The 8th Asian Yoga Sports Championship organised by Asian Yoga Federation will begin in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala today.
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan will formally inaugurate the event.
Nearly 450 participants representing 12 Asian countries showcasing their yoga skills will take part in four-day event. AIR correspondent reports that the pan-Asian yoga event is being held in the country for the second time.


Participants from various countries including China, Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea, United Arab Emirates, Sri Lanka, Iran, Nepal, Vietnam, Afghanisthan and Bangladesh have already reached Thiruvananthapuram. The Indian team include 111 yoga exponents, including five Keralites. Competitions would be held under various age groups in six categories including Asian yogasana sports competition, artistic yoga, artistic pair yoga, rhythmic yoga, free flow dance competition, and professional yogasana sports competition.

Yogaratna Awards will be given away to foreign delegates who were instrumental in popularising yoga in their respective countries. Noted Saudi yoga instructor Nouf Marwaai, who was recently awarded the Padma Shri, is expected to participate in the event.

A meeting between Union Minister for Electronics & Information Technology, Sh. Ravi Shankar Prasad and the Minister for Development of Information Technologies and Communications, Uzbekistan Mr Shuhrat Sadikov was held in New Delhi for strengthening bilateral cooperation between the two countries in ICT sector.

The Uzbek side appreciated India’s achievement under the Digital India programme and expressed interest for cooperation in the area of IT-ITeS trade promotion, e-Governance, HRD and Capacity building, Telemedicine etc. Further, the Uzbek side showed keen interest in techno-park cooperation.

Union IT Minister Sh. Ravi Shankar Prasad assured his counterpart that India will provide all possible technical support from the Indian side in the digital growth of Uzbekistan. Subsequently, in presence of both the Ministers Two Memorandum of Understandings (MoU’s) were signed: -  

a)         Agreement between National Informatics Centre (NIC), India and e-Government System development centre of the Ministry for Development of Information Technologies and Communications of Uzbekistan for strengthening e-Governance cooperation.

b)         Declaration of Intent between CDAC, India and Tashkent University of Information Technologies, Uzbekistan for cooperation in the area of capacity building in ICT sector. 

 Sh. Prasad said that India will assist in creating technology parks in Uzbekistan and a pre-agreement was also signed with STPI in this regard.

at a function in the capital today. The agreement is a reflection of the commitment and efforts made by India towards attaining the Sustainable Development Goals. The Government of India-United Nations Sustainable Development Framework (UNSDF) for 2018-2022 was signed by the CEO, NITI Aayog, Amitabh Kant and United Nations Resident Coordinator in India Yuri Afanasiev, at a special signing ceremony presided over by Vice Chairperson, NITI Aayog, Rajiv Kumar. Members of NITI Aayog and Heads of UN agencies in India were present on this occasion.

Shri Dharmendra Pradhan, Union Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas & Skill Development and Entrepreneurship will kick off an innovative initiative in New Delhi on 1st October, 2018, with PSU Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs ,i.e. IOC, BPCL and HPCL) inviting Expression of Interest (EoI) from potential entrepreneurs to set up Compressed Bio-Gas (CBG) production plants and make available CBG in the market for use in automotive fuels. This significant move has the potential to boost availability of more affordable transport fuels, better use of agricultural residue, cattle dung and municipal solid waste, as well as to provide an additional revenue source to farmers.

Titled SATAT, the initiative is aimed at providing a Sustainable Alternative Towards Affordable Transportation (SATAT) as a developmental effort that would benefit both vehicle-users as well as farmers and entrepreneurs.

To be launched on the penultimate day of the ongoing Swachhta Hi Seva fortnight, a mass movement to fulfil Mahatma Gandhi's vision of a Clean India, this initiative holds great promise for efficient municipal solid waste management and in tackling the problem of polluted urban air due to farm stubble-burning and carbon emissions. Use of CBG will also help bring down dependency on crude oil imports and in realising the Prime Minister’s vision of enhancing farmers’ income, rural employment and entrepreneurship.

