The First Forum is an initiative that focuses on covering the latest happenings in a brief format. This is in lieu of the importance of knowledge about current happenings in this fast-changing world.
In the Sixty Fourth Edition of The First Forum we would be covering the following topics:
1. Politics
2. Science and Technology
3. Business
4. Economics
5. Finance
(By Divyansh Gupta, Ayush Harlalka, Creamy Garg)
Politics
Biden or Trump, no guarantee of a post-Brexit U.S.-UK trade deal
With the rising speculations of revocation of Northern Ireland’s 1998 peace agreement due to the repeated proposal of no-deal Brexit by administrators of United Kingdom, there comes a threat to Britain from USA in form of loosening trade ties. The no-deal Brexit can significantly bring hard borders and excruciating tariff checks between Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland and thus can repeal the peace agreement, popularly known as ‘Good Friday Agreement’.Read More
China sends fighters and bombers towards Taiwan
Amid the rising tensions between India and China on the LAC border in Ladakh, China has booted up tensions on its eastern front, with 18 Chinese fighters and bombers crossing the mid-line of the Taiwan Strait and flying towards Taiwan in a major show of military force. PLA held combat-ready patrols and joint air-sea exercises in the Taiwan Straits to test the joint operations capability of multiservices. The development comes on the time when the most senior official of USA, Keith Krach, U.S. Undersecretary for Economic Affairs Keith, has visited Taiwan in four decades. Read More
Yoshihide Suga Becomes Japan’s Prime Minister
Yoshihide Suga took over Wednesday as Japan’s first new prime minister in almost eight years, replacing the country’s longest-serving premier, Shinzo Abe, who stepped down citing health concerns. Suga, 71, was sworn in by Emperor Naruhito at the Imperial Palace after parliament elected him as prime minister. Suga was Abe’s chief Cabinet secretary and head government spokesman. Now he pledges to forge ahead with his predecessor’s key policies, including his efforts to jump-start the economy and to revise Japan’s postwar constitution, which restricts the use of its military. He takes office at a time when Japan is managing the coronavirus outbreak and planning for the Tokyo Olympics that were delayed because of the pandemic. Read More
India welcomes Abraham Accords, calls for talks on ‘two-state solution’
India has welcomed the signing of the Abraham Accords by the US, Israel, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and reiterated its call for direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians for a “two-state solution”. US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu joined the foreign ministers of Bahrain and the UAE for the signing of the historic agreements aimed at normalising relations between Israel and the Arab countries.Read More
Union Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal resigns over three anti-farmer bills
Minister of Food Processing Industries, Harsimrat Kaur Badal resigned from the Modi cabinet in support of farmers to protest against three “anti-farmer” bills on 17th Sep 2020. This comes after the Lok Sabha passed three bills that have sparked protests from farmers in Punjab and Haryana among which two have been passed by the Rajya Sabha this Sunday. The three bills aim at allowing inter-state free trade of farmers produce, providing an ecosystem to sell produce outside Mandis under state APMCs, accelerating growth through private sector involvement etc. Read More
Science and Technology
Hyderabad based Dr. Reddy Laboratories to partner with RDIF for Sputnik V trials
The Russia Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), which is piloting Russia’s Sputnik V candidate vaccine and is currently in the phase 3 trials has partnered with the Hyderabad based Dr. Reddy Laboratories to test, and subject to regulatory approvals in India and supply 100 million doses of the vaccine. Read More
Tata group to launch India’s first low cost Covid-19 test ‘Feluda’
Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) has approved India’s first CRISPR Covid-19 test developed by the Tata Group and CSIR-IGIB. Tata group has worked closely with CSIR-IGIB and ICMR to create a high-quality test that will help the nation ramp up Covid-19 testing quickly and economically.Read More
Astronomers spot possible marker of life on Venus
A rare molecule — phosphine — has been detected in the atmosphere of Venus, an international team of astronomers announced on Monday leading to speculation of life on Earth’s nearest planetary neighbour. On Earth, this gas is only made industrially or by microbes that thrive in oxygen-free environments. Astronomers have speculated for decades that high clouds on Venus could offer a home for microbes — floating free of the scorching surface but needing to tolerate very high acidity. Read More
Zhenuha Digital Data Leak
A Shenzen-based Chinese technology company Zhenhua having links with the Chinese Communist Party is snooping on top Indian leaders, VVIPs, with the list including 10,000 prominent people and organisations. The leak suggests that a Chinese tech company has gathered the data of millions of users from around the world. There were also some details about the data being linked back to the Chinese military. There were approximately 2.4 million user data in the database that also included influential people. The database was built in a way that can be used to mass influence the public.Read More
Astronomers spot giant planet orbiting a dead star
In a first, astronomers detected a giant intact planet about the size of Jupiter closely orbiting a dead star’s corpse around 80 light-years from Earth using NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and retired Spitzer Space Telescope. While the leftover of the Sun-like star which is merely 40% larger than the Earth is known as WD 1856, the exoplanet (which is seven times larger than the white dwarf) has been named WD 1856b and completes one full orbit every 1.4 days (60 times faster than Mercury orbiting Sun). Read More


Business
Tik Tok to continue operations in USA
US President Donald Trump has expressed his approval of a deal that would allow Chinese-owned video-sharing app TikTok to continue operating in the US. TikTok and ByteDance both welcomed President Trump’s approval of a proposed deal, which would still need to be signed off by the Chinese government. TikTok said the deal would ensure US national security requirements were fully satisfied, while ByteDance said it was working to reach an agreement that was “in line with US and Chinese law” as soon as possible. The deal would see the establishment of a new company, dubbed TikTok Global. Read More
Paytm listed back on Play Store after Google rap
