1) First ASEAN-India Music Festival Begins in New Delhi
•The first ever ASEAN-India music festival began at Purana Quila in New Delhi. The 3-day festival is being organised by the Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India in collaboration with Culture Ministry to celebrate the 25th year anniversary of ASEAN-India Dialogue Relations.
•It will conclude on 8 October 2017. • The theme for this commemorative year is ‘Shared Values, Common Destiny’.
2) Banwarilal Purohit Sworn-in as Governor of Tamil Nadu
•Tamil Nadu Governor Banwarilal Purohit was sworn-in by Madras High Court Chief Justice Indira Banerjee at the Raj Bhavan in Chennai.
•He entered the Maharashtra Assembly for the first time in 1978 from the Nagpur east seat. Mr. Purohit was appointed as Governor of Assam State by the President of India on August 17, 2016.
3) Donald Trump is Most Followed World Leader on Twitter, PM Modi Third
•Donald Trump is now the world’s most followed leader on Twitter, while Narendra Modi is the third, according to the latest report by Twiplomacy, a Burson Marsteller research project that tracks the use of Twitter by governments and international organisations.
•Trump overtook Pope Francis by a few thousand followers to occupy the first place in Twiplomacy’s October report. India’s prime minister Narendra Modi has kept his third place consistently since 2016. Modi’s own account, @narendramodi, has more than 34 million followers, while the official @PMOIndia account is at the fourth position with a following of more than 21 million.
4) Gauri Lankesh, First Indian Journalist to win Anna Politkovskaya Award
•Journalist-activist Gauri Lankesh, who was shot dead by unknown assailants recently, has been posthumously accorded with the prestigious Anna Politkovskaya Award, instituted by Reach All Women (RAW) in War.
•It was honoured to award the annual Anna Politkovskaya Award for women human rights defenders from war and conflict zones jointly to Gauri Lankesh posthumously and to a brave Pakistani activist Gulalai Ismail, who similarly is fighting against Islamic extremism.
5) 2017 Nobel Peace Prize Announced
•The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2017 to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) "for its work to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and for its ground-breaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition of such weapons".
•The 2017 Peace Prize calls upon nuclear-armed states to initiate negotiations to the gradual elimination of the world’s 15,000 nuclear weapons adding that ICAN has in the past year given the efforts to achieve a world without nuclear weapons a new direction and new vigour.
6) FIFA U-17 World Cup 2017 Started
•The much-awaited FIFA U-17 World Cup started with four opening day matches to be played in Delhi and Mumbai. The opening matches would be played by teams in Group A and B.
•In Delhi, the inaugural match would be played between Group A teams Colombia and Ghana at Jawahar Lal Nehru Stadium, followed by hosts India who would take on Team USA in the second match. In Mumbai, Group B team New Zealand would be taking on Turkey in the first game at DY Patil stadium in Navi Mumbai.
