Ahead of the Assembly polls, due next month in Haryana, the State government on Wednesday launched two insurance schemes for registered small and medium traders in an apparent bid to woo voters.

Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar launched “Mukhyamantri Vyapari Samuhik Niji Durghatna Beema Yojana” and “Mukhyamantri Vyapari Kshatipurti Beema Yojana” here.

“The premium of 38 crore people of both the schemes would be paid by the State government,” said Mr. Khattar at a press conference.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday elevated retired IAS officer Pramod Kumar Mishra as his Principal Secretary and appointed former cabinet secretary PK Sinha as Principal Advisor to the Prime Minister. Both the appointments are co-terminus with the term of the Prime Minister or until further orders, whichever is earlier, said the statement.

The two big changes come after the exit of Nripendra Misra from the Prime Minister’s Office. Nripendra Misra, who had been one of the first bureaucrats to be appointed to the PMO when Narendra Modi came to Delhi in 2014, had resigned as Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister last month.

PK Mishra, who had been Additional Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister for the last five years, and PM Modi have known each other for nearly two decades. Back in 2001 when Narendra Modi was first sent to Gujarat by his party to take charge of the state, PK Mishra was his top aide in the Chief Minister’s Office and stayed in this post for the next few years. In this role, senior officials recall that it was PK Mishra who had introduced Narendra Modi to the intricacies of the bureaucracy and government.

The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) successfully flight tested an indigenously-developed low weight, fire and forget Man Portable Antitank Guided Missile (MPATGM) in the ranges of Kurnool on September 11.

According to a press release, the missile was launched from a man portable tripod launcher, while the target was mimicking a functional tank. The missile hit the target in top attack mode and destroyed it with precision. All the mission objectives were met, the press release added.

This is the third series of successful testing of MPATGM. The missile is incorporated with state-of-the-art Infrared Imaging Seeker along with advanced avionics. The test paves the way for the Army to have developed third generation man portable Anti-Tank Guided Missile indigenously.

Scientists on Tuesday unveiled a new species of pterosaur, the plane-sized reptiles that lorded over primeval skies above T-rex, Triceratops and other dinosaurs of the late Cretaceous.

With a wingspan of 10 m and weighing 250 kg, Cryodrakon boreas rivals another pterosaur as the largest flying animal of all time, researchers reported in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.

“This is a cool discovery,” said David Hone, lead author of the study and a researcher at Queen Mary University in London.

Union Minister Dr. Jitendra Singh has said that abrogation of Article 370 is the biggest achievement of the Modi government in the first 100 days of it is the second term. Addressing media in Jammu, Mr. Singh said that it is the citizens of Jammu and Kashmir who know the importance  and value of abrogation of the Article 370. He  said, abrogation of Article 370 will help in industrial growth, employment generation and improvement in the health sector and people will get freedom from family rule.  Dr. Jitendra Singh said that common man in the streets of Kashmir is rejoicing over the abrogation of Article 370 and it is a handful of families who are crying over it.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will launch today the National Animal Disease Control Programme (NADCP) for eradicating the Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) and Brucellosis in the livestock from Mathura in Uttar Pradesh. The programme aims at vaccinating over 500 Million Livestock including cattle, buffalo, sheep, goats and pigs against the disease. It will be  implemented for a period of five years till 2024 at a cost of 12, 652 crore rupees.
 
National Animal Disease Control Programme is a hundred per cent  Centrally funded programme. It also aims at vaccinating 36 million female Bovine Calves annually in its fight against the Brucellosis disease. The objective of the programme is to control Foot and Mouth Disease and Brucellosis by  2025 and their eradication by 2030. Both the diseases have a direct negative impact on the trade of milk and other livestock products. The launch of the scheme will give  a major push towards government's efforts in doubling the Farmers' Income.

Communication and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has said that all 440 schemes of Centre and State government related to direct benefit transfer, DBT should ride on India post payment Bank. Presently only 40 DBT schemes are available on the payment bank. Addressing a function to commemorate 1st Anniversary of India Post Payments Bank in New Delhi, Mr Prasad said, it has opened one crore accounts in the last one year and directed the payment bank to work on opening five crore more accounts in the next one year. The Minister said, the postal payment bank should be more accessible to the people of underprivileged section.

Communication and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has said that all 440 schemes of Centre and State government related to direct benefit transfer, DBT should ride on India post payment Bank. Presently only 40 DBT schemes are available on the payment bank. Addressing a function to commemorate 1st Anniversary of India Post Payments Bank in New Delhi, Mr Prasad said, it has opened one crore accounts in the last one year and directed the payment bank to work on opening five crore more accounts in the next one year. The Minister said, the postal payment bank should be more accessible to the people of underprivileged section.

Communication and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has said that all 440 schemes of Centre and State government related to direct benefit transfer, DBT should ride on India post payment Bank. Presently only 40 DBT schemes are available on the payment bank. Addressing a function to commemorate 1st Anniversary of India Post Payments Bank in New Delhi, Mr Prasad said, it has opened one crore accounts in the last one year and directed the payment bank to work on opening five crore more accounts in the next one year. The Minister said, the postal payment bank should be more accessible to the people of underprivileged section.

Microsoft has appointed Rajiv Kumar as the new Managing Director of Microsoft India (R&D) Private Limited (MIRPL), replacing Anil Bhansali, who held this role for six years.

Rajiv, who is currently the Corporate Vice-President of Microsoft’s Experiences and Devices (E+D) Group, has a 27-year long career with the company.

Anil will continue to be the Corporate Vice-President of Cloud and Enterprise. He will be relocating to Redmond, Microsoft’s headquarters in the USA.

An IIT Roorkee alumnus and a master’s in Computer Science from the University of Texas (the US), Rajiv joined Microsoft in Redmond in 1992 as a campus-hire.