The Supreme Court of India on Monday, in a landmark judgement, said the non-consideration of women for criteria or command appointments by the Indian Army couldn't be sustained in law under the Indian Constitution. The government had argued that women by the nature of their biological composition and social milieu had a less important role to play compared with men. Terming it "disturbing", a Bench, comprising Justice D.Y. Chandrachud and Justice Ajay Rastogi, said, "It ignores the solemn constitutional values, which every institution in the nation is bound to uphold and facilitate. Women army officers have brought laurels to the force."

The crucial plenary meeting of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) that will decide whether or not Pakistan had taken enough measures against money laundering and terror financing to be taken off the global watchdog’s grey list is set to formally start on Monday in Paris.
 

India is set to host the UN biodiversity summit that will bring together more than 1,200 delegates from over 110 countries to deliberate on the alarming decline of migratory species in Gandhinagar in Gujarat from Monday. The agenda of the talks include new proposals to mitigate effects of infrastructure on migratory mammals and joining the Gobi bear, the only bear living in the desert, the Persian leopard and the urial, a wild sheep, in the Central Asian mammal species for their protection.

The World Bank has declared the $73 million Water Sector Capacity Building and Advisory Services project (WCAP) as “unsatisfactory” after losing its last hope to revive the scheme.

British and the Indian institutions are collaborating in the field of healthcare at an unprecedented pace and 2020 is expected to witness an "inflection point" in India-UK Healthcare Collaboration, participants in a conference in Birmingham agreed.

India's Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has undertaken a major overhaul of its departments and reporting structures that are designed to inject better coordination and implementation of policies. This was announced in end January, within a day of Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla assuming office. The prime objective of the exercise appears to be to rationalise the ministry’s functioning and provide more time to the Secretaries, four in addition to the Foreign Secretary, to focus on policy formulation and strategisation. In an address to MEA officers, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said the restructuring was designed to take some load off the shoulders of the Secretaries who are “overburdened and overworked.”The major revamp encompasses the creation of seven pillars, each headed by an Additional Secretary (AS) who would deal with specific segments related to horizontal policy/thematic issues, as well as different geographical/territorial areas. 

In a major concession, India is likely to give the US access to its dairy and poultry markets in exchange for renegotiated terms for its pharmaceutical, textile and industrial exports under a new bilateral trade deal to be signed during President Donald Trump's visit to New Delhi later this month. Top sources told IANS that India is willing to partially open up its traditionally protected sectors -- dairy and poultry -- on the condition that the US grants India better terms for its pharmaceutical, textile and agro-machinery products.

Bhutan's National Assembly passed the much touted Goods and Services Tax (GST) Bill 2020 despite legal questions surrounding the House’s decision to defer its implementation. Prime Minister Dr Lotay Tshering initially said that the government would implement the GST by July 1, 2022. He said that the two-year incubation period was required in view of the need to develop GST billing software and carry out sensitisation programmes, Kuensel reported.

A majority of the foreign envoys who recently visited the valley have expressed satisfaction with the gradual restoration of normalcy in the region. A group of 25 foreign heads of missions representing various countries visited Kashmir two days ago to assess the situation following the reorganisation of erstwhile Jammu & Kashmir state into a Union Territory and revocation of its special status on August 5, last year.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has once again come to stand by Pakistan, which has been facing diplomatic isolation over Kashmir. Addressing a joint session of Parliament in Islamabad, for the fourth time, Erdogan reiterated his country's support for Pakistan and its stand on the Kashmir issue. Since 1947, Pakistan attempted to invade Jammu & Kashmir through four conventional wars. For the last three decades, the ISI has been sponsoring cross-border terrorism in Kashmir.

US-India analysts tracking President Donald Trump's visit to India later this month are hoping for a much-anticipated trade deal that holds the promise of ending three years of escalating trade tensions. Trump and First Lady Melania Trump are scheduled to visit India February 24-25 for the first time since he occupied the White House. Speaking to reporters this week, Trump said the trade deal with India will happen if "we can make the right deal".
 

In her marathon two hours and 46 minute-speech introducing India’s 2020 budget, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman painted an optimistic picture of the Indian economy

Inaugurating the 11th and largest ever Indian defence exposition, DefExpo, organised from February 5–9  in Lucknow, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a target of USD$5 billion for defence exports, to be achieved over the next few years, and added that India, a democracy with a huge population, cannot remain long dependent on defence imports. India currently imports about 70% of its defence needs. 

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) says that the recent Indian budget's “accommodative fiscal stance” is appropriate in the weaker economic scenario, but wants New Delhi to focus in the medium term on fiscal consolidation because of the growing debt levels.

New social media policy in Pakistan has been created for the protection of citizens said Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Information and Broadcasting Firdous Ashiq Awan.