Home Ministry has liberalised the process for granting long-term visas (LTVs) to minorities from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh.
Time limit also reduced for security clearance from 45 to 21 days.
Visa facility, first introduced in 2011 for persecuted Hindus from Pakistan in 2011, was further liberalised after NDA government came to power in 2014.
Army will resume the trials of the U.S.-made M777 Ultra-Light Howitzer (ULH) in Pokhran firing range.
The trials were suspended last September after barrel of a gun burst during firing.
In November 2016, India signed a deal with the U.S. government under Foreign Military Sales (FMS) programme for 145 M777 guns at a cost of $737 million.
India & Iran would “maintain the momentum” of bilateral cooperation between them despite the U.S.’s demands to “zero” out oil imports and end engagement with Iran.
Iran is India's third-largest oil supplier after Iraq and Saudi Arabia, and India is Iran’s second largest oil importer after China, taking about $30 million tonnes of crude last year.
US aviation regulator, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), has started a 4-day audit of its Indian counterpart, DGCA
It will cover 3 key areas- operations, airworthiness & pilots’ licensing mechanism.
This is the 3rd audit by FAA when the American regulator downgraded safety ranking of the Indian aviation sector for failure to meet international norms.
President has approved the Assam Witch Hunting (Prohibition, Prevention and Protection) Bill, 2015, converting it to an Act, almost three years after it was passed.
The Act prescribes a prison term of up to 7 years and up to ₹5 lakh in fine for calling a person witch & also to come with Sec 302 of IPC if someone is killed after being branded a witch.
SC asked the Centre to respond to the Shia Waqf Board chairman’s plea seeking a ban on hoisting green flags with a crescent and a star at buildings and religious places across the country.
Crescent star flags in green owe their origin to the erstwhile political party, Muslim League, founded by Nawaz Waqar Ul-Malik and Mohammad Ali Jinnah in 1906.
To address the concerns arising out of the anonymity and to prevent money laundering, RBI has now made it compulsory to incorporate the purchaser’s name on the face of demand draft, pay order, banker’s cheques & other instruments.
RBI issued a notification in Mumbai to this effect.
This directive will come into effect from 15th of September this year.
IMF projected a growth rate of 7.3% in 2018 and 7.5% in 2019 for India as against 6.7% in 2017, making it the fastest growing country among major economies.
Growth in China is projected to moderate from 6.9% in 2017 to 6.6% in 2018 & 6.4% in 2019.
Global growth is projected to reach 3.9% in 2018 & 2019, in line with the forecast of the April 2018 WEO.
BSNL expects to start 5G services in the country together with its global launch.
BSNL has signed agreement with several international operators.
BSNL’s new offering ‘Wings’, will be rolled out from August 1 across the country, targets to have 50 lakh new customers by the end of this fiscal.
BSNL CEO: Shri Anupam Shrivastava
CGM: Anil Jain
Inflation, based on wholesale prices, shot up to 5.77 % in June on increasing prices of vegetables and fuel items.
WPI inflation stood at 4.43 % in May.
WPI measures and tracks the changes in the price of goods in the stages before the retail level.
It shows the average price change of goods included in the index and is often expressed as a ratio or %.