NEWS 03/09/2020. SOME IMPORTANT NEWS 1. India and Russia are to hold bilateral naval exercise INDRA 2020 in Andaman Sea, close to strategic Strait of Malacca. The exercise is being conducted while the Indian Navy is on high operational alert due to the standoff with China in Ladakh. Three Russian Naval ships are to take part in the exercise on September 4 and 5. The exercise comes just after India withdrew from Kavkaz-2020 multinational exercise that is to be held in Russia. Also, it coincides with Defence Minister Raj Nath Singh’s visit to Russia for Shanghai Cooperation Organization.2. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh will visit Moscow from 3rd to 5th September to attend combined meeting of defence ministers of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.3. The Indian Army has further bolstered its presence in at least three strategic heights in the southern bank of Pangong lake in eastern Ladakh, days after foiling China's "provocative" actions to change the status quo in the area.4. The Jammu and Kashmir Official Languages Bill, 2020 will be introduced in Parliament in the upcoming Monsoon Session. It is a bill under which Kashmiri, Dogri and Hindi, apart from the existing Urdu and English, will be the official languages in the union territory of Jammu and Kashmir.5. Ladakh and Lakshadweep were integrated in the One Nation One Ration card scheme. With this a total of 26 states and union territories are now connected with each other under the scheme.6. India and Nigeria agreed to deepen their cooperation to counter terrorism, piracy and insurgency to boost trade exchanges .India is the largest trading partner of Nigeria. Recently, Nigeria stated that India has replaced the United States as its largest oil importer. Currently, India purchases 30% of Nigeria’s every day crude oil production. < < Back