Colombia joins NATO as global partner

  • Colombia has formally joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) as a global partner.
  •   It will be the first Latin American nation to join the NATO, and currently only Latin American country in the alliance.
  • Global partner means that Columbia will not necessarily have to take part in military action, and will be fully accredited in Brussels.
  • The partnership with Colombia will mean cooperation in global security areas like cyber and maritime security, terrorism and links to organized crime.

NIC launches India’s 4th data centre in Bhubaneswar

  • Bhubaneswar, the capital city of Odisha, is the fourth National data centre of National -Informatics Centre (NIC).
  • The first three data centres were set up in Delhi, Hyderabad and Pune.
  • The new cloud-enabled National Data Centre aims to offer round-the-clock operations with secure hosting for various e-governance applications of Central and State Governments.
  •   It has the ability to support 35,000 virtual servers.

PM on 3-Nation tour to Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore

  • Prime Minister Narendra Modi embarked on a three-nation visit to Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore.
  • During his five-day visit, the PM will hold delegation level talks with the leadership of the three countries, on matters of mutual interest.
  • This will be Modi’s first official visit to Indonesia and second official visit to Singapore.

Main event of 4th International Yoga Day celebrations to be held at Dehradun

  • The main event of the celebrations of the 4th International Yoga Day will be held at Dehradun in Uttrakhand.
  • International Yoga Day is celebrated on the 21st of June.
  • The Secretary of the AYUSH Ministry, Vaidya Rajesh Kotecha, announced that Dehradun was selected as the venue for the Mass Yoga Demonstration of International Yoga Day.

DAC approves procurement of equipment for Defence Forces

  • The Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) has given approval for the procurement of equipment for the Defence Forces valued at over Rs.6,900 crore.
  • The Council was chaired by Raksha Mantri Smt Nirmala Sitharaman and met in New Delhi.
  • The DAC approved procurement of Thermal Imaging (TI) Night Sights for the Rocket Launcher (RL).These are used by the Army and the Air Force under ‘BUY (Indian) IDDM’ scheme.

Hamburg to host 2018 Global Wind Summit

  • The first edition of the Global Wind Summit will be held in Hamburg, Germany in September 2018. 
  • It is a four-day event and will see speakers from 100 countries, including India, China, the USA, Spain and Denmark.

TRAI to use blockchain against spam to protect privacy of users

  • The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has proposed the use of blockchain technology to safeguard the privacy of telecom consumers.
  • This will help cut down on unsolicited commercial communications (UCC) such as spam calls and messages.
  • The system will also be able to track offending telemarketers.

Indian customers biggest victims of banking fraud: FIS study

  • Indian customers are among the biggest victims of banking fraud, according to a report released by payments company FIS.
  • The report surveyed people across multiple countries, and found that 18% of Indian customers reported a fraud in the past year. This was more than any other country surveyed.
  • As a comparison, only 6% of consumers in Germany and 8% in the UK reported banking frauds.