 NITI Aayog will host an Investors’ Conference at Pravasi Bharatiya Kendra for the Holistic Development of Islands. The Conference will be inaugurated by Amitabh Kant, CEO, NITI Aayog. It will attract investment for the sustainable development of eco-tourism projects in Andaman & Nicobar and Lakshadweep islands. The 11 anchor tourism projects are proposed to be implemented with private sector participation under suitable risk-sharing model and through open-competitive bidding. |
| Source- Press Information Bureau (PIB) |
 Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes won the Hungarian Grand Prix for the 6th time, at the Hungaroring circuit, in Hungary. This is the 67th career victory for Lewis Hamilton. Daniel Ricciardo was named Driver of the Day by Formula One for finishing at fourth position after starting from the 12th position. Sebastian Vettel of Ferrari finished second in the race. |
| Source- BBC News |
 World Junior Squash Championships 2018 was held in Chennai, India. A total of 171 players including 116 men and 55 women from 28 countries took part in the World Junior Squash Championship. Cyrus Poncha was the tournament director. The individuals event for men and women are held every year since 2009. The team event is biennial. Egypt national junior squash team defeated England 2-0 in the final and emerged as the 2018 World Junior Squash Champions. India finished in 11th position. |
| List of Winners: |
| S.No. | Event | Winner | Runner-up |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | Men’s Individual | Mostafa Asal (Egypt) | Marwan Tarek (Egypt) |
| 2. | Women’s Individual | Rowan Elaraby (Egypt) | Hania El Hammamy(Egypt) |
| 3. | Men’s Team | Egypt | England |
 India has jumped 22 places to 96th rank to break into the top 100 of the United Nation’s E-Government Development Index (EGDI) 2018. Denmark, with an index value of 0.9150, topped the 2018 E-Government Development Survey. The E-Government survey is released by the United Nations in every two years. The 2018 edition was titled as 'Gearing E-Government to Support Transformation towards sustainable and resilient societies'. |
|
India, which was ranked 118 in 2014, jumped 11 places to be ranked 96 in 2018. The EGDI is a composite index based on the weighted average of three normalised indices:
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| The Top 6 Countries in the list along with the Score are: |
| S.No. | Country | Index |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | Denmark | 0.9150 |
| 2. | Australia | 0.9053 |
| 3. | Republic of Korea | 0.9010 |
| 4. | The United Kingdom | 0.8999 |
| 5. | Sweden | 0.8882 |
| 6. | Finland | 0.8815 |
 The IT ministry launched a desktop software e-Aksharayan in a conference for Indian Languages Technology Industry ‘Bhashantara’, in New Delhi. The objective is to enable editing and printing of text in scanned documents. The software e-Aksharayan was launched in 7 Indian languages. They are namely: Hindi, Bangla, Malayalam, Gurmukhi, Tamil, Kannada & Assamese. This software would scanned printed Indian language documents into a fully editable text format in Unicode encoding. |
| Source- Press Information Bureau (PIB) |
 National Health Agency (NHA) under Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the apex body for the implementation of Ayushman Bharat-National Health Protection Mission (AB-NHPM), and Common Service Centres (CSC) scheme under the Digital India Programme, have signed an MoU to provide information and eligibility validation services to beneficiaries, especially in remote areas. J P Nadda, Minister of Health and Family Welfare and Ravi Shankar Prasad, Union Minister for Law and Justice & Information Technology presided over the MoU signing ceremony. As the benefits under AB-NHPM are based on entitlement and not on enrolment, over 3 lakh CSCs spread across the rural India can become the key point of information for potential beneficiaries and help in validating their entitlement. |
| Source- Press Information Bureau (PIB) |
 Bharat Earth Movers Ltd (BEML) and Heavy Engineering Corporation (HEC) have signed pact for making mining equipment. The MoU will result into additional Rs 150-200 crore revenue for both PSUs. It will reduce working capital and create capability for high capacity equipment. The mining products could be co-branded and will come under ‘Make in India’ initiative. Coal India is a major client for this mining equipment. |
| Source- The Moneycontrol |
 Government has approved 122 new research projects of 112 crore rupees under its Impacting Research Innovation and Technology ‘IMPRINT-2’ scheme. The initiative aims to advance research in energy, security and healthcare domains in the high education institutions. According to Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar, out of over two thousand proposals, 122 best proposals were selected for funding under IMPRINT-2. |
| Source- DD News |
 Gopalkrishna Gandhi has been chosen for the 24th Rajiv Gandhi National Sadbhavana Award for his contribution in promoting communal harmony, peace and goodwill. Gopalkrishna Gandhi is a former governor of West Bengal. He will be presented with this award at an event on 20th August 2018 at Jawahar Bhawan in Delhi. The award contains a citation and a cash prize of Rs 10 lakh. The award is presented on the birthday anniversary of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. |
| Source- The Hindu |
 In 3rd Bi-monthly Policy Statement, the Reserve bank of India’s (RBI’s) monetary policy committee (MPC) raised policy rates by 25 basis points to 6.5% on account of inflationary pressures arising due to hike in minimum support price. The committee has increased the policy repo rate under the liquidity adjustment facility (LAF) by 25 basis points to 6.5%. Consequently, the reverse repo rate under the LAF stands adjusted to 6.25%, and the marginal standing facility (MSF) rate and the Bank Rate to 6.75%. RBI also raised the average inflation projection for the second half of the year to 4.8% from 4.7% in June. The central bank expects inflation to edge higher to 5% in the first quarter of next fiscal year. The policy statement also cited the implementation of minimum support price hike as the primary factor stoking inflation this year. The government has fixed the MSP at 150% of the cost of production of all kharif crops. |
| Source- The RBI |
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