India, UK starts negotiations on FTA by Nov 1

In Maharashtra, at least 11 people are feared to be drowned in the Wardha river at Shri Kshetra Zhunj, a tourist spot in Warud taluka of Amravati district. District Magistrate Pavneet Kaur has informed that the  incident took place on Tuesday morning and 3 dead bodies have been recovered so far.As per the preliminary information, Eleven members of a family who were going to attend a religious ritual at the adjoining village were on the boat. However, the boat capsized due to imbalance and all 11 people are feared to have drowned.The bodies of the three persons were recovered. It includes a woman, sailor and a minor girl. The  rescue operation for the other Eight (8) persons is underway with the help of locals and the district disaster management team.

-The Kerala Government has decided to resume Saturdays as working day for state government offices starting this week. Since the imposition of lockdown in May, the government offices in the state have remained closed on  Saturdays and Sundays. The Government also decided to reinstate, the ID card-based punching system in Government offices. This will come into effect from Thursday.

-With an aim to break the language barrier that many students face when they join institutes of higher education, IIT-Bombay on Tuesday launched ‘Project Udaan’, that enables translation of textbooks and other study material related to engineering and other streams. The virtual inauguration, which coincided with Hindi Diwas, was attended by Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India, Dr. Krishnaswamy Vijay Raghavan as the chief guest. The project, envisaged by Prof. Ganesh Ramakrishnan, Institute Chair Professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, IIT Bombay, is a donation based project. Prof. Ganesh and his team have built an Artificial Intelligence-based translation ecosystem, which can help translate engineering textbooks and learning materials in one-sixth the time it would take for a team consisting of domain and linguistic experts working manually. According to a press release, translation of text books in other educational domains will be taken up in due course.

-India has assured ASEAN partners of its support in its recovery efforts in the post pandemic period. Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Anupriya Patel and Minister of Finance and Economy of Brunei Darussalam Dr. Amin Liew Abdullah on Tuesday virtually co-chaired the 18th ASEAN-India Economic Ministers Consultations. The meeting was attended by the Economic Ministers of all the ten  ASEAN countries Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. The Ministers took stock of the current pandemic situation and reaffirmed their commitment to take collective actions in mitigating the economic impact of the pandemic and ensuring resilient supply chains in the region. The Ministers appreciated the deepening trade and investment between ASEAN . India is ASEAN’s seventh largest trading partner and one of the largest sources of Foreign Direct Investment.

-Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers welfare have signed five MOUs with private companies for taking forward Digital Agriculture. Speaking on the occasion, Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar said, the modernisation of the Agriculture sector will continue by infusing new technologies so that farmers can increase their income. He said, the MOUs aimed at increasing farmers income and protecting their produce. The MoUs were signed for pilot projects with CISCO, Ninjacart, Jio Platforms Limited, ITC Limited and NCDEX e-Markets Limited. Based on these pilot projects farmers will be able to take informed decisions on what crop to grow, what variety of seed to use and what best practises to adopt to maximise the yield.

-India and UK have aimed for launching the negotiations on free trade agreements by 1st November this year. The matter came up during the discussions between Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal and his British counterpart Secretary of State, Elizabeth Truss. Goyal said that the proposed free trade agreements (FTA) between the two country will unlock extra ordinary business opportunities and generate jobs. He said, there is tremendous interest in the business community in both countries India and UK about this FTA. The Minister said that there is keenness to have an early conclusion of negotiations for quick and early economic benefits to businesses on both sides. Goyal added that Substantial work has already been done and extensive stakeholder consultations have been held involving Industry, Business associations, Export Promotion Councils and Buyers and Sellers Associations. He said, the consultation paper was also made public for wider participation as well.