Nelson Mandela International Day (also known as Madela Day) is observed every year across the world on Jul 18 to mark birth anniversary of Nobel Peace Prize laureate and former South African President Nelson Mandela.
This year marks 100 years since the birth of Nelson Mandela (18 July 1918).
The Nelson Mandela Foundation is dedicating this year’s Mandela Day to Action Against Poverty, honouring Nelson Mandela’s leadership and devotion to fighting poverty and promoting social justice for all.
The day seeks to celebrates the idea that each individual has the power to transform the world, the ability to make an impact.
It aims to inspire individuals to take action to help change the world for the better.
AIIA inks MoU with IIT Delhi
All India Institute of Ayurveda (AIIA) and IIT (Indian Institute of Technology)-Delhi signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to enhance research in the field of Ayurveda.
It was signed on sidelines of two-day conference on ‘Raising towards Excellence’ held at New Delhi.
AIIA will invite technological experts from IIT Delhi for research in ancient Indian medicine.
PhonePe acquires POS Platform Zopper Retail
Flipkart’s digital payment subsidiary PhonePe has acquired Zopper Retail, a hyperlocal Point of Sale (POS) platform for small and medium businesses, for an undisclosed amount.
The acquisition is part of PhonePe’s strategy to aggressively ramp up its offline business.
Zopper co-founder and CEO Neeraj Jain will join PhonePe as Head of Product, Offline Merchant Solutions.
Zopper Retail had raised over $20 million in funding from investors like Tiger Global, Blume Ventures and Nirvana Ventures Advisors.
With the new acquisition, PhonePe will be able to merge few value added service capabilities of Zopper into its platform thereby strengthening its offline proposition for the merchants.
Indo-US delegation meeting on Defence Cooperation
The 7th Defence Technology and Trade Initiative (DTTI) meeting was held between India and the US delegation.
It was a part of Indo-US Bilateral Defence Cooperation.
The meeting was co-chaired by, Secretary (Defence Production), Dr Ajay Kumar and Under Secretary of Defence for Acquisition and Sustainment, DoD, US Government Ms Ellen M Lord.
The meetings are held twice a year, alternately in India and the USA with the aim to bring sustained leadership focus to the bilateral defence trade relationship and create opportunities for co-production and co-development of defence equipment.
DTTI is an important forum leading to the 2+2 dialogue between the two countries.
BBC launches first Gujarati TV bulletin for India
The BBC World Service launched its first Gujarati language television news bulletin as part of an ongoing expansion drive in India.
‘BBC Samachar’ will broadcast live five days a week from Delhi and will air on the broadcaster’s partner station GSTV at 8 pm local time.
Four new language services have been launched online in India – Gujarati, Marathi, Punjabi and Telugu.
‘BBC Samachar’ joins the Telugu TV bulletin ‘BBC Prapancham’ and the nightly Hindi TV news bulletin ‘BBC Duniya’.
The expansion is part of what the BBC has described as “significant” investment in India, including an expanded news bureau in Delhi with two new TV studios.
The Delhi bureau is the BBC’s second-largest outside the UK, as is the TV and digital content production hub for the whole of South Asia.
EU, Japan sign massive free trade deal
European Union (EU) and Japan signed Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA).
It was signed by EU Presidents Jean-Claude Juncker and Donald Tusk and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at EU-Japan summit in Tokyo.
It is the biggest ever trade deal negotiated by the EU and creates free trade zone covering nearly third of the world’s GDP.
UNEP partners with Google
UN Environment Programme (UNEP) entered into partnership with search engine giant Google to monitor impacts of human activity on global ecosystems by using sophisticated online tools.
It was launched during High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development at United Nations (UN) headquarters in New York.
It aims to develop platform to enable governments, NGO’s and public to track specific environment-related development targets with user-friendly Google front-end.
UNEP, headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya, is the voice for the environment within the United Nations system.
Microsoft and Walmart team up to take on Amazon
Microsoft and Walmart team up for a strategic partnership to take on rival Amazon in both technology and retail.
It was announced by Walmart at Microsoft’s Inspire partner conference to use the company’s cloud services.
The five-year agreement will see Walmart use Azure and Microsoft 365 across the company, alongside new projects focused on machine learning, artificial intelligence, and data platforms.
Walmart is Amazon’s biggest retail competitor, and Microsoft is Amazon’s largest cloud services rival.
Nozomi Okuhara beats PV Sindhu to clinch maiden Thailand Open title
Japan’s Nozomi Okuhara beaten the Olympic silver medallist PV Sindhu in the summit clash of the $ 350,000 Thailand Open World Tour Super 500 badminton tournament.
Olympic silver medallist PV Sindhu’s title drought continued this year.
Second seed Sindhu struggled with her consistency throughout the duel as fourth seeded Okuhara dominated the proceedings to beat the Indian 21-15 21-18 in exactly 50 minutes.
