Senior diplomat Vikas Swarup has been appointed as Secretary, Overseas Indian Affairs, according to an order issued by the Personnel Ministry on Friday.

Swarup, a 1986-batch officer of the Indian Foreign Service, is at present India’s High Commissioner in Ottawa.

He has been appointed as the Secretary, (consular, passport, visa and Overseas Indian affairs) in the External Affairs Ministry with effect from August 1, 2019, the order said.

Film Divisions will launch KSHITIJ, a documentary film club in Mumbai today. An acclaimed documentary film “Secret Life of Frogs” by Ajay and Vijay Bedi will be screened as the inaugural film. 

Public screenings will begin at 5:30 PM on the second and fourth Friday of every month. The screenings will be held at Films Division Complex. 

The initiative, being launched in association with Indian Documentary Producer’s Association, will give movie lovers, an opportunity to watch acclaimed documentary films and also to interact with the film’s director.

Shelving its previous plan to convert it into a waste-to-energy plant, the Delhi government announced Thursday that a solar park — of 5,000 KW capacity — will come up in the spot of the defunct Rajghat thermal power plant.

In October, 2016, Delhi Power Minister Satyendar Jain had announced that a waste-to-energy plant will replace the coal-fired power plant run by the Indraprastha Power Generation Company Limited.

On Thursday, Deputy CM Manish Sisodia said cabinet clearance has been accorded to the decision to open a solar park in the 45-acre land of the plant, which stopped functioning in 2015 due to concerns about air pollution. “The cabinet approved the proposal to officially close down the Rajghat coal plant. The government decided to close down production at the plant in 2015, as it was a major source of pollution,” he said.

India and US will hold trade talks in New Delhi today to discuss bilateral and economic issues. 

The US delegation is being led by Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for South and Central Asia, Christopher Wilson. 

The Indian side is being led by Additional Secretary level officer from Commerce and Industries Ministry. 

The visiting USTR delegation will also call on Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal today. 

Intellectual Property Facilitation Cell (IPFC), Department of Defence Production, Ministry of Defence and National Research Development Corporation (NRDC), Ministry of Science and Technology, yesterday signed an MoU with a vision to bridge the capacity shortfall and provide a major fillip to the ongoing efforts of Ministry of Defence towards promoting a culture of Innovation and Intellectual Property Rights IPR in Indian Defence industry. 

An official release said, the move will be a boost to the Mission Raksha Gyan Shakti. It may be recalled that Mission Raksha Gyan Shakti was launched with the aim to inculcate IP culture in Indian defence manufacturing ecosystem. 

Under this mission, an IPFC has been established under the aegis of Directorate General Quality Assurance (DGQA) which has within a short span of a year achieved the challenging target of training more than 12,000 personnel on IPR and facilitating the filing of more than 1000 new IPR applications.

Delhi girl Isha Kanth has made India proud after being selected for a prestigious internship with the International Court of Justice.

The 20-year-old, who did her higher secondary in humanities from Sanskriti School, Delhi, is pursuing her graduation in law at Queen Mary University, London. 

The ICJ internship is offered to just two candidates from across the world. Isha’s father Pratyush Kanth, while speaking to this newspaper, said that his daughter wanted to work in India for the poor and the marginalised after completing her master’s course. 

The Railway Protection Force (RPF) registered 732 cases against 801 persons for selling unauthorised water bottle brands across 18 zones including the East Central Railway (ECR), headquarter at Hajipur in Bihar, on July 8 and 9 respectively. 

The nationwide arrests were conducted under 'Operation Thirst' launched across the Indian Railway (IR) following the direction of director general of RPF A Kumar given to all the chief security commissioners.

Ravindra Verma, chief security commissioner of RPF in ECR, said, "A total 732 cases of selling unauthorised brands of bottled water were registered during the Operation Thirst and 801 persons including 154 from Bihar were arrested under 114 and 133 of the Railway Act."

An internal committee of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), which was set up to review timings of different financial markets, suggested that the foreign exchange market could function from 9 am to 9 pm At present, the currency market works from 9 am to 5 pm.

“Calibrated extension of market hours, and to begin with, revised market timings of 9 am — 9 pm, may be considered to gauge demand and potential benefits,” the draft report of the committee said.

With rising focus on reducing dependency on carbon-based fuel for electricity generation, the government has waived off basic customs duty (BCD) for a clutch of products which are imported for nuclear power plants and allocated more funds in atomic energy research.

The French government is to impose a tax of up to 18 euros ($20) on plane tickets for all flights from airports in France to fund less-polluting transportation projects, a minister said Tuesday.

The move, which will take effect from 2020, will see a tax of 1.5 euros imposed on economy-class tickets on internal flights and those within Europe, with the highest tariff applied to business-class travellers flying outside the bloc, Transport Minister Elisabeth Borne said.

The new measure is expected to bring in some 182 million euros a year which will be invested in greener transport infrastructures, notably rail, she said.