How many projects were signed between India-Bangladesh recently?

The Union Cabinet approved the submission of India's second Biennial Update Report (BUR) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). BUR has been prepared based on a range of studies conducted at the national level. The scope of BUR is to provide an update to India's first BUR to UNFCCC. The Five major components of Biennial Update Report (BUR) are

The Supreme Court ordered a court-monitored mediation in the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid land dispute case to arrive at a "permanent solution" to the politically and religiously sensitive issue. The five-judge constitution bench headed by CJI Ranjan Gogoi appointed a panel of 3 mediators in the title suit with Retired Justice Kalifullah chairing the court-appointed and monitored mediation process. The other two members are spiritual leader Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and senior advocate Sriram Panchu.

India can achieve a three-fold "aspirational" increase in its engineering exports to reach $200 billion by 2025, if concerted efforts are made by the government and industry to develop a conducive ecosystem, and ensuring inputs at competitive prices, according to an EEPC India-Deloitte strategy paper. India's engineering exports, which contribute 25 per cent to the overall merchandise shipments, are projected to touch about $80-82 billion in the current financial year ending March 31.

Norway is ranked first in the World Press Freedom Index 2019 for the third year running while Finland (up two places) has taken second place from the Netherlands (down one at 4th). India dropped two places to be ranked 140th out of 180 countries in the global press freedom index analysis. Violence against journalists - including police violence, attacks by Maoist fighters and reprisals by criminal groups or corrupt politicians - is one of the most striking characteristics of the current state of press freedom in India.

Dearness Allowance (DA) to central government employees and Dearness Relief to pensioners has been increased from 9% to 12% with effect from January 1, 2019. This move will benefit 48.41 lakh central government employees and 62.03 lakh pensioners. The combined impact on the exchequer on account of both DA and DR would be Rs 9,168.12 crore per annum and Rs 10,696.14 crore in 2019-20 (for a period of 14 months from January 2019 to February 2020). Previously, the Cabinet had increased dearness allowance in March 2018, from 5% to 7% in accordance with the recommendations of the 7th Central Pay Commission (CPC).

The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) has released the 2019 Index of Cancer Preparedness (ICP) in which India's overall rank is 19th out of 28 countries, with a score of 64.9. Australia tops the ICP, followed by the Netherlands and Germany.

The Global Talent Competitiveness Index (GTCI) 2019 has released by INSEAD, Adecco Group and Tata Communications recently. In the GTCI 2019 India ranks 80 while Singapore takes the lead in this region. This year's report has a special focus on entrepreneurial talent - how it is being encouraged, nurtured and developed throughout the world and how this affects the relative competitiveness of different economies. The report measures levels of Global Talent Competitiveness by looking at 68 variables. The 2019 index covers 125 national economies and 114 cities (respectively 119 and 90 in 2018) across all groups of income and levels of development. In this sixth edition, Switzerland continues to lead the 2019 Global Talent Competitiveness index, while Singapore and the United States come in second and third respectively.

The Ministry of Tourism, Government of India has won the First Prize in the category of TV Cinema Spot at the prestigious international Golden City Gate Tourism Awards 2019. The awards were received by Yogendra Tripathi, Secretary, Tourism at ITB, Berlin.

India is the second largest importer of weapons in the world, as per the annual report 'Trends in International Arms Transfers-2018' released by the think tank Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). Saudi Arabia is now the world's largest weapons importer. After maintaining its position of world's largest arms importer for about 8 years, India dropped down to be the second largest importer of weapons during 2014-18. India accounted for 9.5% of the global total imports during 2014-18, while Saudi Arabia accounted for 12% of the total imports during the period.

A report by World Economic Forum stated that India is set to become the world's third largest consumer market behind only USA and China by 2030. The report was titled as 'Future of Consumption in Fast-Growth Consumer Market - India'. As per the report, consumer spending in India is expected to grow from 1.5 trillion US dollar at present to six trillion US dollar by 2030. With the annual GDP growth rate of 7.5 percent, India is currently the world's sixth largest economy.