Govt Announcement:
- Economic Advisory Council of the 15th Finance Commission to meet will be held 04 Sep 2020. The Chairman Shri N K Singh and the Members of Fifteenth Finance Commission will hold a daylong meeting for a “Final discussion on GDP growth, tax buoyancy of the Centre and the States, GST compensation, revenue deficit grant and fiscal consolidation.”
- According to the Ministry of External Affairs, India will host a summit of the council of heads of government of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) on November 30. Summit will be focused on contributing to the trade and economic agenda of the influential grouping.
- The finance ministry issued office memorandum on 02 Sept 2020 to ban the printing of materials like calendars, diaries and festival greeting cards by all ministries, departments and public sector undertakings (PSUs). The Finance Ministry asked all the organs of the government to adopt digital means to publish such material.
- Defence Institute of Advanced Technology, Pune, Deemed University under the Department of Defence Research & Development, Ministry of Defence, Government of India has now developed herbal-based immunity boosting room freshener product named “Healthy Air” to contain the spread of COVID-19. “Prof (Dr) Balasubramanian K” from Deptt of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering is the innovator of the product “Healthy Air”. The product “Healthy Air” developed with various extracts of herbal oils like Neem, Neelgiri, Camphor, Daalcheeni, Tulsi, Lemon, Turmeric, Laung, Ajwain, Lavender, Elaichi, Turmeric, Natural Vetiveru, Raimuniya and Pine Oil.
Award:
- The Mumbai Academy of Moving Image (MAMI) festival has released its Official Selection List 2020 for Indian films under the section of India Gold, India Story and Dimensions Mumbai. MAMI had announced to push the 22nd Jio Mumbai Film Festival tentatively to Oct 2021.
Global Innovation Index 2020:
Global Innovation Index (GII) list, 2020 released jointly by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), Cornell University and INSEAD Business School on 02 Sept 2020.
India’s ranks 48th among the 131 economies featured in the GII 2020.
The theme of this year’s GII 2020 – Who Will Finance Innovation? – is timely given the human and global economic damage wreaked by the COVID-19 global pandemic.
According to GII 2020, Switzerland is the world’s most-innovative economy followed by Sweden, the United States of America (U.S.), the United Kingdom (U.K.) and the Netherlands.
Business & Technology:
- RBL Bank on 03 Sep 2020 said it has launched cash withdrawal facility from ATM without card, leveraging the Instant Money Transfer (IMT) system. RBL customers can withdraw cash without their debit cards from 389 IMT-enabled ATMs of the bank or more than 40,000 other bank ATMs across the country.
- Japanese Flying Car, named SD-03, manned with a pilot successfully completed first test drive on August 25 at the Toyota Test Field & the demonstration was also conducted by Sky Drive Inc.
Others:
- Reliance Industries Ltd.’s Isha Ambani and Akash Ambani and Edtech startup Byju’s founder Byju Raveendran are among the Indians who have debuted on Fortune’s “40 Under 40” list of influential people around the globe.
- On 03 Sep 2020, Twitter confirmed that an account of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s personal website was hacked.