National:
- Vice Chief of the Army Staff Lt Gen S K Saini will visit the US for four-day, beginning on 17 October 2020. The visit is to explore ways to further deepen military cooperation between the two countries.
The Vice Chief of the Army Staff will visit the US Army Pacific Command (USARPRAC), the Army component of Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM) and exchange ideas extensively with the military leadership apart from witnessing training and equipment capabilities of the US Army. - On October 15th, 2020, Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha announced that the government is coming up with a movement called ”My Town My Pride” from October 19. The movement intends to provide governance at the doorsteps in urban areas on the pattern of the ”Back to Village” programme.
The movement has three main objectives:
Public outreach in towns; strengthening grassroots democracy; service delivery at doorsteps
- Shri Shripad Yesso Naik, Union Minister for AYUSH and Minister of State for Defence inaugurated the Regional Raw Drug Repository (RRDR) for AYUSH Medicine (Southern Plateau Region) at National Institute of Siddha on 13th October, 2020. RRDR is Centrally Sponsored Scheme of National AYUSH Mission.
- The Ministry of External Affairs, Institute of Foreign Service and the India Foundation launched the first edition “Sushma Swaraj Lectures 2020” designed to “introduction to India” to foreign diplomats on 15th October 2020. It was organised in New Delhi on 15-16 October. The programme included lectures on introduction to Indian history, polity, culture, and economy.
International:
- After the president’s resignation amid turmoil sparked by a disputed parliamentary election, Kyrgyzstan’s Prime Minister Sadyr Zhaparov became the acting president on 16th October 2020.
Business & Technology:
- The search giant Google will begin migrating Hangouts users to ‘Chat’ in the first half of 2021. Hangouts Users’ conversations, contacts and saved history will be moved to Chat. Chat service will be available for free and integrated within Gmail & it will also function as a standalone app.
Book:
- Pondicherry University, in collaboration with the Université Sorbonne Paris Nord, France, has come out with a book “Global Commons: Issues, Concerns and Strategies”, on Global Commons, natural resource domains. Gurmeet Singh, Vice-Chancellor, Pondicherry University released this book.
The book is edited jointly by Mohanan Pillai, Dean, School of Law, Pondicherry University and Geetha Ganapathy Dore of the University of Paris North.
Sports:
- The Wimbledon tennis tournament is comeback in next year & is scheduled to run from June 28-July 11, 2021. Wimbledon was the only Grand Slam tournament canceled this year because of the coronavirus pandemic. The All England Club announced plans on Oct 16 for its return next year.
- On 13th October, 2020, Odisha Government announced that it would sponsor the Indian national rugby team for the next three years i.e. till 2023 and facilitate high performance training and conditioning of the players.