10 AUGUST 2014: UN Day for indigenous people celebrated

Ø  India and the U.S. must turn from Defence purchases to “co-development” and not allow “red tape” to halt the progress in Defence ties, visiting American Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel said. Mr. Hagel, who wrapped up a two-day visit to Delhi and meetings with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Defence and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, spoke to a gathering of India’s strategic community at the Observer Research Foundation. During his visit to Delhi, India and the U.S. agreed to reactivate the Defence Trade and Technology Initiative, with both sides designating a senior official to work on coordinating joint deals. Mr. Hagel said the U.S. was pitching a “pilot plan” to “co-produce and co-develop” Javelin infra-red-guided anti-tank missiles as well. No agreements were announced during Mr. Hagel’s visit, but the U.S. is hopeful of concluding sales of Apache and Chinook helicopters, M777 howitzer guns and other equipment to cap about $10 billion of defence deals over the past decade.

Ø  U.S. President Barack Obama vowed on to help rescue thousands of civilians besieged by jihadists on an Iraqi mountain. U.S. and Iraqi aircraft have air dropped food and water to the thousands of people, many of them members of the Yazidi minority, who have been stranded on Mount Sinjar since they fled Islamic State attacks on their homes a week ago.

Ø  Reviving the controversial bauxite mining proposal, Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu has said mining will be taken up through a special system under the Integrated Tribal Development Agency (ITDA).

Ø  In a country of over a billion people, there are about 14,000 people who claim Sanskrit is their mother tongue, an analysis of Census numbers reveals. With the Union government gearing up to celebrate Sanskrit Week, a district-wise profile of the ‘Dev Basha’ based on Census 2001 numbers (Census 2011 language figures are yet be released) reveal pockets in the heart of Uttar Pradesh, northern Telangana, southern Rajasthan, Nagpur and Haridwar where a sizeable number of respondents claimed Sanskrit to be their mother tongue. Sitapur district in Uttar Pradesh has the highest number of speakers, with over 550 people.

Ø  10 August: United Nations International Day of the World’s Indigenous People. This year's slogan is “Bridging the gap: implementing the rights of indigenous peoples.”

Ø  Chaired by Reserve Bank Governor Raghuram G. Rajan the Sub-Committee of the Financial Stability and Development Council (FSDC) reviewed the domestic macro economy and potential risks facing the financial system. The Sub-Committee reviewed the major provisions of the Union budget and discussed time lines for their implementation. It deliberated on a draft road map for creating standards and protocol for setting up account aggregation facility for financial assets was also deliberated in the meeting. These included one single demat account for all financial assets; introduction of uniform Know Your Client (KYC) norms and inter-usability of KYC records across the financial sector; strengthening and deepening the markets for corporate bonds, currency derivatives and interest rate futures; and participation of the domestic financial institutions and Foreign Institutional Institutions in the commodities market.