India Signed Loan Agreement with World Bank
- India in May, 2016 signed a $ 100 million (about 677 crore) loan agreement with multilateral lending agency World Bank for Karnataka Urban Water Supply Modernisation Project.
- The project aims to provide access to a continuous piped water supply in various cities in Karnataka and strengthen the service delivery arrangements at the city level.
- The project will have four broad components—capital investment programme, institution building, technical assistance for sector development and project management.
- Karnataka Urban Infrastructure Development & Finance Corporation (KUIDFC) is the implementing agency for the project. It will be implemented over a period of six years, initially in the twin cities of Hubballi-Dharwad, with provision for other eligible cities to join the project at a later date.
India and Oman Renewed Defepse Ties
- India and Oman signed pacts to upgrade their defense ties on May 23, 2016, which was the first country India established defense ties with in the 1970s.
- The countries agreed to work together on boosting defense, crime prevention at sea, maritime issues and a flight safety information exchange, explore the possibility of India exporting weapons to Oman, which could also include setting-up defense production facilities there.
- Oman is the first country in the’gulf region to procure the Indian Small Arms System (INSAS), built by the State-run Ordnance Factory Board & Goa Shipyard Limited has delivered three tugboats to Oman earlier.
India and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Signed MoC
- The Ministry of Women and Child Development and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation on May 20, 2016 signed a Memorandum of Cooperation (MoC) to provide technical support at the National and State-level for strengthening the delivery of nutrition goals, especially during pre-conception, pregnancy and first two years of life.
- As per the MoC, the Gates’ Foundation will support an enhanced framework of collaboration in Information and Communication Technology enabled Real Time Monitoring (ICT-RTM) of Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) and technical support on nutrition.
- This collaboration will strengthen the government’s restructured ICDS Systems Strengthening and Nutrition Improvement Project (ISSNIP) and National Nutrition Mission, with a focus on technological innovation, sharing best practices and use of data and evidence to enhance performance at the national and State-level.
India and Slovenia Amended DTAA
- India and Slovenia signed a protocol on May 19, 2016 to amend the bilateral double taxation avoidance agreement, broadening the pact to include exchange of information to curb tax evasion.
- The protocol will broaden the scope of the existing framework of exchange of tax-related information which will help curb tax evasion and tax avoidance between the two countries and will also enable mutual assistance in collection of taxes.
