This new division of the foreign office will incorporate Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA), ASEAN region and the Quad to the Indo-Pacific plan. It was set up by Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale in response to the policy as put forth by PM Modi at the Shangri-La Dialogue in 2018.

The Global Economic Prospect, the World Bank’s flagship publication on the state of the world economy reported that growth in India is projected to advance 7.3% in Fiscal Year (FY) 2018/19 (April 1, 2018-March 31, 2019) and 7.5% in FY 2019/20.

The Prime Minister announced that India had demonstrated anti-satellite missile capability by shooting down a live satellite, calling it a rare achievement.

India’s impressive win included 85 gold medals at the Special Olympics World Summer Games with 154 silver and 129 bronze medals. The Games were held at Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates.

The Government launched Ayushman Bharat, about six months ago, aiming to provide 500 million families with health insurance of Rs five lakh annually for medical care. Those qualified are the weakest sections of the population.

Finance minister Arun Jaitley said the Narendra Modi-led NDA government had systematically and consistently introduced much-needed second-generation reforms.