Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday will inaugurate the 9th edition of Vibrant Gujarat Summit in Gandhinagar in the presence of thousands of delegates and business leaders from across the world. The three-day investors’ meet will take place at Mahatma Mandir facility for international events in the state capital and will witness the participation of the heads of five countries – Uzbekistan, Rwanda, Denmark, Czech Republic and Malta – and over 30,000 national and international delegates.

“On January 17, Modi would inaugurate ‘Vibrant Gujarat Global Trade Show’ near Mahatma Mandir and a newly-built hospital in Ahmedabad. In the evening, the PM would inaugurate a shopping festival on Sabarmati Riverfront,” Chief Minister Vijay Rupani had said. Some of the major events during the three-day meet include a round-table interaction with the heads of global funds, ‘Africa Day’ and an MSME convention. The closing ceremony will be held in the presence of Vice President M. Venkaiah Naidu, the CM said.

A ministerial panel headed by Maharashtra Finance Minister Sudhir Mungantiwar will examine uniformity of taxation on lottery under GST or other issues arising out of it.

The Group of Ministers (GoM) comprising Kerala finance minister TM Thomas Isaac, Amit Mitra, West Bengal Finance Minister, Assam Finance Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, Mauvin Godinho, Minister of Panchayat, Goa, Punjab Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal, Krishna Byre Gowda, Karnataka Finance Minister, and Jarkar Gamlin, taxes and excise minister of Arunachal Pradesh has been constituted.

Under GST, state-organised lottery falls under the 12 percent tax slab while state-authorised lottery attracts 28 percent tax.

In the GST Council meeting on December 22, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had said a final view will be taken in January if status quo should continue on GST on lottery or if there it could be tweaked. However, in the next Council meeting on January 10, Jaitley said that a GoM will be constituted to take a final call on the issue.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres welcomed the "historic leadership" of Palestine which assumed the chairmanship of G77, the global body's largest intergovernmental organisation of developing countries including India.

Egypt was the previous Chair of the Group of 77 (G77), a coalition of 134 members, along with China which aligns itself with the bloc.

India's Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador Syed Akbaruddin on January 15 wished Palestine success, saying "India is privileged to stand up for the global South's quest for greater equity and justice".

In his remarks at the annual ceremony for handover of the rotating chairmanship of G77, UN chief Guterres said: "Palestine and its citizens have first-hand experience of some of the most challenging and dramatic global issues we face".

Union Cabinet today approved recapitalisation of Export-Import Bank of India to the tune of 6,000 crore rupees and increase in the authorized capital of Exim Bank from 10,000 crore to 20,000 crore rupees. 

Briefing media in New Delhi, Union Minister Piyush Goyal said recapitalisation bonds will be on the lines issued to Public sector Banks. 

EXIM Bank is the principal export credit agency for India and infusion of capital into it will enable it to augment capital adequacy and support Indian exports with enhanced ability. 

Cabinet has also approved expenditure sanction of over 4200  crore rupees for Integrated E-filing and Centralized Processing Centre 2.0 Project. It aims at faster and accurate outcome for tax payers and enhance user experience at all stages. 

It will also help in improving tax payers' awareness and education through continuous engagement. It will help in faster processing of returns and issue of refunds to the tax payers' bank account directly.

Cabinet also gave its nod to Revised Cost of Estimates for 13 new Central Universities of over 3639 crore rupees. The amount has being sanctioned for recurring cost and creation of necessary infrastructure for the completion of campuses of these universities. 

These new Central universities are in the states of Bihar, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Karnataka, Kerala, Odisha, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Jharkhand. The infrastructure development work will be completed within 36 months. 

After a gap of four years, the Centre on Wednesday announced the awardees for the prestigious Gandhi Peace Prize for 2015 to 2018.

While Vivekananda Kendra, Kanyakumari, won the award for 2015 for rural development and education, for 2016, the award has been jointly given to Akshaya Patra Foundation for providing mid-day meals to children across the country and Sulabh International for its work towards emancipation of manual scavengers, the Ministry of Culture announced. For 2017, the award has been given to Ekai Abhiyan Trust for its contribution to education for rural and tribal children and for 2018, to WHO Goodwill Ambassador Yohei Sasakawa for his role in leprosy eradication.

The Gandhi Peace Prize, which is given to individuals and institutions for their contribution towards social, economic and political transformation through non-violence and other Gandhian methods, was last conferred upon the Indian Space Research Organisation in 2014.

This is the first time that the awardees of four years have been announced together ever since the award was instituted in 1995. As per the code of procedure on the Ministry of Culture’s website, the award should ideally be announced on Gandhi Jayanti, October 2, each year. An official of the Ministry of Culture, the nodal agency which receives proposals for conferring the award, said nominations were made during the last four years for the award, but an approval was awaited.

