 West Bengal state assembly dominated by Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress Government has unanimously passed resolution to change state’s name to ‘Bangla’ in all three languages – Bengali, Hindi and English. The name change will only become official when resolution gets approval from Union Home Ministry and Parliament passes Bill. The main reason cited by State Government for changing name of West Bengal to Bangla is that whenever there is meeting of all states, West Bengal figures at bottom of the list, as it is prepared according to alphabetical order. With change in its Bangla, it will appear (or leapfrog) to fourth place after Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh and Assam in list of states in alphabetical order. |
| Background : The move of comes West Bengal state assembly to change name of state comes almost two years after it first passed a resolution to change the name of the State in August 2016. The state government had earlier submitted a proposal to the Centre to change the name of West Bengal to to Bengal in English, Bangla in Bengali and Bangal in Hindi. The proposal was turned down by Union Home Ministry. |
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 Union Government has announced that Prime Minister’s Research Fellows (PMRF) Scheme will be open to all potential researchers from 2019 and not limited to candidates from IISc, IITs, NITs, IIEST and IISERs. The decision was made after Government failed to find adequate number of candidates for PMRF this year. Only 135 fellowships were finally offered against 1,000 positions. |
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 Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched India-assisted emergency ambulance service through video conferencing from New Delhi. The inaugural function of emergency ambulance service was held in Jaffna, Northern Province, of Sri Lankan. The project is another milestone in wide-ranging development partnership between India and Sri Lanka. Jaffna is third province in Sri Lanka, were India-assisted emergency ambulance service has been launched. The service was earlier introduced in two provinces of Sri Lanka with grant assistance from India. It is planned to be expanded to remaining seven provinces of Sri Lanka. For this project, India in total has given grant of $22.8 million- $7.6 million for the first phase and $15.2 million for the country-wide expansion. This is largest ever Indian grant project in Sri Lanka after India funded housing project. |
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 Insurance regulator Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) has constituted a 16-member committee to examine motor third party insurance pricing aspects and make recommendations on the premium rates for 2019-20. IRDAI Member P.J. Joseph has been appointed as the Chairman of the committee. This is for the first time IRDAI has formed such a committee. The committee has also been tasked to revisit the classification of vehicles, in view of the development in the industry. |
| Source- The Hindu |
 The 6th India-UK Science & Innovation Council (SIC) meeting held in New Delhi discussed a range of issues on S&T cooperation between the two countries. Dr. Harsh Vardhan, Minister of Science & Technology, Earth Sciences & Environment, Forests and Climate Change, India and Mr. Sam Gyimah, Minister for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation, UK led the Indian and UK delegations respectively. |
| Source- Press Information Bureau (PIB) |
 The heads of state and government of all five BRICS nations including Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa convened for the 10th BRICS Summit in Johannesburg, South Africa. The theme of BRICS Summit 2018 was ‘BRICS in Africa: Collaboration for inclusive growth and shared prosperity in the 4th Industrial Revolution'. The summit saw the BRICS leaders come together and discuss various international and regional issues of common concern and adopted the 'Johannesburg Declaration' by consensus. The BRICS leaders have used the summit to reject the growing unilateralism and instead reiterate their commitment to the strengthening of multilateral institutions, calling for stronger intra-trade within member states. The declaration comes as the United States and China remain deadlocked in a trade war over tariffs. |
| Source- The Economic Times |
 The Ramon Magsaysay Award is an annual award established to perpetuate former Philippine President Ramon Magsaysay's example of integrity in governance, courageous service to the people, and pragmatic idealism within a democratic society. |
| Two Indians, Bharat Vatwani (for Restoring Health & Dignity to troubled lives) and Sonam Wangchuk (for Harnessing nature, culture & education) made the country proud as their names figured in the list of 2018 Ramon Magsaysay Award winners. |
| Here is the Complete list of winners of the Ramon Magsaysay Award 2018: |
| Sl.No. | Winner | Country |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | Bharat Vatwani | India |
| 2. | Sonam Wangchuk | India |
| 3. | Youk Chhang | Cambodia |
| 4. | Maria de Lourdes Martins Cruz | East Timor |
| 5. | Howard Dee | Philippines |
| 6. | Vo Thi Hoang Yen | Vietnam |
 According to the US-based Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) report, Karnataka is the new national leader in renewable energy generation. It has surpassed Tamil Naduthat had for quite some time been India's best renewable market. Karnataka has a sum of 12.3 gigawatts (GW) of renewable capacity installed till March 2018. IEEFA's report was titled as "Karnataka's Electricity Sector Transformation". |
| Source- Dailyhunt |
 Invest India and Business France have signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to promote investment facilitation and cooperation between startups of India and France. The MoU will facilitate direct foreign investment by providing practical investment information to enterprises. It will also support companies pursuing those opportunities which contribute positively to economic growth of two countries. |
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 Veteran sports journalist Swapan Sarkar passed away due to diabetic complications. He was 67 years old. Sarkar worked for a number of dailies and was also the Delhi sports correspondent of Ananda Bazaar Patrika (ABP) from mid 1990's. |
| Source- Press Trust of India (PTI) |
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