News articles and essays on the Indian diplomacy at work around the world.
The Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro), which is working on its second Moon landing mission — Chandrayaan-3 — for next year, has now formed a study group for another moon mission along with Japan.
The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill 2020 with provisions to remove commodities like cereals, pulses, oilseeds, edible oils, onion and potatoes from the list of essential commodities was passed by Rajya Sabha today. Earlier, the bill was introduced by the Minister of State for Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution, Shri Danve Raosaheb Dadarao in the Lok Sabha on 14th September, 2020 to replace ordinances promulgated on 5th June 2020. The bill was passed by Lok Sabha on 15th September, 2020.
The Indian Tsunami Early Warning Centre (ITEWC) was established at Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS), Hyderabad, an autonomous body under Ministry of Earth Sciences which continues to provide timely tsunami advisories to stake holders.
The last high-level engagement between New Delhi and Donald Trump’s administration before the November 3 presidential elections in America is likely to see India and the United States signing an agreement for sharing of geospatial intelligence between the armed forces of the two nations.
The Government e-Marketplace is also being used to keep Chinese companies away from government contracts after tensions between the neighbours intensified earlier this year amid border clashes. Suppliers must note the country of origin for any goods they sell on GeM, which helps government departments implement Modi govt’s “Make in India” policy.
India on Sunday provided a soft loan of $250 million to the government of the Maldives as budgetary support to mitigate the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, the latest in a string of support measures for the Indian Ocean archipelago.
With a vision to strengthen digitalization in Panchayats for the purpose of empowering rural India, a unified tool e-Gram SWARAJ portal (https://egramswaraj.gov.in/) has been developed by the Ministry for effective monitoring and evaluation of works taken up in the Gram Panchayats.
e-Gram SWARAJ unifies the planning, accounting and monitoring functions of Gram Panchayats. It’s combination with the Area Profiler application, Local Government Directory (LGD) and the Public Financial Management System (PFMS) renders easier reporting and tracking of Gram Panchayat’s activities. It provides a single window for capturing Panchayat information with the complete Profile of the Panchayat, details of Panchayat finances, asset details, activities taken up through Gram Panchayat Development Plan (GPDP), Panchayat information from other Ministries/ Departments such as Census 2011, SECC data, Mission Antyodaya survey report etc.
For the year 2020-21, around 2.43 lakh Gram Panchayats have finalized their GPDP on e-Gram SWARAJ. Further, around 1.24 lakh Gram Panchayats have transacted online using the e-Gram SWARAJ Online Payment Module.
The Lok Sabha Monday passed the Foreign Contribution Regulation (Amendment) Bill 2020, amid objections from the Opposition on various clauses introduced by the Narendra Modi government.
Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi addressed the United Nations General Assembly today through video conferencing.
In yet another setback for China, the Government of India has made the random sampling of all imported light-emitting diodes (LED) and control gears for LED products mandatory. According to a new notification issued by the Director-General of Foreign Trade (DGFT), now all LED products being imported from other countries will be subjected to stringent quality tests.
