in agriculture.
The decision was taken by the higher education regulator at its last meeting on the ground.It states that a degree programme in agriculture is technical in nature as it requires practical or laboratory courses.As per UGC Open and Distance Learning Regulations, 2017, professional programmes such as medicine, engineering, architecture, nursing, dental, pharmacy and physiotherapy are not permitted to be offered in distance mode.Nasik-based Yashwant Rao Chavan Maharashtra Open University, Annamalai University, IGNOU, Kuvempu University and Nalanda Open University are among the institutions offering programmes in agriculture science.
- India, Australia to hold a joint exercise on maritime security from 2 April
India and Australia are set to further deepen defence and strategic relationship with the third edition of the biennial, bilateral exercise AUSINDEX 19 from April 2 to April 16 at Vishakhapatnam.The upcoming exercise will focus on anti-submarine warfare and will see Australia’s largest defence force deployment in India.This exercise is part of the strong and growing Australia-India strategic partnership.
More than 1,000 Australian defence force personnel comprising Navy, Army and Air force assets will work together with their Indian counterparts in military training activities
- Govt decides to infuse around Rs 5000 Cr into Bank Of Baroda
The government has decided to infuse around five thousand crore rupees into state-owned Bank of Baroda ahead of the merger of two other public sector lenders Dena Bank and Vijaya Bank with Bank of Baroda.The merger of Dena Bank and Vijaya Bank with Bank of Baroda would be effective from 1st Apri 2019.
The Bank of Baroda, in a regulatory filing, said that the finance ministry through its notification conveyed its decision to infuse a capital of 5,042 crore rupees in the bank.
The government in September last year had announced the merger of Vijaya Bank and Dena Bank with Bank of Baroda, aiming to create the third-largest lender after SBI and ICICI Bank.
- ICICI Bank launches digital home loan products up to Rs 1 cr
ICICI Bank has launched two instant home loan products for up to Rs 1 crore.The instantaneous home loan facility enables customers to get final sanction letter for new home loans as well as for a top-up the loan in a fully-digital way.’Instant Home Loan’ enables pre-approved salaried customers of the bank to avail loans up to Rs 1 crore for a tenure of up to 30 years using internet banking facility.The facility helps the customers get the top up amount disbursed immediately in their account as compared to the industry practice of approving and disbursing a top-up a home loan in a few working days.
- Justice (Retd.) DK Jain will be BCCI’s ad-hoc Ethics Officer
The Committee of Administrators, COA running Indian cricket has said that the newly appointed ombudsman by the BCCI, Justice (Retd.) DK Jain will also be its ad-hoc Ethics Officer.
The COA, in its 10th Status Report filed on October 28, 2018, had requested the Supreme Court to appoint an Ethics Officer in addition to an Ombudsman for looking into the matters of Conflict of Interest.The three-member COA requested Justice Jain to take over as Ethics Officer on an ad-hoc basis till a permanent appointment takes place.
Justice Jain, who is already looking into Hardik Pandya-KL Rahul chat show controversy, agreed to the request.
- Turing Award honours pioneers of AI
Three trailblazers in artificial intelligence have been honoured with the 2018 Turing Award.Yoshua Bengio, Geoffrey Hinton and Yann LeCun were named the recipients of the award by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM).
The three developed conceptual and engineering foundations for AI by making deep neural networks a critical component of computing.The recipients will be awarded a $1 million prize, with financial support provided by Google.
- Nobel laureate Amartya Sen honoured with Oxford University’s Bodley Medal
Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen has been awarded the prestigious Bodley Medal.It is the highest honour bestowed by the University of Oxford’s world-famous Bodleian Libraries.
The Medal is awarded to individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the fields in which the Bodleian is active, including literature, culture, science and communication.
Past winners of the honour include physicist Stephen Hawking, novelist Hilary Mantel and inventor of the World Wide Web Tim Berners-Lee.Amartya Sen is an Indian economist.In 1998, Sen was awarded the prestigious Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his work in welfare economics.
