India was elected with the highest number of votes by the General Assembly to the influential Human Rights Council on Friday with a pledge to combat intolerance.

India received 188 votes, the highest polled by any of the 18 countries elected in the voting.

This is the fifth time India has been elected to the Geneva-based Council, the main body of the UN charged with promoting and monitoring human rights.

India's presence on the Council will be important because the previous UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Raad Al Hussein asked the body to facilitate an international commission of enquiry into allegations of human rights violation in Kashmir.

JAMMU: The Indian Space Research Organisation will set up a centre at the Central University Jammu (CUJ) to expand its presence to the northernmost state of India.ISRO Chairman K Sivan signed memorandums of understanding with CUJ Vice Chancellor Ashok Aima and officials of Central Space Instruments Organisation (CSIR-CSIO) to set up the centre Thursday.
Union minister Jitendra Singh was present during the signing of the MoUs at CUJ campus in Samba.

The centre, named Satish Dhawan Center for Space Science, is proposed to be spread on an area of about 1,150 square metres.

The area of space application is of particular interest to Jammu and Kashmir as its economy and human lives are affected by vegetation cover, forest area, snow, landslides, avalanches, ground water, cloud cover, which can be monitored from space through remote-sensing.

Also, considering the recurring natural calamities, requirement of strengthening ground-based observational capabilities of this region for weather and atmospheric research is of utmost important.

The centre will take care of the emerging geospatial and space technology requirements for the development of the region.

Union minister Singh said the collaboration between ISRO and CUJ was a landmark achievement for Jammu and Kashmir.

Saying that ISRO would become a pan-India organisation with the establishment of the centre, he urged the youth to develop scientific temper and interest in space research.

NEW DELHI: The Delhi government on Friday signed a twin city agreement with Moscow administration for cooperation in various sectors including education, tourism, transport and environment.
Delhi's Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia and Moscow government minister Sergey Cheremin signed the agreement for working together in the education, culture, healthcare, e-governance, tourism, and transport sectors for three years.

On the occasion, Mr Sisodia said the agreement will further strengthen the relationship between the two cities. On his part, Cheremin said that Delhi and Moscow are "great partners".

"India and Russia are strategic partner for many decades," he said.
"We have worked hard to develop this strong relationship," Mr Cheremin said.

He also said that both the cities will cooperate actively in the management of transport, tourism, healthcare among other areas.

AAP ministers Satyendar Jain, Kailash Gahlot, Rajender Pal Gautam were present during the signing of the agreement. Senior officers, including Chief Secretary Anshu Prakash, also attended the event.

The country’s first India-Israel Innovation Centre (IIIC), an entrepreneurial technology hub, was launched in Bengaluru on Wednesday. The IIIC is a significant step towards facilitating penetration of Israeli companies in India and aims to forge local partnerships and joint ventures between companies from the two countries.

It will provide an ecosystem to support entrepreneurship, partnership with vendors, mentoring and non-formal community development that will assist the growth of the companies in different verticals and covers business, technology, investors and customers.

Start-ups that are part of IIIC will be given mentorship and guidance and opportunities to participate at all IIIC’s global events and experience networking avenues with potential customers.

The IIIC was launched by Ramanan Ramanathan, Mission Director, Atal Innovation Mission, Ariel Seidman, Deputy Counsul-General of Israel, Moshe Porat, Founder and CEO, Mesh Labs, and Varad Krishna, Founding Partner of IIIC.

Speaking on the launch, Dana Kush, Consulate-General of Israel to South India said, “We are proud to witness the launch of IIIC, which reinstates that the formula of ‘India + Israel= Innovation’ works. Our role as diplomats is to find the best possible ways to connect India to the Israeli ecosystem and vice-versa, especially while both nations are focusing on start-ups. I wish IIIC to be another productive milestone in connecting the countries and pave the way for many more successful businesses to grow and transform. There would have been no better place than having this launch in India’s Silicon Valley here in Bengaluru.”

“The launch of IIIC, at the IoT India Congress in Bengaluru, the first ever in India that aims to meet the long pending need to connect the start-up ecosystems of Israel and India to improve quality, and thereby, the survival rate of the start-ups from our country,” Varad Krishna, Founding Partner of IIIC.

