India placed __________ in the world's most innovative countries according to the Bloomberg 2019 Innovative Index.

India will host the Under-17 Women's Football World Cup in 2020. This was announced by the President of International Football Federation (FIFA) Gianni Infantino after the council meeting in Miami, USA. This will be the second FIFA tournament India will be hosting, after the U-17 Men's World Cup in 2017.

The Passport Index of 2019, which ranks almost 199 countries in the world based on their Visa-Free Scores and their ranking according to the UNDP human development index, showed that Indian passport has steadily strengthened in a period of 5 years from rank 77 in 2015 to 67 in 2019. 25 countries allow visa-free entry to Indian passport holders, whereas 39 countries offer visa-on-arrival. The Tourism Ministry for India is also offering e-tourist visa facilities to 166 countries, by making several amendments in the e-visa regime of the country in order to make this process more tourist friendly.

Delhi High Court has allowed that Section 354A of Indian Penal Code (IPC) can be used by transgenders to register complaints of sexual harassment. According to the police, there was a lack of an appropriate penal section under which they could register such a complaint.

India evacuated its entire contingent of 15 CRPF personnel from Tripoli after the situation suddenly worsened in Libya. The CRPF contingent was deployed as a peacekeeping force in Tripoli. The military conflict in Libya escalated after forces of Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar launched an air strike yesterday in an area in Tripoli and the government vowed a major counteroffensive. The United Nations called for a two-hour truce to allow evacuations of civilians and the wounded. Rivalries between Haftar and the government threaten to plunge the country into a civil war. Indian Ambassador in Tunisia has the concurrent charge of Libya.

The Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs (MoHUA) has launched Shehri Samridhi Utsav to extend the outreach of DAY-NULM (Deendayal Antyodaya Mission - National Urban Livelihoods Mission) to the most vulnerable. The event will also showcase its initiatives and facilitate access of Self-Help Group (SHG) members to the other government schemes.

A recent study published in PLOS Biology, an international journal dedicated to biological science, found that human impacts on species occur across 84% of the earth's surface and India ranks 16th in such impacts, with 35 species impacted on an average. Malaysia ranks first among the countries with the highest number of impacted species (125). A team of scientists led by James Allan (University of Queensland) found this when they mapped the distribution of eight human activities - including hunting and conversion of natural habitats for agriculture - in areas occupied by 5,457 threatened birds, mammals and amphibians worldwide. Using sources, including the recently-updated Human Footprint data, they found that a staggering 1,237 species are impacted by threats in more than 90% of their habitat; 395 species are affected by threats across their entire range.

The Lok Sabha passed a Bill to amend the Aadhaar and Other Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2018. The amendment will allow individuals to offer voluntarily biometric ID as a means of identity verification for obtaining services such as opening a bank account and getting a mobile phone connection. The Bill also gives a minor the option to opt out of the 12-digit identity scheme on attaining the age of 18. It provides for stiff penalties for violation of norms set for the use of Aadhaar and bans service providers from storing core biometric information and Aadhaar number of individuals who voluntarily offer it as a means of authentication.

India submitted its Sixth National Report (NR6) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The report was submitted online to the CBD Secretariat by the Environment Minister, Dr. Harsh Vardhan, during the inaugural session of the 13th National Meeting of the State Biodiversity Boards (SBBs) in New Delhi. With this, India is among the first five countries in the world, the first in Asia and the first among the biodiversity-rich mega diverse countries to have submitted the report. The submission of national reports is a mandatory obligation on parties to international treaties, including the CBD. The NR6 provides an update of progress in achievement of 12 National Biodiversity Targets (NBT) developed under the convention process in line with the 20 global Aichi biodiversity targets. As per report, the population of the lion has risen from 177 in 1968 to over 520 in 2015 and elephants from 12 thousand in the 1970s to 30 thousand in 2015.

India was the world's fourth biggest military spender in 2018 behind the United States, China, and Saudi Arabia, according to new data think tank Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). India was the fifth largest military spender in 2017. France also figures on the list of top five spenders that together accounted for 60% of the global military spending in 2018. According to the SIPRI data, China was the second-largest military spender in 2018. India accounts for 3.7% of the global defence spending. In contrast, India's military spending went up by 3.1% to $66.5 billion.

In accordance with the 2018 global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), India's poverty rate has shown a drastic decrease in 10 years, from 55% to 28%. The index has shown that, in the years between 2005-06 and 2015-16, 271 million people are moved out of poverty in India. Apart from the huge progress, India is still a home to the highest number of MPI poor comprising 364 million poor in 2015-16. Although the number is reduced from 635 million in 2005-06. More than half of the India's multidimensional poor (196 million) are from the four states viz. Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh while Delhi, Kerala and Goa have lowest multidimensional poverty.