14 AUGUST 2016

Ø  At least a quarter of the India Meteorological Department (IMD)’s recently installed rain gauges and Automatic Weather Stations (AWS), meant to supply hourly weather data from across the country, are not working to capacity. Several instruments remain non-functional because of lack of qualified personnel to repair them. The AWS, a key part of a modernisation drive and critical to improving monsoon forecasts and warning of emerging thunderstorms, cloudbursts and pollution spikes, are part of a Rs. 1,000-crore upgrade of the department’s infrastructure, initiated barely four years ago in 2012.

Ø  India on Saturday offered a new “mechanism” of talks to China on the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) issue. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj also expressed concern to the visiting Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi about the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), and sought an end to China’s opposition to blacklisting Lashkar-e-Taiba leader Hafiz Saeed. The proposed talks featuring the Directors-General on disarmament issues on both sides would be a new track to convince China about India’s needs to be integrated into the global nuclear technology market for addressing the growing domestic demand for energy.

Ø  Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar is likely to visit the U.S. capital later this month, which will be his second in eight months. Signing of the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA) between the two countries may be high on the agenda, though it does not necessarily require the presence of the Minister.