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.

India has been ranked among the bottom 10 countries in a new worldwide index released on Tuesday on the commitment of different nations to reduce inequalities in their populations.

UK-based charity Oxfam International’s ‘Commitment to Reducing Inequality (CRI) Index’ ranks India 147th among 157 countries analysed, describing the country’s commitment to reducing inequality as a “a very worrying situation” given that it is home to 1.3 billion people, many of whom live in extreme poverty.

“Oxfam has calculated that if India were to reduce inequality by a third, more than 170 million people would no longer be poor,” the index notes.

Sendre, a former Miss Chhattisgarh, belongs to Mandir Hasaud village in Raipur.

She said since childhood she felt 'different' from others. "Nobody wanted to be my friend, everybody made fun of me," she said.

Sendre left her studies when she was in 5th standard, but was back with books a few years later, she said. She then spoke with her mother about doing something different in her life.

She has participated in various ramp walks during Lucknow and Bengaluru fashion weeks.

Her victory is being seen as a big fillip to the transgender community in the country.

Harvinder Singh notched up India's maiden archery gold in the 2018 Asian Para Games by finishing on top in the men's individual recurve event, while the country also picked up three silver and four bronze medals on day 5 of the tournament. Harvinder defeated China's Zhao Lixue 6-0 in the W2/ST category final to claim the top honours and take India's gold tally to seven. The W2 category of impairment covers athletes with paraplegia, diplegia or double leg amputation below the knee, requiring wheelchair. The ST category is for archers with limited impairment and who may take aim without having to need a wheelchair.

Para-athletics, chess table tennis gave India three silver medals on Wednesday, while the bronze medals came from para-powerlifting, besides para-athletics.

It started with Monu Ghangas claiming the silver in the men's discus throw F11 category before Vijay Kumar claimed the second spot in the men's long jump T42/T61/T63 category. Ghangas claimed his silver with a throw of 35.89m, an effort which he managed in his third attempt. He finished behind Iran's Olad Mahdi, who came up with a new Asian as well as Games record throw of 42.37m. The F11 category deals with visual impairment.