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June 6th 2019 PIB:-Download PDF Here
Commerce Minister to Lead Indian Delegation for G20 Ministerial Meeting in Japan
Context
- The Union Minister of Commerce and Industry & Railways, Piyush Goyal, is leading the Indian delegation for the G20 Ministerial meeting on Trade and Digital Economy.
Significance of this meeting
- For the first time Ministers of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and Commerce will participate in a joint session on Digital Economy at the G20Ministerial Meeting
- The G20Trade Ministers deliberations will form part of the G20Summit Leaders agenda in the formal discussions and will also be a part of the Summit Declaration.
- It is hoped that the G20Ministerial Meeting being held in Japanwill play a positive role in fostering economic opportunity and addressing challenges in the global landscape.
- The Trade and Digital Economy meeting is one of the 8 Ministerial meetings taking place in Japan alongside the 2019 G20 Summit.
- The other seven Ministerial meetings are
- Agriculture Ministers’,
- Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors’ meeting,
- Labour and Employment Ministers’ meeting,
- Tourism Ministers meeting,
- Ministerial meeting on Energy Transitions and
- Global Environment for Sustainable Growth, Health Ministers’ meeting and
- Foreign Ministers’ meeting
Commerce Ministry Committed to Synergise Export Promotion
Context
- The Union Minister of Commerce and Industry & Railways, PiyushGoyal, chaired a joint Meeting of Board of Trade and Council of Trade Development & Promotion.
- During the day-long deliberations, exporters spoke about trade disputes between US and China, ongoing negotiations under Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, difficulties in availability of export credit.
Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership
- Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) is a proposed free trade agreement (FTA) between
- The ten member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) (Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam) and
- The six Asia-Pacific states with which ASEAN has existing free trade agreements (Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand).
- RCEP is the world’s largest economic bloc, covering nearly half of the global economy.
Culture Minister to inaugurate the exhibition on Himachal Folk Art
Context
The Minister of State (I/c) of Culture & Tourism, Government of India, Shri Prahalad Singh Patel will inaugurate the exhibition titled “Unknown Masterpieces of Himachal Folk Art”, at National Museum, New Delhi.
Himachal art & culture
- Like other parts of India, in Himachal Pradesh also, two stylistic streams of art and culture – classical or courtly (the Great Tradition) and folk (the Little Tradition) – were nurtured by the natives from the earliest times.
- Although no examples of art or craft objects are extant prior to the 3rd century BCE, the figures of Hindu deities engraved on the coins issued by the chieftains of the janapadas (republics) such as the Kunindas, the Malavas, the Audumbaras, etc.
- This shows that the iconographic precepts governing the deities such as Shiva, six-headed Karttikeya or Kumara, Gaja-Lakshmi, Krittika, Rishi Vishvamitra, etc. were fully evolved by the 3rd century BCE.
- Contemporaneously, the sculptors must have shaped identical images in the round in wood, stone and metal.
- Evidently, the tradition of sculpting images of the deities and rishis (seers) – to the latter are dedicated numerous wood and stone shrines erected on the sites where they had meditated dotting the entire length and breadth of this state – was in existence and continued in subsequent centuries.
- The stone statues of Vishnu and numerous reliefs carved in the Sarnath style and discovered from the Ambika Mata and Parashurama temples in Nirmand in Outer Saraj in Kulu district, popularly known as the Kashi of the Himalayan region testify to this phenomenon.
- So do the free standing wood statues of Surya and one of his attendants Dandi and Pingala, and four door frames featuring elegant, flowing forms of Hindu goddesses executed in Gupta and post-Gupta style.
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