Prime Minister Narendra Modi chaired the meeting of the 43rd edition of PRAGATI involving Centre and State governments yesterday.

PRAGATI is the ICT-based multi-modal platform for Pro-Active Governance and Timely Implementation. He reviewed eight key projects spread across seven states having cumulative worth around 31 thousand crore rupees. Among these, four projects were concerned with water supply and irrigation, two projects for expanding National highways and connectivity, and two projects for rail and metro rail connectivity. These are Bihar, Jharkhand, Haryana, Odisha, West Bengal, Gujarat and Maharashtra.

A remarkable piece of history unfolded precisely five decades ago when then PM Indira Gandhi inaugurated the country’s first women’s police station in Kozhikode and handed its first sub-inspector M Padminiamma a pen to sign the inaugural register.

Kerala police take immense pride in declaring it the first police station in Asia for women on their website, yet there’s a twist to this tale.

Some assert that this trailblazing initiative might, in fact, hold the distinction of being the world’s first of its kind. Padminiamma, who retired as an SP in 1995, vividly recalled the historical moment from October 23, 1973, that would go on to shape the way women accessed law enforcement in Kerala and across India. The idea behind the Vanitha (women’s) police station in Kozhikode was both progressive and humane, Padminiamma said in Thiruvananthapuram, where she lives with her son.

In Iceland, tens of thousands of women went on a one-day strike yesterday to protest against gender discrimination. The striking women were also joined by Prime Minister, Katrin Jakobsdóttir. She said the fight for equal treatment was moving far too slowly at home and abroad. Looking at the whole world, it could take 300 years to achieve gender equality," Katrin added.

The strike was called to protest gaps in pay compared to men and gender-based violence, as well as to highlight unpaid work such as childcare that often falls on women, organisers said. According to the Icelandic Teachers' Union, women make up the majority of teachers at every level of the educational system, including 94 percent of kindergarten teachers.

A national level Saras Aajeevika Mela 2023 will begin today in Gurugram, Haryana. The 17-day fair, which is being held at Leisure Valley Ground, Gurugram will continue till 11th of next month. Around 800 women of Self-Help Groups from 28 States will display their varied range of products like handicrafts, handlooms and natural food items from rural areas across the country at the fair. Entry to the fair will be free and people can visit between 11 AM to 9.30 PM. SARAS Mela is an initiative by the Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana-National Rural Livelihoods Mission of Ministry of Rural Development  to bring the rural women Self Help Group members under one platform to showcase their skills, sell their products and help them build linkages with potential market players.

Reserve Bank of India has asked private banks and wholly owned subsidiaries of foreign banks to ensure at least two Whole Time Directors (WTDs), including the MD and CEO, on their boards to facilitate succession planning. In an official note, the RBI said, the number of Whole Time Directors should be decided by the Board of the bank by taking into account factors such as the size of operations, business complexity, and other relevant aspects.

The RBI directed banks that currently do not meet this requirement to submit their proposals for the appointment of WTDs under the Banking Regulation Act, 1949, within a period of four months from the date of issuance of the circular.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has launched Operation Chakra-II to fight against transnational organised cyber-enabled financial crimes in India. For this, India’s federal agency has partnered with Microsoft and Amazon as well as with national and international agencies to combat and dismantle infrastructure of illegal call centres.

CBI said that during a nationwide crackdown, it conducted searches in five separate cases at 76 locations across multiple states, including Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Haryana, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Bihar, Delhi, West Bengal and Himachal Pradesh.

Mike Johnson has been elected Speaker of the House of Representatives, ending weeks of chaos and Republican infighting on Capitol Hill.

The conservative Louisiana lawmaker won with 220 votes in the lower chamber of Congress.

Mr Johnson is the fourth Republican nominated for the position since Kevin McCarthy's ouster on 3 October.

The previous nominee, Minnesota's Tom Emmer, abruptly dropped out of the race on Tuesday after about four hours.

Mr Johnson's success in the hard-fought Speaker battle represents a victory for the ideologically right-wing, Trump-aligned faction of the Republican Party and a loss for its moderates, whose candidates struggled to gain traction among conservative representatives on Capitol Hill.

India, the world's fifth largest economy in the world, is likely to overtake Japan to become the world's third-largest economy with a GDP of USD 7.3 trillion by 2030, S&P Global Market Intelligence said in its latest issue of PMI.

After two years of rapid economic growth in 2021 and 2022, the Indian economy has continued to show sustained strong growth during the 2023 calendar year.

India's gross domestic product (GDP) is expected to grow 6.2-6.3 per cent in the fiscal year ending in March 2024, being the fastest-growing major economy this fiscal year. Asia's third-largest economy grew by a stellar 7.8 per cent in the April-June quarter.

Technology (IIT) Palakkad have been included on the latest list of the “world’s top two per cent scientists” released by Stanford University, California, US. Last year, IIT Palakkad had three of its teachers on the Stanford list.

The list features two distinctive categories: entire career until 2022 and for the single year 2022. In the first category, A. Seshadri Sekhar, Director of IIT Palakkad, and Jagadeesh Bayry, Professor at the Department of Biological Sciences and Engineering, have found a place. In this category, as many as 204,633 scientists were acknowledged worldwide.

In the ‘single year 2022’ category, four faculty members from IIT Palakkad made a significant mark. Apart from Prof. Bayry, Yugender Goud Kotagiri, Ramanujan Fellow from the Department of Chemistry; Abdul Rasheed P., DBT Ramalingaswami Fellow from the Departments of Chemistry and Biological Sciences and Engineering; and M. Sabarimalai Manikandan, Associate Professor at the Department of Electrical Engineering, were featured among the world’s top scientists.

India maintained its top position as the country of origin of new immigrants to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) nations in 2021.

According to OECD's International Migration Outlook: 2023 report, released on Monday, 407,000 Indians moved to OECD nations in 2021. It was 86 per cent higher than 220,000 Indians in 2020.

China and Romania followed India, with 283,000 and 215,000 immigrants, respectively.

OECD is a group of 38 countries, most of which are high-income and ranked very high on the Human Development Index (HDI).

Out of those Indians who moved to OECD countries, 133,000 were granted nationality of these countries, the highest among all countries. These acquisitions took place mostly in the United States of America (56,000), Australia (24,000) and Canada (21,000).