Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hold talks with Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammad Bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud in New Delhi today on wide range of issues of mutual interest. Several agreements are expected to be signed following the talks.

The Crown Prince will also call on President Ram Nath Kovind. Saudi Crown Prince arrived in New Delhi yesterday evening on a two-day visit to India. Mr Modi received him Prince upon his arrival.

The Crown Prince, who is also the Vice President of the Council of Ministers and Minister of Defence of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, is accompanied by a high-level delegation, including Ministers, senior officials and leading Saudi businessmen. 
  
The visit follows the highly successful visit of Prime Minister Modi to Saudi Arabia in April 2016, during which the two countries agreed to further elevate existing strategic partnership. 

India and Saudi Arabia have historically enjoyed close and friendly relations anchored in mutually beneficial partnership and extensive people to people contacts.

In recent years, there has been significant progress in bilateral cooperation in key areas of mutual interest, including energy security, trade and investment, infrastructure, defence and security. 

The bilateral trade was 27.48 billion dollars during the last financial year 2017-18, making Saudi Arabia, India’s 4th largest trading partner.

Government has cleared the National Policy on Electronics 2019. It envisions positioning India as a global hub for Electronics System Design and Manufacturing. 

This will also create an enabling environment for the industry to compete globally.  

Some of the other important decisions taken by the Cabinet include re-promulgation of the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Ordinance and additional DA of three per cent to Central government employees and pensioners. 

Union Cabinet has approved the implementation of Phase-2 of the Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana - Gramin beyond March, 2019. Under this, government has set a target to construct one crore 95 lakh houses by 2022. 

Briefing reporters in New Delhi yesterday, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said, in Phase-2, the scheme will continue as per the existing norms of PMAY-G Phase-1, with a target of 60 lakh houses till 2019-20 involving financial implication of 76,500 crore rupees. 

The left out rural households who are houseless will be provided pucca houses by 2022.

India and Morocco on Monday signed four MoUs following the delegation-level talks between External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and her Moroccan counterpart Nasser Bourita in Rabat. 

Briefing media after the meeting, Mrs Swaraj said, the MoUs include setting up of Joint Working Group on Counter Terrorism, Cooperation in Housing and Human Settlement, Reciprocal facilitation of procedures for issue of Business Visa and Cooperation in Youth Matters. 

In a series of tweets, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said, both countries agreed to set up a Joint Working Group on Counter Terrorism to develop a comprehensive approach to combat the menace, including cross- border terrorism, terrorist financing and recruitment of terrorists. 

He said, Mrs Swaraj and her Moroccan counterpart discussed ways to enhance bilateral cooperation in a number of areas, including defence and security, counter-terrorism and trade and investment.

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh Tuesday launched an all-in-one, pan-India emergency number — 112 — accessible through panic buttons in mobiles.

The Emergency Response Support System (ERSS), launched in 16 states/union territories and Mumbai city, aims to help those in distress, especially women send out distress signals and their location details to the nearest police control room by pressing a button on their phones.

Users can dial 112 or use the 112 India app or use panic buttons on their phones to connect to a single number based emergency service linked to police, fire services, health services and other helplines.

The minister tweeted that a single emergency number is being launched in New Delhi.

Noted Mallakhamb coach Uday Deshpande and aggressive opening batswoman Smriti Mandhana were Sunday conferred the state government’s Shiv Chhatrapati awards at a function at the iconic Gateway of India. The awards were presented by Maharashtra Governor C Vidyasagar Rao in presence of state sports minister Vinod Tawde, a media release issued by the minister’s office said.

While the Shiv Chhatrapati life-time achievement award was presented to Deshpande, who has dedicated his life to the traditional sport, the Shiv Chhatrapati award for players among several others was presented to Mandhana, who hails from Sangli district in western Maharashtra.

Mandhana is a member of the Indian women’s cricket team and will be leading the Board President’s XI against the England Women’s team in a warm up game on Monday.

