India Global Forum annual summit held in Bengaluru:

India Global Forum’s (IGF) annual summit is being organized in Bengaluru, Karnataka. The summit will bring together eminent faces of tech-driven disruption and those who have joined the unicorn club along with Union ministers, policymakers, and global business leaders. The previous editions were hosted in Dubai and the UK and addressed by esteemed speakers like Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the PM of the UK Boris Johnson amongst other leaders from Governments and industry across the globe.
This is the first-ever edition of IGF at Bengaluru. The agenda-setting forum for international business and global leaders, IGF, offers a selection of platforms that corporates and policymakers can leverage to interact with stakeholders in their sectors and geographies of strategic importance.

Union Minister of Commerce & Industry, Piyush Goyal virtually addressed the 16th India Digital Summit, 2022. The two-day virtual event was organised on January 11 and 12, 2022 by the Internet And Mobile Association of India (IAMAI). The theme of the summit was “Supercharging Startups”.
India Digital Summit is the oldest event of the digital industry in India. During the event, the Minister unveiled ‘LEAP’ as the way forward to further strengthen our Startups ecosystem. LEAP stands for “Leverage, Encourage, Access & Promote”.

The 19th meeting of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) was held under the chairmanship of the union minister for Environment, Forest & Climate Change Bhupender Yadav. Currently, there are 51 Tiger Reserves in India and more than 35 rivers originate from those areas which are crucial for water security.

Department of Administrative Reforms & Public Grievances (DARPG) and Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY), Government of India, in association with the State Government of Telangana will organize the 24th Conference on e-Governance (NCeG) 2020-21 on 7th – 8th January 2022 in Hyderabad, Telangana. The theme of this Conference is ‘India’s Techade: Digital Governance in a Post Pandemic World’.
The Conference will be inaugurated by the Chief Guest Dr. Jitendra Singh, Hon’ble Minister of State (Independent Charge), Ministry of Science and Technology, Ministry of Earth Sciences, Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office, Minister of State of Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions, Department of Atomic Energy and Department of Space, Government of India and presided by Shri K T Rama Rao, Hon’ble Minister for IT E&C, MA&UD and Industries & Commerce.

The GST Council’s 46th meeting was held in New Delhi under the chairmanship of Union Finance & Corporate Affairs Minister Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman. The GST Council has recommended deferring the decision to change the rates in textiles recommended in the 45th GST Council meeting. Consequently, the existing GST rates of 5 % instead of 12% in textile sector would continue.

This convention attains special significance as it comes days ahead of Sitharaman presenting the much-anticipated Union Budget 2022-23 on February 1, for which she has been holding a series of pre-budget consultations with stakeholders.

India’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, TS Tirumurti, was named the new Chair of the Counter-Terrorism Committee of the United Nations on January 4, 2022. Tirumurti, before taking up his current position as the Permanent Representative of India to the UN, had served as the Secretary in the External Affairs Ministry.
India will chair the Counter-Terrorism Committee of the Un Security Council in January 2022. In 2021, the country was asked to chair three important Committees of the United Nations Security Council. It includes the Counterterrorism Committee, Taliban Sanctions Committee, and the Libyan Sanctions Committee.

The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) has launched the Unified Logistics Interface Platform's (ULIP) Hackathon 'LogiXtics' to crowdsource more ideas that will benefit the logistics industry.
ULIP is designed to enhance efficiency and reduce logistics costs in India by creating a transparent platform that can provide real-time information to all stakeholders and remove all asymmetry information.

President Joe Biden on Thursday opened the first White House Summit for Democracy by sounding an alarm about a global slide for democratic institutions and called for world leaders to lock arms and demonstrate democracies can deliver.

Biden called it a critical moment for fellow leaders to redouble efforts on bolstering democracies.

In making the case for action, he noted his own battle win passage of voting rights legislation at home and alluded to the United States' own challenges to its democratic institutions and traditions

This is an urgent matter," Biden said in remarks to open the two-day virtual summit. The data we're seeing is largely pointing in the wrong direction.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin held the 21st India-Russia Annual Summit to discuss the entire gamut of relations, including regional and global issues. During his visit, India and Russia signed 28 agreements. The leaders discussed on International North-South Transport Corridor and also about the Chennai – Vladivostok Eastern Maritime Corridor (which is under the proposal).

The visit of the Russian President is a reflection of the country’s commitment to its ties with India. This is in need of the moment. Because the ties between India and Russia were buffeted by New Delhi’s ties with the US. Also, Russia was getting closer with China on the back of US sanctions, CAATSA and its annexation of Crimea in 2014.

Union Minister of External Affairs (EAM) Subrahmanyam Jaishankar has visited Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (UAE) to attend the 5th Indian Ocean Conference on December 4-5, 2021. The theme of the conference was ‘Indian Ocean: Ecology, Economy, Epidemic’. The Conference is chaired by Sri Lankan President, Gotabaya Rajapaksa & Vice Chairs are S.Jaishankar, Vivian Balakrishnan, Sayyid Badr Bin Hamad Bin Hamoud Al Busaidi.
Who organised this conference?
The conference is being organised by India Foundation in collaboration with the RSIS Singapore, Institute of National Security Studies (INSS), Sri Lanka, and the Emirates Centre for Strategic Studies and Research (ECSSR), UAE.