 External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj is now in Kyrgyzstan which is the second leg of 3-central Asian nations' visit. Before landing in Bishkek, the Minister completed a successful visit to Kazakhstan where she met the country's top leaders to discuss ways to consolidate its strategic partnership with India in areas like trade, energy, security and information technology. Minister Sushma Swaraj held a bilateral meeting with her Kazakh External Affairs counterpart. Sushma Swaraj expressed India's interest to partner with Kazakhstan on several fronts. Bilateral relations between India and Kazakhstan have been strengthened by the bilateral visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Kazakhstan in 2015 and his visit for SCO Summit in June 2017. |
| Source- AIR World Service |
 Commerce & Industry Minister Suresh Prabhu attended the 6th East Asia Summit- Economic Ministers’ Meeting (EAS-EMM) and 15th India-ASEAN Economic Ministers’ Meeting (AEM) in Singapore. Singapore is currently holding the Chair of ASEAN. The 6th East-Asia Economic Ministers’ Meeting was chaired by Chan Chun Sing, Minister for Trade and Industry, Singapore, and was attended by Economic Ministers from 10 ASEAN countries and their eight dialogue partners, Australia, China, India, Japan, Republic of Korea, New Zealand, the Russian Federation and the United States of America. |
| Source- Press Information Bureau (PIB) |
 France’s Parliament has signed into law a controversial asylum and immigration bill. The bill is designed to accelerate asylum procedures by cutting the maximum processing time from the current 120 days to 90 days after entering France. The text was adopted on a final reading by 100 votes in favour to 25 against with 11 abstentions. The Senate had rejected the bill, but the Lower House passed the text as President Emmanuel Macron’s La Republique En Marche party holds a large majority, even if the law has exposed divisions within his own camp. |
| Source- The Guardian |
 The United States Congress has passed the National Defense Authorisation Act-2019 (NDAA-19) which capped its security-related aid to Pakistan to $150 million, significantly below the historic level of more than $ 1 billion to $750 million per year. This year’s defence legislation removes certain conditions like action against Haqqani network or Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) as was the case in the past few years for disbursement of US aid to Pakistan. |
| Source- The Hindu |
 The United States has eased export controls for high-technology product sales to India by elevating its status to a Strategic Trade Authorisation-1 (STA-1) country. The information was shared by US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross. With the move, the United States has granted India the same access as NATO allies, Australia, Japan and South Korea. |
| Source- NDTV News |
 Prime Minister Narendra Modi left on a three-nation visit to Rwanda, Uganda and South Africa. In the first leg of his five-day visit, Mr Modi will reach Rwanda. India will extend two lines of credit of 100 million US Dollars each for agriculture and industrial sectors to Rwanda during his two-day visit to that country. On second leg he will leave for Uganda where he will call on the President. He will have delegation-level talks and will address Indian community. Two lines of credit worth 164 million US Dollars will be extended to Uganda during the visit. In the last leg of his visit, Prime Minister Modi will reach South Africa to attend the 10th BRICS summit at Johannesburg. |
| Source- AIR World Service |
 Myanmar has joined India-initiated International Solar Alliance (ISA), making it 68th signatory to Framework Agreement of ISA. The ISA Framework Agreement was handed over by Myanmar Minister for International Cooperation, Kyaw Tin to India’s External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on sidelines of Delhi Dialogue. |
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Objectives of ISA
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ISA’s 4 ongoing programmes
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 UN Environment Programme (UNEP) has entered into a partnership with search engine giant Google to monitor the impacts of human activity on global ecosystems by using sophisticated online tools. The partnership was launched during a High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development at United Nations (UN) headquarters in New York. The aim of the partnership is to develop a platform to enable governments, NGO’s and public to track specific environment-related development targets with user-friendly Google front-end. |
| Source- India Today |
 European Union (EU) and Japan have signed Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA). It was signed at EU-Japan summit in Tokyo by EU Presidents Jean-Claude Juncker and Donald Tusk and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. It is biggest ever trade deal negotiated by the EU and creates free trade zone covering nearly third of the world’s GDP. The trade deal is set to eliminate the "vast majority" of the $1.1 billion in duties that EU companies pay to Japan, according to the European Commission. |
| Source- The Economic Times |
 European Union (EU) and Japan have signed Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA). It was signed at EU-Japan summit in Tokyo by EU Presidents Jean-Claude Juncker and Donald Tusk and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. It is biggest ever trade deal negotiated by the EU and creates free trade zone covering nearly third of the world’s GDP. |
Key Parts of EPA
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