An NRI octogenarian from Germany handed over her ancestral land in Gujarat for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train project, making it the first stretch of land to be acquired by the national transporter in the state for the project, an NHSRCL official said Friday.

Savita Ben, who runs an Indian restaurant in Germany, is originally from Chansad village and she shifted abroad 33 years ago after getting married, the official told PTI.  In Chansad, the National High Speed Rail Corporation Limited (NHSRCL) required 11.94 hectare of private land and Savita Ben sold hers for Rs 30,094.

“She flew down specially to hand over the land for the project and we are extremely grateful to her for having agreed to it. She returned to Germany where she lives with her son and runs a restaurant. “This stretch of land is the first piece of land which we have acquired for the project in the state,” NHSRCL spokesperson Dhananjay Kumar said.

New Delhi: India hopes to play a constructive role to help build a middle ground consensus among the world’s major economies if the US and China spar over a final statement of the G20 summit at Buenos Aires beginning Friday, said a senior government official.

Leaders are wary of discord after the failure of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Papua New Guinea to agree on a joint statement —following Chinese objections on trade.

And if the leaders fail to reach a consensus in Buenos Aires, it will be the second such failure of a summit hosted by Argentina after members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) failed to make any headway last December.

The official who is involved in finalizing India’s G20 strategy said the focus of the latest summit is “future of work” in the context of robotics, automation and artificial intelligence, infrastructure for development and sustainable food future. “Obviously other issues like trade, climate change, international financial architecture, all these issues have come up for discussion,” he said, requesting anonymity.

The Indian government has launched an initiative in major consulates in the US to simplify the overall passport applications procedure and reduce the turnaround time for applicants from 10 days to 48 hours or less. The Passport Seva Project (PSP) prints Indian passports in the US and reduces turnaround for applicants.

The Consulate General of India, Houston, inaugurated the PSP in Houston along with a team led by Minister of State for External Affairs, General (Rtd) V K Singh.

The team has been in the US to launch the project at Indian Embassy, Washington DC and in five Consulates- Atlanta, Chicago, Houston, New York and San Francisco.

Last week, the PSP was launched in New York. The programme will be launched by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) at the Indian Embassy in Washington followed by the Consulate in Atlanta.

It aims to operationalise all Embassy/Consulates in the US during the course of next 15 days.

Indian actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui and filmmaker Nandita Das have been awarded at the 12th Asia Pacific Screen Awards (APSA).

Nawazuddin Siddiqui was given the award for the Best Performance By An Actor for his film "Manto" while Nandita Das received the FIAPF award for achievement in films in the Asia Pacific region.

"Honoured to have received Best Performance By An Actor Award by ASPA 2018 for my favourite film 'Manto'. This one is Special, winning for the 2nd Time. Thank you Asia Pacific Screen Award and thank you, Nandita Das, for believing in me APSA 2018," Siddiqui said.

India will chair the Kimberley Process (KP), a global initiative to remove conflict diamonds from the global supply chain, from January next year, the Commerce Ministry said on November 30.

KP is a joint initiative of different countries, industry and civil societies to control flow of conflict diamonds, which are used by rebel movements to finance wars against legitimate governments in the world.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi met with Saudi Arabia Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on the sidelines of the G20 summit here on Friday and they discussed ways to further boost economic, cultural and energy ties.

The two sides also held discussions on enhancing investment in technology, renewable energy and food security.

“Had a fruitful interaction with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud. We discussed multiple aspects of India-Saudi Arabia relations and ways to further boost economic, cultural and energy ties,” the prime minister wrote on Twitter

The militaries of China and India should “work hand in hand” for the benefit of people of the two countries, the Chinese defence ministry said Thursday, as the armies of the two countries are all set to resume joint military exercises next month after a gap of a year following the Doklam standoff.

Each side will send 100 troops to take part in the 14-day drill, he said.

Sriharikota: India on Thursday successfully launched its latest earth observation satellite HysIS, the data from which can be used in wide-ranging areas including agriculture, from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre here onboard ISRO’s trusted workhorse Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV).

The rocket, PSLV-C43, successfully injected state of the art HysIS and 30 other co-passenger satellites from eight countries into their designated orbits.

The rocket lifted off majestically into cloudy skies in a burst of orange flames at 9.57 am from the first launch pad at this spaceport at the end of the 28-hour countdown.

The Hyper Spectral Imaging Satellite (HysIS) was placed in its orbit 17 minutes and 27 seconds after lift-off while the 30 co-passenger satellites were dropped into the designated orbit one by one after an hour.

New York: Microsoft Corp. has won a $480 million contract to supply prototypes for augmented reality (AR) systems to the US Army for use on combat missions and in training, the US Army said. The contract, which could eventually lead to the military purchasing over 100,000 headsets, is intended to “increase lethality by enhancing the ability to detect, decide and engage before the enemy,” according to a government description of the program.

‘AR technology will provide troops with more and better information to make decisions. This new work extends our longstanding, trusted relationship with the Department of Defense to this new area,” a Microsoft spokesman said in an emailed statement.

The US Army and the Israeli military have already used Microsoft’s HoloLens devices in training, but plans for live combat would be a significant step forward.

Sergei Loznitsa's Donbass, which is the official submission of Ukraine for the Best Foreign Language Film category for the 2019 Oscars, won the coveted Golden Peacock Award at the 49th International Film Festival of India (IFFI), which concluded in Goa on Wednesday. 

Donbass tells the story of a hybrid war taking place in a region of Eastern Ukraine, involving an open armed conflict alongside killings and robberies perpetrated on a mass scale by separatist gangs. Donbass was also selected as the opening film in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival, where Loznitsa also bagged the ‘Un Certain Regard’ Award for the best director.