India-Sri Lanka Bilateral Maritime Exercise

Shankar School of Banking October 19 , 2020 295

NATIONAL NEWS

Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi will deliver the keynote address at the inaugural function of Grand Challenges Annual Meeting 2020, on 19th October
The Grand Challenges Annual Meeting, for the last 15 years, has fostered international innovation collaborations to address the biggest challenges in health and development
Grand Challenges India was set up as a partnership of the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2012
The meeting is co-hosted by Grand Challenges India and Grand Challenges Canada, Ministry of Science and Technology, ICMR, NITI Aayog, US Agency for International Development and Wellcome.

BRAHMOS, the supersonic cruise missile was successfully test fired today from Indian Navy’s indigenously-built stealth destroyer INS Chennai
BRAHMOS as a prime strike weapon will ensure the warship’s invincibility by engaging naval surface targets at long ranges, thus making the destroyer another lethal platform of Indian Navy
The highly versatile BRAHMOS has been jointly designed, developed and produced by India and Russia.

The Eighth Edition of annual Indian Navy – Sri Lanka bilateral maritime exercise SLINEX will be carried out in Trincomalee, Sri Lanka from 19 to 21 October 2020
Indigenously built ASW corvettes Kamorta and Kilta will be participating in the exercise along with Indian Navy Advanced Light Helicopter (ALH) and Chetak helicopter embarked onboard IN ships, and Dornier Maritime Patrol Aircraft
SLINEX-20 aims to enhance inter-operability, improve mutual understanding and exchange best practices and procedures for multi-faceted maritime operations between both navies.
The previous edition of SLINEX was conducted off Visakhapatnam in September 2019.

India and Chile had their first ever meeting co-chaired by External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and his Chilean counterpart Andres Allamand Zavala.
Both countries agreed to cooperate in several fields such as trade and commerce, agriculture, health and social security, defence and space.
As an outcome of the institutionalisation of this relationship Chile will open its Consulate General in Mumbai. Also, Chile has designated India as a Priority country in its foreign policy.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated Jacinda Ardern for her being re-elected as the Prime Minister of New Zealand.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardren secured a landslide victory in the country’s general election after her success in managing over the COVID-19 situation.

Reserve Bank of India will conduct its first-ever Open Market Operation (OMO) purchase of State Developments Loans (SDLs)
The ten thousand crore rupees OMO will be conducted with an aim to improve liquidity and facilitate efficient pricing

India's foreign exchange reserves have jumped by 5.867 billion dollars to touch an all-time high of 551.505 billion dollars in the week ended 9th October
The current Foreign Currency Assets is 508.783 billion dollars and the Gold Reserves are 36.598 billion dollars.

2020 marks the 27^th anniversary of the declaration of UNGA of 22^nd December 1992, of 17^th October as International Day for the Eradication of Poverty
The theme of 2020’s anniversary is “Acting together to achieve social and environmental justice for all”.

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