Delhi judokas proved to be a cut above the rest as the northern state ended up with 12 gold, 3 silver and 6 bronze medals to top in the discipline at the Khelo India Youth Games in Pune. The closest to Delhi was Punjab, which won 4 gold, while Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and hosts Maharashtra bagged three gold medals each in judo at the Games.

Delhi’s dominance primarily came in the Under-17 and Under-21 girls’ section, where they won eight of the 12 gold medals at stake, a media release said. A shot in the arm for judo was that 22 of the 29 participating states won medals. According to the release, judo was dominated by the states from the north as nine states from the region won 22 gold, 17 silver and 24 bronze medals.

In comparison, states from the southern India could not muster even one gold.

However, the surprise pack was Kerala which cornered eight medals – two silver and six bronze. From the east, Manipur remained the flag-bearer with Youth Olympics silver medallist and Asian Championship gold winner Tababi Devi Thangjam (Below-52kgs) and Maibam Indubala Devi (Below78 kgs) leading from the front.

National space agency ISRO has scheduled its first launch this year on Thursday next week. PSLV C-44 will lift off from the spaceport Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota, carrying a student satellite called Kalamsat and an imaging satellite known as Microsat-R. One of the specialities of the mission this time would be the configuration of the rocket. It will carry only two strap-on motors by the sides of the first fuel stage at the bottom. 

This is the first time the launch vehicle is built in this configuration, known as PSLV-DL. Furthermore, after parking the satellites in the intended orbits, the fourth stage of the rocket will be taken to a circular orbit in space for carrying out certain experiments by the scientists. Normally, the fourth stage would be deserted in space after the injection of the satellites. This time, it will be kept 'live' for carrying out innovative studies.

The Women and Child Development Ministry have shortlisted 26 children for the national award this year for their bravery, social service and exceptional achievement in the fields of innovation, sports and arts. 

The National Selection Committee, under the Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi, finaliSed the names of awardees for Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puraskar 2019. An official release said a total of 783 applications were received for Baal Shakti Puruskar. The Committee also finalised the names of two individuals and three institutions for Bal Kalyan Puraskar.

Prime Minister Theresa May narrowly survived a vote of no-confidence in Parliament on Wednesday, but that did little to quell the turmoil gripping the British government over her plan to leave the European Union, coming a day after she suffered a historic defeat on that proposal.

The House of Commons voted 325-306 to reject the opposition motion of no confidence. A day earlier, it dealt May a defeat on her painstakingly negotiated agreement for Brexit, or the process of exiting the bloc.

Had it been successful, the no-confidence motion almost certainly would have ousted May and probably have forced a general election, adding layers of uncertainty in a country fast approaching the March 29 date for leaving the European Union.

Ordinarily, a prime minister would be expected to resign after suffering a big defeat on a signature bill. The vote of 432-202 against May’s Brexit plan was by far the biggest loss for a government on a major issue in modern times.

But Brexit has rewritten the rules of British politics. Once again May, the leader of the Conservative Party, lived to fight another day.

More than 100 lawmakers from her party who had opposed her Brexit bill voted to support her government.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be on a three-day visit to Gujarat from today. Upon his arrival, Mr Modi will first inaugurate the 'Vibrant Gujarat Global Trade Show' in Gandhinagar. An official release said the event is an integral part of the ninth edition of the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit which the Prime Minister will inaugurate tomorrow. The Trade Show will showcase more than 25 industrial and business sectors under one umbrella.

Mr Modi will also dedicate to the nation the newly-constructed Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Institute of Medical Sciences and Research in Ahmedabad today. It is a state of the art, the super-speciality public hospital built by Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation and is equipped with all modern amenities, including an air ambulance. 

Mr Modi will also inaugurate the Ahmedabad Shopping Festival at Sabarmati River Front. It is the first event of its kind in India which will provide an opportunity for city enterprises to showcase their products. The Prime Minister would address gatherings at both the places.

Mr Modi will inaugurate the three-day Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit tomorrow morning. The summit provides a platform for brainstorming on agendas of global socio-economic development, knowledge sharing and forging effective partnerships. The theme of the Summit is 'Youth Connect 2019: Shaping A New India - The Story of Billion Dreams'. Fifteen countries including Australia, Canada, France and Japan have agreed to be partner countries this year.

On Saturday, the Prime Minister visit Hazira industrial area near Surat to mark the setting up of the Hazira Gun Factory. From Hazira, Mr Modi will head to Silvassa, the capital of Dadra and Nagar Haveli. 

There, he will inaugurate and lay the foundation stone for various projects. The Prime Minister will also go to Mumbai on Saturday. He will inaugurate the new building of the National Museum of Indian Cinema.