Minister for Commerce and Industry, Suresh Prabhu, on Friday approved constitution of a High Level Advisory Group (HLAG) to make recommendations in identifying opportunities and addressing challenges in the contemporary global trade scenario.

The HLAG will be headed by Surjit S. Bhalla, Director of Oxus Research and Investments. The other members of the Group are S. Jaishankar, former Foreign Secretary; Rajeev Kher, former Commerce Secretary and Member Competition Appellate Tribunal; Sanjeev Sanyal, Principal Economic Advisor, Government of India; Adil Zainul bhai, Chairman Quality Council of India; Dr.Harsha Vardhana Singh, former DDG WTO; Dr.Shekhar Shah, DG, NCAER; Dr.Vijay Chauthaiwale, Foreign Policy Advisor; Dr.Pulok Ghosh, IIM Bangalore; Jayant Dasgupta, former Ambassador of India to the WTO; Rajiv K Luthra of Luthra&Luthra and Chandrajit Banerjee, DG

NEW DELHI: The Modi government Thursday constituted an eight-member search committee, to be headed by former Supreme Court judge Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai, to recommend the chairperson and members of the anti-corruption ombudsman Lokpal.

The committee, formed despite concerns raised by the Congress, has former chief of State Bank of India (SBI) Arundhati Bhattacharya, Prasar Bharati chairperson A Surya Prakash and Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) head A S Kiran Kumar as members.

Besides them, Justice Sakha Ram Singh Yadav, former judge of Allahabad High Court; Shabbirhusein S Khandwawala, former Gujarat Police head; Lalit K Panwar, retired IAS officer of Rajasthan cadre; and former Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar are the other members of the panel, according to an official order issued by the Personnel Ministry.

"The process of Lokpal selection is going as per the guidelines laid down in the Lokpal Act," Minister of State for Personnel Jitendra Singh told PTI when asked about the development.

The move assumes significance as the government decided to go ahead with the formation of the search committee despite Congress leader in Lok Sabha, Mallikarjun Kharge, boycotting meetings of the Lokpal selection panel, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a senior government official said.

"The search committee is a major step towards setting up of the Lokpal. The committee will start its functioning soon," he said.

The decision to constitute the search committee comes four years after the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act, which envisages establishment of anti-graft body Lokpal at the Centre and Lokayuktas in states to look into cases of corruption against certain categories of public servants, was passed in 2013.

Kharge had been boycotting the selection committee meeting on the pretext that he is not made a full-fledged member in the panel.

He had rejected the invitation extended to him to attend the meetings of the selection committee held this year on six occasions-- March 1, April 10, July 19, August 21, September 4 and September 19 -- as a "special invitee".

The eight-member search committee is mandated to recommend a panel of names for the appointment of the Lokpal and its members.

Kharge had earlier urged the government to amend the Lokpal Act to include the leader of the single largest opposition party in Lok Sabha in the selection committee and bring an ordinance in this regard.

As per the Lokpal and Lokayukta Act, only the leader of the opposition (LoP) in the Lok Sabha is a member of the selection committee and since, Kharge does not have that status, he is not a part of the panel.

A party should have at least 55 seats or 10 per cent of the strength of the Lok Sabha for its leader to get the LoP status.

The Congress is the single largest opposition party in the Lower House but its leader could not be given the LoP status as it does not have the requisite number to qualify for it, the official said.

The Lokpal selection committee headed by the prime minister has as its members the Lok Sabha speaker, leader of the opposition in the lower house, the chief justice of India or a judge of the apex court nominated by him, and an eminent jurist who could be nominated by the president or any other member.

Upon the recommendations of the selection committee in its meeting held on April 10, President Ram Nath Kovind had nominated Mukul Rohatgi, former Attorney General of India as 'eminent jurist' member of the panel against the vacancy arising following the death of senior advocate P P Rao.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) today eased mandatory cash requirement rules for banks to provide “durable liquidity” to the economy.

