Twenty-nine journalists from print and electronic media were Sunday felicitated with Matri Shree Media Awards for their contribution towards journalism.

Apart from media personalities, a social activist has also presented the Bharat Mata shield at the 44th Matri Shree media award ceremony organized.

Working President of Punjab Kesari Delhi Swadesh Bhushan Jain and Chairman of the Committee Ashok Aggarwal, Harish Chopra, Ankush Aggarwal, Chetan Sharma, Ramesh Bajaj, Vishal Rana and Kailash Agrawal presented the shield and a pen to the winners. 

A former mayor of North Delhi Municipal Corporation Adesh Gupta was also felicitated for his contribution to social service. 

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved a project worth Rs 1,650 crore to develop infrastructure in seven district headquarter towns of Tripura, a senior official has said.

The ADB will provide Rs 1,650 crore, out of which 80 per cent will be grant-in-aid and the state will have to repay 20 per cent loan in due course of time, he said.

Such an ADB-assisted ambitious infrastructure development project, first of its kind in Tripura, is expected to modernize all the district headquarter towns and boost tourism and trade prospects in the future to realise the vision of Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb of transforming Tripura into a model state," the official told reporters on Sunday.

Till now, there had been no provision of any funding for development of district headquarter towns in Tripura other than Agartala, he said.

The session will continue till 26th of next month. Since it is the first session of the new Lok Sabha, it will mainly be devoted to Oath taking of newly elected MPs, the election of Lok Sabha Speaker, the Motion of Thanks on the President’s Address and financial business relating to Union Budget.

The session will have 30 sittings of the Lok Sabha and 27 sittings of the Rajya Sabha. The Election of Speaker will be held on Wednesday while President Ram Nath Kovind will address both the Houses of Parliament on Thursday. 

The Union Budget will be presented on the 5th of next month. 46 Bills have lapsed on the dissolution of 16th Lok Sabha which was in various stages in both the Houses and some of these important bills are likely to be revived and brought before Parliament. 

Ten Ordinances have been promulgated during the inter-session period which is to be replaced by Acts of Parliament. 

Besides Triple Talaq Bill, the legislation set to be introduced in the session is the Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Teachers Cadre) Bill and Aadhaar and Other Laws (Amendment) Bill 2019.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will on Saturday chair the fifth meeting of the Niti Aayog's Governing Council which will focus on issues like the drought situation, farm distress, rain-water harvesting and preparedness for Kharif crops.

The five-point agenda for the meeting also includes aspirational districts programme, transforming agriculture and security related issues with special focus on left wing extremism (LWE) districts, an official statement said.

The meeting, to be held at Rashtrapati Bhavan, will be attended by chief ministers, lieutenant governors of union territories, several union ministers and senior government officials.

This will be the first governing council meeting under the new Modi government.

The Indian football team remained static at 101st place in the FIFA rankings issued today. India had finished third in the King's Cup in Thailand, which the organizers had said was a FIFA-sanctioned tournament. 

India's ranking points remained the same -- 1219 -- as that of the previous list, issued on 4th April this year.

The Indian team is at 18th spot among the Asian countries led by Iran (20th), Japan (28), Korea (37), Australia (43) and Qatar (55) form the top five in Asia.

Belgium continued to top overall world rankings, followed by France, Brazil, England and Portugal.

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh reviewed the progress of research and development activities in the area of defence technologies at DRDO headquarters in New Delhi yesterday. 

Mr. Singh appreciated the commitment and dedication of DRDO scientists. He directed them to focus their energies on flagship programmes of national importance. Chairman DRDO Dr G Satheesh Reddy and other senior scientists gave a detailed presentation to Mr Singh. 

The Defence Minister also met the Army Chief General Bipin Rawat in New Delhi yesterday. Mr Singh complimented Army for ensuring the highest level of professionalism, the continuous readiness against external and internal challenges and their role in nation building. 

Markets watchdog Sebi June 13 came out with a strict disclosure framework for credit rating agencies wherein they will be required to provide the probability of default for various rated instruments.

The regulator's move comes against the backdrop of rising instances of debt defaults and concerns over the role of credit rating agencies in assessing the possible risks. Credit rating agencies have also come under the scanner in the IL&FS case.

"...CRAs (credit rating agencies), in consultation with Sebi, shall prepare and disclose standardized and uniform probability of default (PD) benchmarks for each rating category on their website, for one-year, two-year and three-year cumulative default rates, both for short-run and long-run," the circular said.

The Reserve Bank of India said June 13 said it will infuse Rs 12,500 crore into the financial system through bond purchases on June 20.

The decision has taken based on a review of the evolving liquidity conditions and assessment of the durable liquidity needs going forward, the central bank said in a statement.

The purchase of government securities under the Open Market Operation (OMO) for Rs 125 billion (Rs 12,500 crore) will be conducted on June 20, 2019.

The government securities to be purchased in the auction would be communicated in due course, the RBI added.

Farmers will have to contribute 100 rupees per month under the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Pension Yojana that seeks to provide a minimum fixed monthly pension of  3,000 rupees on the attainment of 60 years. 

The central government will also contribute an equal amount to the pension fund to be managed by the LIC, which will be responsible for the pension payout. The government in its first cabinet meeting had approved a separate pension scheme for farmers with an aim to cover 5 crore beneficiaries in the first three years. 

Discussing the new scheme with state agriculture ministers through a video conference, Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar urged all states and union territories to roll out the programme at the earliest.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address the plenary session of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Summit at Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan today. Mr Modi will present his vision for regional cooperation and development. 

The two-day SCO Summit began yesterday in Bishkek. On the sidelines of the summit, Prime Minister will hold bilateral talks with Presidents of Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Belarus and Iran today. India and Kyrgyzstan will also sign a number of agreements after the delegation level talks. Mr Modi will also jointly inaugurate the India-Kyrgyz Business Forum. 

Yesterday evening, Mr Modi held bilateral talks with Presidents of China, Russia and Afghanistan. Prime Minister's first engagement in Bishkek was the bilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.