Current Affairs 18th October 2018

NATIONAL

The sixth meeting of the UAE – India High Level Joint Task Force on Investments (‘the Joint Task Force’) was held in Mumbai to review the progress being made in addressing the agreed actions of the previous meeting held in Abu Dhabi in January 2018 and to elaborate a number of new key issues of mutual importance.
India and Tanzania signed two MoUs in presence of External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Tanzanian Foreign Minister Dr. Augustine Mahiga. The MoUs are between Foreign Service Institute of India and Centre for Foreign Relation, Tanzania and National Research Development Corporation and Tanzania Industrial Research and Development Corporation.

INTERNATIONAL

Canada has become the second country after Uruguay to legalize possession and use of recreational cannabis.

APPOINTMENTS

Former editor MJ Akbar has resigned from his post of Minister of State for External Affairs amid sexual harassment allegations against him by over sixteen female journalists.
Online financial services marketplace BankBazaar has appointed former RBI Deputy Governor (DG) S S Mundra as an advisor to the company. Mundra was a deputy governor at the RBI for three years till July 2017

AWARDS

‘Beeg Ani Beegath’, a collection of short stories in Konkani by the well-known writer, journalist, and critic H M Pernal bagged the prestigious ‘Vimala V Pai Vishwa’ Konkani best book award for the year 2018. H M Pernal is the pen name of Henry M Mendonca.
Northern Irish author Anna Burns has won the 2018 Man Booker Prize for her novel ‘Milkman’, which is her third full-length novel.

Preeti Singh