According to the release, noted squash player Mahesh Mangaonkar and chess player Saloni Sapale, both recipients of the Shiv Chhatrapati award, have decided to donate the prize money of Rs one lakh, to the families of the slain jawans from Maharashtra, who were killed in the terror attack in Pulwama in Jammu and Kashmir on February 14.

Yuwa, a Jharkhand-based NGO which works for girl empowerment, Sunday won the Laureus Sport for Good award, becoming the third Indian entry to bag the honour.

The NGO, founded by Americans Franz Gastler and Rose Thomson Gastler in 2009, runs a football program in rural Jharkhand covering 450 girls.

The girls are amateurs and, those who have been around for long, have become coaches. 

Four girls out of the 450 Hima, Nita, Radha and Konika will receive the award on behalf of Yuwa at The Laureus World Sports Awards here on Monday. 

An Indian sporting feat made its way to the Laureus Awards for the first time in 2004 when the Indian cricket team and its Pakistani counterpart shared the Sport for Good honour for resuming bilateral ties despite tensions between the two countries. 

Most recently, Magic Bus from India won the Laureus Sport for Good award in 2014.

On Sunday, none other than legendary coach Arsene Wenger played football with the young Indian girls ahead of the announcement. 

"They are good technically and want to play together. We used to say football is a sport played by 11 selfish individuals but they play like a team and are highly motivated," said Wenger.

A scientist who raised early alarms about climate change and popularized the term “global warming” has died. Wallace Smith Broecker was 87. The longtime Columbia University professor and researcher died Monday at a New York City hospital, according to a spokesman for the university’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. Kevin Krajick said Broecker had been ailing in recent months.

Broecker brought “global warming” into common use with a 1975 article that correctly predicted rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere would lead to pronounced warming. He later became the first person to recognize what he called the Ocean Conveyor Belt, a global network of currents affecting everything from air temperature to rain patterns.

“Wally was unique, brilliant and combative,” said Princeton University professor Michael Oppenheimer. “He wasn’t fooled by the cooling of the 1970s. He saw clearly the unprecedented warming now playing out and made his views clear, even when few were willing to listen.”

In the Ocean Conveyor Belt, cold, salty water in the North Atlantic sinks, working like a plunger to drive an ocean current from near North America to Europe. Warm surface waters borne by this current help keep Europe’s climate mild.

Israel is to launch its first moon mission this week, sending an unmanned spacecraft to collect data to be shared with NASA, organizers said Monday.

Israeli space exploration firm SpaceIL, together with Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), will launch a 585-kilogram (1,290-pound) Beresheet (Genesis) spacecraft into orbit from Cape Canaveral, Florida at around 0145 GMT on Friday.

So far, only the US, Russia and China have landed spacecrafts on the moon. The Chinese craft made the first ever soft landing on the far side of the moon on January 3.

Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) and technology NGO SpaceIL announced the date at a press conference.

Mission control will be in Yehud, near Tel Aviv.

"We are entering history and are proud to belong to a group that has dreamed and fulfilled the vision shared by many countries in the world but that so far only three of them have accomplished," SpaceIL president Morris Kahn said.

AS SAUDI Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman arrives in India on a two-day visit on Tuesday, New Delhi and Riyadh will set up a “Strategic Partnership Council” at the ministerial level to deepen partnership in areas like political, security, trade, investment and culture.

After the bilateral meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Crown Prince on Wednesday, the two sides are also expected to sign pacts in areas of investment, tourism, housing and information & broadcasting.

Both sides are also exploring the possibility of elevating the defence engagement with joint production and joint exercises, particularly joint naval exercises.

With the visit taking place in the backdrop of Pulwama terrorist attack last week and the Crown Prince’s visit to Pakistan over last two days, the Ministry of External Affair’s secretary (economic relations) T S Tirumurti, who handles the ties with the country, said that the Kingdom has shown “greater understanding” of India’s terrorism-related concerns and has also agreed to work with us in countering this global menace.