BIHAR

Chief minister Nitish Kumar on Wednesday launched the Bihar State Education Finance Corporation, set up to boost the government’s ambitious student credit card scheme.

“The scheme aims at raising the state’s gross enrolment ratio (GER) for higher studies, which is currently 14.3% as against the national average of 24%. We intend to raise it to at least 30% in the next five years,” the CM said, adding the government would work to take the GER up to 35% and 40% in consequent years.

Girls, transgender and divyang students of Bihar willing to pursue higher education can now avail education loan up to Rs4 lakh at the interest rate of only 1% while general students would have to pay 4% interest rate.

INTERNATIONAL

The trial run of the first container train between India and Bangladesh was flagged off from Kolkata city.

The train left for Bangladesh with 60 containers loaded with almost 1,200 tonnes of de-oiled cake, used as a raw material for animal feed.

It will pass through Sealdah, Naihati, Ranaghat and Gede in India and Darsana and Ishurdi in Bangladesh before reaching Bangabandhu West station, 117 kilometres off capital city of Dhaka.

· India third most vulnerable country to cyber threats

India emerged as the third most vulnerable country in terms of risk of cyber threats, such as malware, spam and ransomware, in 2017, moving up one place over previous year, according to a report by security solutions provider Symantec.

In 2017, 5.09% of global threats detected were in India, slightly less than 5.11% in 2016. The U.S. (26.61%) was most vulnerable to such attacks, followed by China (10.95%), according to ‘Internet Security Threat Report’.

The global threat ranking is based on eight metrics — malware, spam, phishing, bots, network attacks, web attacks, ransomware and cryptominers.

As per the report, India continues to be second most impacted by spam and bots, third most impacted by network attacks, and fourth most impacted by ransomware.

NATIONAL

India Ratings and Research has revised its FY19 GDP growth forecast to 7.4% from 7.1% earlier.
As per the report, FY19 growth will continue to be driven by consumption and associated sectors such as automobiles, cargo handled at major ports.

High Powered Committee to examine the system of conducting Class X and Class XII exam

The Ministry of Human Resource Development has constituted a High Powered Committee to examine the entire system of conducting Class X and Class XII examination conducted by the CBSE with a view to prevent leakages.

Shri Vinay Sheel Oberoi, Retd. Secretary (Higher Education), MHRD will be the Chairperson of the 7 member High Power Committee.

The other members of the committee include Shri Pavnesh Kumar, Prof. J.S. Rajput, Prof. Vasudha Kamat, Prof. Krishna Mohan Tripathy, Senior representative of DG, NIC and Joint Secretary (SE-II)

IndusInd Bank has become the first lender to start using WhatsApp enterprise solution to provide basic banking services to customers.

Using the widely-used messaging service, customers can check their balance, obtain a mini statement, check reward points as well as update Aadhaar.

· CWG 2018: Mirabai Chanu Wins Indias First Gold Medal

Weightlifter and current world champion Mirabai Chanu has clinched India’s first gold medal of the 2018 Commonwealth Games. Mirabai Chanu becomes the first Indian to win a gold medal at the Commonwealth Games 2018.
After finishing with the best lift of 86 kg in the snatch round, the 23-year-old finished with a total score of 196 points. Chanu is competing in the 48 kg category. The 23-year-old also set Commonwealth Games records in both Snatch (86 kg) and Clean and Jerk (110 kg) categories.

Ministry withdraws order on ‘fake news’
The Information and Broadcasting Ministry withdrew its order, issued late on Monday, under which accreditation of any journalist found guilty of disseminating “fake news” could be cancelled.

This came on directions of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, after outrage from the media and the Opposition.

The notification, which did not define the phrase “fake news,” said complaints would be referred to the Press Council of India if they pertained to the print media and to the News Broadcasters Association (NBA) if they related to the electronic media. The regulatory agencies would have 15 days to dispose off a complaint. During the period of probe, the journalist’s accreditation would be suspended.

The note further said that on first violation, the accreditation would be suspended for six months, on the second violation for a year and on the third violation, it would be cancelled permanently.