RBI in a statement said banks could 'carve out' up to 15 per cent of holdings under the statutory liquidity reserves to meet their liquidity coverage ratio (LCR) requirements as compared to 13 per cent now.

RBI further announced the relaxation in statutory liquidity ratio (SLR) requirement with effect from October 1, 2018.This will supplement the ability of individual banks to avail of liquidity,from the repo markets.

RBI in a statement said that it stands ready to meet the durable liquidity requirements of the system through various available instruments.Citing proactive steps taken in the last few days, RBI said it conducted open market operation (OMO) on September 19.It further said that another OMO will be conducted to ensure adequate liquidity in the system.

New Delhi: Led by Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bangalore, India has a record 49 institutions among the best universities in the world, according to the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings 2019 published Wednesday.

While IISc remained the top school from the country, the Indian list saw some fresh names including the newly established Indian Institute of Technology in Indore (IIT Indore) making an impressive debut in the global rankings. However, all Indian institutes are outside the top 200 global list that was topped by Oxford University.

While IISc was kept in the 250-300 ranking cohort, IIT Indore made its debut with a presence in the 351-400 best universities group ahead of established IITs in Delhi, Madras and Mumbai.

IIT Bombay with a global ranking in the 401-500 group is the third best from India and has slipped in the latest ranking by 50 places when compared with its previous ranking. IIT Roorkee, however, improved its ranking by 100 places to be clubbed in the same group as IIT Bombay. After the top 200 list, THE does not assign individual rankings to universities but club them in groups.

These awards are presented to State Governments/ Union Territories, classified hotels, heritage hotels, approved travel agents, tour operators and tourist transport operators, individuals and other private organizations in recognition of their performance in their respective fields.

The awardees were chosen on the basis of several parameters including tourist traffic and efforts undertaken to make the state tourist friendly.

The awards are given to encourage healthy competition with an aim to promoting tourism.

Speaking on the occasion, K J Alphons said that the Tourism sector has generated 1.46 crore jobs in the last four years and clocked a growth of more than 14 per cent in number of Foreign Tourist Arrivals last year.

National Informatics Centre (NIC) and National Informatics Centre Services Incorporated (NICSI) have jointly set up a Centre of Excellence for data analytics to support Government departments to unlock the hidden potential of the data that they are generating as part of the governance processes and use it to improve the overall governance. Launch of Centre of Excellence for Data Analytics (CEDA) is being held on 28th September, 2018 (Friday) by the Hon’ble Union Minister of Electronics & Information Technology, Sh. Ravi Shankar Prasad in the presence of Hon’ble Minister of State, Electronics & Information Technology, as part of Workshop on Data Analytics in Government. The event will be attended by several dignitaries from the Central Government.

NIC as a premier technology advisor and ICT solution provider to Government at all levels, has always taken the first step to introduce the latest technologies and services in government, be it the introduction of ICT in Government, establishment of NICNET or National Knowledge Network (NKN), development of critical e-Governance solutions and a host of other services required by the Government. NICSI is a trusted partner of NIC and has been instrumental in supporting all NIC’s initiatives through provisioning of resources and establishing & managing ICT infrastructure such as National Data Center at Shastri Park, Development Center, Cloud infrastructure etc. Recognizing the emerging digital ecosystem, challenges and opportunities, CEDA is envisaged to kick-start and fast track the adoption of advanced analytics and machine learning capabilities and make it the locus of expertise for the Government department in this avant garde field.

Centre of Excellence for Data Analytics (CEDA) is being set up with the sole vision of kick-starting and fast-tracking the adoption of advanced analytic and machine learning capabilities by making the Centre the locus of expertise and excellence in the field of Data Analytics. The centre shall provide quality data analytic services to government departments at all levels by identifying appropriate tools and technologies and deploying people with right expertise.

Through its focused efforts, the centre aims to provide data analytics services to the government and help in solving complex policy issues through data-driven decision making so as to ensure effective formulation and implementation of various development initiatives that will ultimately benefit the citizens.