Notes:
Mahesh Kumar Jain, who is currently MD & CEO of IDBI Bank, has been appointed as the fourth deputy governor Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of India for a period of three years. The post was lying vacant since the retirement of S.S. Mundra in August 2017. With more than 30 years of experience in banking, Jain has been at the helm of IDBI Bank since March 2017. As per the RBI Act, the central bank should have four deputy governors – two from within the ranks and one commercial banker and another an economist to head the monetary policy department. The other deputy governors at RBI are Viral Acharya, B.P. Kanungo and N.S. Vishwanathan.

Notes:
Ecuadorean foreign minister Maria Fernanda Espinosa has been elected President of the 73rd United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), a mainly ceremonial title that nonetheless carries a high profile and important procedural functions. Espinosa defeated Ambassador Mary Elizabeth Flores Flake of Honduras by 128 votes to 62, with two abstentions. Espinosa will become the fourth woman ever to hold the UNGA presidency and the first since Haya Rashed Al-Khalifa, from Bahrain, in 2006-2007. Espinosa will assume the position in September at the start of the 73rd UN General Assembly. It is rare to have a contested election for the position, which is normally filled by consensus without a vote. It was the turn for Latin America and the Caribbean to nominate the assembly president based on a preset geographical rotation. The previous women leaders of the Assembly were India’s Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit in 1953; Liberia’s Angie Elisabeth Brooks in 1969 and Sheikha Haya Rashed Al Khalifa of Bahrain in 2006.

Notes:
On June 6, the screening of the biopic ‘Making of the Mahatma’ in Pietermaritzburg marked the opening of a three-day series of events to commemorate the historic incident 125 years ago when Mahatma Gandhi was evicted from a train because the compartment he was in was reserved for whites only. On the night of June 7, 1893, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, a young lawyer then, was thrown off the train’s first class compartment at Pietermaritzburg station in South Africa for refusing to give up his seat. The incident led him to develop his Satyagraha principles of peaceful resistance and mobilise people in South Africa and in India against the discriminatory rules of the British. The film, a co-production between India and South Africa, was made in 1996, soon after Nelson Mandela ascended to the position of South Africa’s first democratically-elected President. The film was directed by Shyam Benegal based on the book ‘Apprenticeship of a Mahatma’ by late freedom activist Prof Fatima Meer.

Notes:
The World Bank has approved Rs.6000 crore for Atal Bhujal Yojana (ABHY), a Central Sector Scheme of the Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation. The scheme is to be implemented over a period of five years from 2018-19 to 2022-23, with World Bank assistance. The ABHY has been formulated by the Ministry to address the criticality of ground water resources in a major part of the country. The scheme proposal has already been recommended by the Expenditure Finance Committee and the Ministry will be seeking Cabinet approval for the project shortly. The purpose of the scheme is to improve ground water management in priority areas in the country through community participation. The priority areas identified under the scheme fall in Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. These States represent about 25% of the total number of over-exploited, critical and semi-critical blocks in terms of ground water in India.

Notes:
The IBSA Foreign Ministers’ Meeting was held in Pretoria, South Africa on June 4, 2018. The External Affairs Minister of the Republic of India, Sushma Swaraj chaired the IBSA (India, Brazil, South Africa) ministerial meet and hold talks on how to deepen coordination among the three countries on major global issues. On this occasion, Ministers adopted and jointly released the IBSA Declaration on South-South Cooperation, to contribute to greater understanding of development cooperation as a common endeavor of the Global South. The Ministers also considered proposed IBSA events planned for 2018-19 to mark the fifteenth-anniversary of IBSA. The Ministers agreed to host these events in all three countries as well as on the margins of multilateral events.

Notes:
The Asia-Pacific Regional Conference on Early Childhood Development (ECD) and Third Asia- Pacific Regional Policy Forum on Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) have started in Kathmandu, Nepal on June 5, 2018. The 3 day event is hosted by the Government of Nepal (Ministry of Education, Science and Technology). Policy markers, government officials, development professional, researchers and representatives from various organisations working in early childhood development, care and education from 40 countries including India are participating in the conference.

Notes:
Tommy Thomas, an ethnic Indian Christian lawyer, has been appointed as the new attorney general of Malaysia. He succeeded Mohamad Apandi Ali. Tommy is the first practising lawyer to be appointed directly from the Malaysian Bar to be the attorney general, and the first non-Malay and non-Muslim Malaysian to hold this post. The appointment has been approved by Malaysia’s king Sultan Muhammad V, amid protests from Islamic groups that the job must be held by a Muslim. Thus, he became the first person from a minority community to hold the post since Malaysia was formed in 1963.

Notes:
Omar Razzaz, a Harvard-educated former senior World Bank official, has been appointed as the new Prime Minister of Jordan by King Abdullah II. He succeeded Hani Mulki, who recently resigned as a result of widespread protests against his government’s austerity program. Prior to this post, Razzaz served as education minister in the outgoing Mulki government.

Notes:
On June 5, the Supreme Court has allowed the Union government to implement the reservation in promotion policy for SC/ST employees in accordance with the law but did not stay a Delhi High Court judgment that had quashed an August 1997 office memorandum issued by the Centre providing for reservation in promotions for Dalit and tribal employees. The vacation bench comprising Justices Adarsh Kumar Goel and Ashok Bhushan allowed such reservation but added without elaboration that it should be “in accordance with law”. As per Article 16 (4A) of the Constitution, the state would have to make out a case for providing reservation in promotion to SC/ST based on quantifiable data. The provision also says that the data should be based on factors like backwardness, inadequacy of representation and overall efficiency.

Notes:
The Kune Falls is a scenic waterfall situated near Kune village in Pune district of Maharashtra. It is a three tiered waterfalls with a total height of 200m; the highest drop being 100m. The falls attracts tourists in large numbers during the rainy season when the waterfall is in its peak form and flows down with a huge gush. It is the 14th highest waterfall in India.