15 SEPTEMBER 2015: Gujarat ranked 1st on ease of doing business index

Ø  Gujarat has come out on top in the World Bank’s first ever ranking of States on the ease of doing business in India. States were assessed on the implementation, over a six-month period from January to June, of a 98-point reforms agenda. Chief Secretaries of States participating in the “Make in India” workshop inaugurated by Prime Minister Modi in New Delhi last December finalised this action plan on “Ease of Doing Business”. It was decided later to evaluate States to assess progress by June 2015. BJP-governed States dominate the top ranks. Gujarat implemented 71.14 per cent of the reforms, according to the assessment. Andhra Pradesh came second with a score of 70.12 per cent, Jharkhand third at 63.09 per cent, Chhattisgarh fourth with 62.45 per cent and Madhya Pradesh fifth with 62 per cent. The largest recipients of foreign investments, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, are ranked eighth and twelfth with less than 50 per cent scores.

Ø  President Pranab Mukherjee said on Monday that India was trying to get Hindi the status of an official language of the United Nations. Though Tamil was considered the oldest Indian language after Sanskrit, Hindi had the widest reach and was therefore acknowledged as the eldest sister of all Indian languages. He requested government servants to sign their files in Hindi. The President said Hindi had achieved a number of milestones since Independence and was credited as being the vehicle of Indian thought and culture.

Ø  India has made its debut in the Quacquarelli Symonds’ (QS) list of top 200 universities globally. The Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IIT-D) have been placed 147 and 179 respectively in the QS World University Rankings for 2015-16, which has the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard at the top two positions. Jawaharlal Nehru University leads the Indian universities in Arts and Humanities table placed at 168th position while the University of Delhi is placed at 191 in this section and 191 in the Social Sciences and Management section.

Ø  In the first concrete step towards negotiations for India’s hopes of an expanded U.N. Security Council (UNSC), the U.N. General Assembly (UNGA) adopted a resolution on Monday to use a text as the basis for discussions on the issue over the next year. While the U.N.’s Inter-governmental negotiations (IGN) have been under way since 2008, this is the first time that a “negotiating text” is being accepted to begin talks, as opposed to just statements and speeches.