1) Rashtriya Ekta Diwas (National Unity Day): October 31
•India celebrates October 31 as Rashtriya Ekta Diwas (National Unity Day). This day marks the birth anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, who played an instrumental role in integration of princely state with Indian Union post independence.
•Prime Minister Modi also flagged off the 1.5 km ‘Run for Unity’ event at Major Dhyan Chand National Stadium in New Delhi.
2) Bhutan King Arrived in India for Four-Day Visit
•King of Bhutan, Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck has arrived in New Delhi on a four-day visit to India. He was accompanied by his wife, Queen Gyaltsuen Jetsun Pema Wangchuck.
•During the visit, the King will meet with President Ram Nath Kovind and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
3) Vikram Singh Appointed Private Secretary to President
•Railway officer Vikram Singh was appointed Private Secretary to President Ram Nath Kovind. Singh is a 1997 batch officer of the Indian Railway Traffic Service.
•The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet has approved his appointment to the post for a period of two years. IAS officer P C Meena was appointed Private Secretary to Minister of State for Commerce and Industry C R Chaudhary.
4) Govt Sets up Arun Jaitley-Panel to Oversee PSU Bank Mergers
•The government set up a ministerial panel, led by finance minister Arun Jaitley, to consider and oversee mergers among the country’s 21 state-run banks.
•Members of the panel on PSU bank consolidation include railway and coal minister Piyush Goyal, and defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman.
5) India Tops List of New Tuberculosis Cases in 2016: WHO
•India topped the list of seven countries, accounting for 64 percent of the 10.4 million new tuberculosis (TB) cases worldwide in 2016, according to a new report by the World Health Organisation.
•India was followed by Indonesia, China, Philippines, Pakistan, Nigeria and South Africa, according to a Global TB Report 2017 released by the WHO. An estimated 1.7 million people died from TB in 2016. Also, India along with China and the Russia accounted for almost of half of the 490,000, Multidrug-Resistant TB (MDR-TB) cases registered in 2016.
6) India Makes it to Top 100 in ‘ease of doing business’: World Bank
•India broke into the top 100 in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business rankings, notching up the biggest improvement among all countries on the back of big gains on a number of measures.
•The rise to the 100th position from 130 last year made India one of the top 10 best-improved countries and rounded off a day of good news on the economic front for the government. The World Bank’s ‘Doing Business 2018 — Reforming to Create Jobs’ report ranks 190 countries on the basis of a combined score on 10 parameters. India is the only large country this year to have achieved such a significant shift.
7) Joint Indo-Russia Tri-Services Exercise Indra-2017 Successfully Conducted
•The Joint Indo-Russia Tri-Services Exercise INDRA-2017 was successfully conducted at Vladivostok in Russia. The name of the exercise INDRA has been derived from INDia and RussiA.
•Exercise INDRA-2017 is the first Joint Tri-Services Exercise between Russia and India. This is also the first time that Russia has hosted a Tri-Services Exercise on its soil. The theme of Exercise INDRA-2017 was ‘Preparation and Conduct of Operations by a Joint Force for Suppression of International Terror Activity at the request of a host country under UN mandate’.
8) Tata Steel Elevates T V Narendran as Global CEO, MD
•Tata Steel has elevated T V Narendran as Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director globally. He was appointed as Managing Director of Tata Steel for India and South East Asia on November 1, 2013.
•Koushik Chatterjee has been reappointed as Executive Director and Chief Financial Officer for a period of 5 years with effect from November 9, 2017.