New Delhi, Oct 10 (PTI) Leading stock exchange NSE Wednesday said it has signed a pact with the Uttarakhand government to provide access to capital to MSMEs, which will fuel growth of such entities in the state. The bourse will play an active role in nurturing the SMEs and start-ups by increasing awareness along with the government on the opportunities to raise capital, SME exchange guidelines, listing processes, compliances with listing agreement among others, NSE said in a statement. "We, at NSE are happy to actively collaborate with the Government of Uttarakhand. small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are crucial for economic growth, employment generation and broad based inclusive development," NSE Chief Business Development Officer Ravi Varanasi said. "We are very focused on providing access to capital to SMEs and look forward to supporting SMEs from Uttarakhand in their growth plans and do joint programmes with government of Uttarakhand in each district of the state for capital raising initiatives," he added. As part of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), the exchange will support the efforts of the government in enhancing the financing opportunities for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in the state, through listing on NSE's SME platform-- Emerge. On its part, the government will facilitate MSMEs to get listed on the NSE Emerge, by supporting such entities financially or otherwise, in bearing the expenses related to listing. NSE's SME Platform has currently 182 companies listed, which together raised over Rs 2,850 

In Malaysia, the cabinet today decided to abolish the death penalty. Communications and multimedia Minister Gobind Singh Deo said, the government decided to scrap capital punishment following strong domestic opposition to the practice.

Malaysia's Lawyers for Liberty rights group said death penalty is barbarous, and unimaginably cruel. It said once the death penalty is scrapped, Malaysia will have the moral authority to fight for the lives of Malaysians facing death sentences abroad.

Capital punishment in Malaysia is currently mandatory for murder, kidnapping, possession of firearms and drug trafficking, among other crimes.

President Ramnath Kovind has said in a democracy, Information overload is always preferable to information deficit. Addressing the 13th annual convention of Central Information Commission in New Delhi, the President said, people have a right to know how they are being governed, how public money is being spent and how public and national resources are being deployed.

He said it is people's right to know how public services are being delivered, and how public works and welfare programmes are being carried out. Mr. Kovind said, Right to Information is about nurturing the social contract of trust between the citizen and the state where both must have faith in each other.

The President said, a related and parallel implication is to ensure rational use of public resources to check instances of corruption or waste. He said, the Internet and the digital economy have been used to advance e-auctions of mining blocks. They have helped create the Government e-Market or GeM portal for public procurement of goods and services.

AIR correspondent reports, there are half a million public information officers under the RTI Act. The estimate of requests for information is as high as six million requests a year.

NITI Aayog and IBM today announced a first-of-its-kind internship programme for students selected by Atal Innovation Mission (AIM).

The internship will see 38 students receive a two-week paid internship, and 14 teachers from Atal Tinkering Labs (ATL) across the length and breadth of the country including from states such as Assam, Himachal Pradesh, Andaman & Nicobar and others, to come together and ideate, collaborate and innovate.

These students will be equipped with the skills for new collar careers in areas like artificial intelligence, Internet-of-Things, cybersecurity, cloud computing and blockchain. Apart from being trained in emerging technologies, students will also be coached in critical workplace skills.

As part of the program, select teachers from ATLs will also be trained by IBM volunteers and mentors to become innovation coaches. The two-week program is designed so students can experience the corporate environment and gain exposure to new technologies. To scale the programme, top-performing students are selected for industry exposure to strengthen their technical skills and prepare them for future jobs.

The Atal Innovation Mission conducted the Atal Tinkering Marathon in 2017 where Top 30 innovations across five focus areas - agritech, healthcare, smart mobility, clean energy, waste management, water management - were identified as the top innovations.

In Malaysia, the cabinet today decided to abolish the death penalty. Communications and multimedia Minister Gobind Singh Deo said, the government decided to scrap capital punishment following strong domestic opposition to the practice.

Malaysia's Lawyers for Liberty rights group said death penalty is barbarous, and unimaginably cruel. It said once the death penalty is scrapped, Malaysia will have the moral authority to fight for the lives of Malaysians facing death sentences abroad.

Capital punishment in Malaysia is currently mandatory for murder, kidnapping, possession of firearms and drug trafficking, among other crimes.

India Thursday rejected the findings of the World Bank’s report on Human Capital Index (HCI) which placed the country at the 115th position, lower than Nepal, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Bangladesh.

The World Bank, in its first report on HCI, ranked 157 economies on parameters like child mortality, health and education.

In a statement, the Finance Ministry said the HCI score for India does not reflect the key initiatives that are being taken for developing human capital in the country.

“The Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan has been launched to focus on access and quality of education for the benefit of 197 million school children.