27 JANUARY 2016

Ø  President Pranab Mukherjee on Tuesday evening approved the Union Cabinet’s recommendation for the imposition of President’s rule on Arunachal Pradesh. The assent was given right after he hosted the traditional ‘At Home’ or reception at Rashtrapati Bhavan for French President Francois Hollande as part of the Republic Day celebrations. The Governor [Jyoti Prasad Rajkhowa] has been sending multiple reports that even the Raj Bhavan was not safe and had been seized by Congress MLAs and there was no law and order in the State. The Ministry of Home Affairs appointed two retired civil servants — G.S Patnaik and Y.S Dadwal as advisers to the Governor.

Ø  The French Army created history on the ground by being the first foreign contingent to have marched in India’s Republic Day parade. The French flag was followed by a 48 member ceremonial band of 'The Music of the Infantry' and right behind were the 76 member contingent of the French 35th infantry regiment, one of the oldest active regiments of the French Army raised in 1604, led by Lt Col Paul Bury who had served in Afghanistan twice. The French soldiers, 56 “Gaillards” from the 35th Infantry, were in India for the third edition of the Indo-French bilateral military exercise Shakti which was held at the Mahajan firing range in Rajasthan from January 6-17 during which they exercised with the 2nd Battalion of the Indian Army’s Garhwal Rifles which incidentally fought in France during WW I.

Ø  India’s new Permanent Representative to the United Nations Syed Akbaruddin presented his credentials to U.N Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Mr. Akbaruddin, a 1985 batch Indian Foreign Service officer, served as the spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs from 2012 to 2015.

Ø  ublic sector oil firms IOC, BPCL, HPCL and EIL will invest Rs.1.50 lakh crore in setting up India’s biggest refinery on the west coast, Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said. Indian Oil Corp (IOC), the nation’s biggest refiner, will build a 60 million-tonne-a-year oil refinery in Maharashtra along with Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL), Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL) and Engineers India Ltd (EIL), Mr. Pradhan said in a twitter post. “Refinery to be built in 2 phases (40+20 million tonnes); 1st phase will have more than Rs. 1 lakh crore investment (biggest in India),” he said. IOC has been looking at west coast for a refinery as catering to customers in West and South was difficult with its refineries mostly in the North. HPCL and BPCL have also been looking at a bigger refinery because of constraints they face at their Mumbai units.