The popular financial services platform, Paytm was listed back on its Play Store by Google a few hours after it had been pulled down for violating Google’s policies related to gambling on Friday. The accusations came in the wake of a recent launch of the campaign called ‘Paytm Cricket League’ where players receive stickers after each regular transaction, collect them and receive Paytm cashback by redeeming those points. Read More
Cabinet note ready for vehicle scrappage policy
A note has been formulated by Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) on creation of a platform for voluntary and eco-friendly phasing out of misfit and old polluting vehicles. The proposed policy will be applicable on all vehicles once it gets approved and it has been sent for the process of consultations with various stakeholders. Read More
Rajya Sabha passes Second Amendment in IBC
The Upper House of the parliament passed the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) (Second Amendment) Bill 2020, on Saturday through a voice vote after rejecting opposition amendments. This bill seeks at replacing an ordinance promulgated in June 2020. Now, no fresh insolvency proceedings will be initiated for at least six months to a year beginning from 25th March 2020. Read More
US-China investment at 9 year lows amid souring ties
The capital flow between China and the United States tumbled to a nine-year low in the first half of 2020 amid bilateral tensions and economic strain due to the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the figure of National Committee on US-China Relations and Rhodium Group, both direct and venture capital investment between the two fell 16.2% from the same period previous year and totaled US$ 10.9 Billion in January-June half. This is in sharp contrast to nearly US$ 40 Billion investment observed during 2016 and 2017. Read More
Economics
Human Capital Index 2020
India has been ranked at the 116th position in the latest edition of the World Bank’s annual Human Capital Index that benchmarks key components of human capital across countries. However, India’s score increased to 0.49 from 0.44 in 2018, as per the Human Capital Index report released by the World Bank. Read More
Govt permits up to 74% FDI under automatic route in defence sector
The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) has issued a press note permitting foreign direct investment (FDI) in defence production above 74 per cent on the automatic route. This would be subject to access to modern technology or for ‘other reasons’ that needs to be recorded. FDI in defence production is automatic upto 74 per cent, the department notified. Till now, 100 per cent foreign investments were permitted in the defence industry – 49 per cent under the automatic route and government approval was required beyond that. Read More
Net direct tax collection dips 31% in August
The net direct tax collection has been reported to be 1.92 lakh crore for the five month period of April-August 2020, which is 31% less than the previous year. The indirect tax collection has also been adversely hit down by 11% to Rs 1,92,718 crore for the same period last year. Read More
Rs. 1350 Crore mega relief economic package announced for Jammu and Kashmir
Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor (L-G) Manoj Sinha announced a mega Rs. 1350 Crore revival package and interest subsidy on Saturday to boost business, tourism and overcome difficulties of COVID-19 crisis. The government has waived 50% of water and electricity bill amounts across the union territory for an entire year to bring relief to farmers and families. Read More
New Zealand enters in its deepest recession in years
New Zealand entered into recession for the first time post Global Financial Crisis after having the biggest quarterly GDP contraction in decades. Its GDP contracted a seasonally adjusted 12.2% quarter-on-quarter between April and June. Although tackling Covid-19 comparatively well with only 25 deaths and a few cases, it had to bear its brunt economically.Read More
Finance
Indian Forex reserves down by $353 million to $541.66 billion
After touching a life-time high in the previous week, the country’s foreign exchange reserves declined by $353 million to $541.660 billion in the week ended September 11, according to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) data. In the previous week ended September 4, the reserves had increased by $582 million to a record high of $542.013 billion. During the reporting week, the fall in reserves was due to a decline in foreign currency assets (FCAs), a major component of the overall reserves. FCAs decreased by $841 million to $497.521 billion in the reporting week. Expressed in dollar terms, the foreign currency assets include the effect of appreciation or depreciation of non-US units like the euro, pound and yen held in the foreign exchange reserves. Read More
NPCI introduces auto debit option in UPI for recurring payments
National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) launched AutoPay feature in UPI which will auto debit customer accounts for regular payments, easing the burden to remember recurrent bill payments. The UPI AutoPay option enables users to set up an e-mandate and pay the recurring expenses like insurance premium, mobile bills, electricity bills, DTH payments, EMI payments, bus or metro card payments, UPI eligible streaming subscriptions and other utility bills. The Repeat mandate functionality gives seamless convenient usage for people to set up repeat payments across a variety of applications.Read More
Fitch Solutions revises its forecast to 11.5% decline in fuel demand in 2020
Fitch Solutions has revised its earlier forecast of a 9.4% decline in fuel demand in India in 2020 to 11.5% contraction. The agency has done so looking at the deterioration in India’s economic outlook. It said that demand weakness is being observed in both industrial and customer fuels as they are set for a “steep decline”. Read More
Rolls-Royce in talks to raise £2.5 Billion from investors next month
Rolls-Royce Holdings Plc, the aero-engine maker, said it is considering a variety of options including a right issue to boost its balance sheet and to raise close to 2.5 Billion pounds (US$ 3.2 Billion). According to a Financial Times report, the company was in talks with Singapore’s GIC and several sovereign wealth funds for the same. Read More
External debt increases almost 3% to $559 billion at March-end
The total external debt of India has rose 2.8% to 558.5 billion as on March 31 compared to last year on the account of increase in commercial borrowings. The External debt account for 20.6% of GDP compared to 19.8% last year. The rise in foreign borrowing points to the shortage of domestic savings and reflects the policy of enabling private sector to access foreign debt over the years. The biggest chunk of this debt is owed by the non-financial corporations which account for 42% of total debt. Read More
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