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• The US must lift restrictions on UK businesses if it wants a trade deal with the UK, Boris Johnson has said.


• Traveling to the G7 summit in Biarritz, France, the PM said there were "very considerable barriers in the US to British businesses".


• Mr. Johnson said he had already spoken to President Donald Trump about his concerns, adding he would do so again when they meet on Sunday morning.


• The prime minister will also hold talks with EU Council President Donald Tusk.

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• South African authorities have seized a plane from Tanzania's national carrier, the Tanzanian government said.


• The Airbus 220-300 was due to fly from Johannesburg, South Africa, on Friday to Dar es Salaam in Tanzania.


• It was not immediately clear why the action was taken, and South African authorities have not commented.

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• Walking through Camp Marielle Vive outside Valinhos in the State of Sao Paulo, Brazil, produces a deep sense of déjà vu.


• This camp resembles so many other communities of the desperately poor on our planet. According to the UN, one in eight people or about 1 billion human beings live in such precariousness.


• The homes are made of a jumble of materials — blue tarpaulin sheets and bits of wood, corrugated iron sheets and old bricks.


• A thousand families live in Camp Marielle Vive, named after the Brazilian socialist Marielle Franco, who was killed in March 2018.

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• In Sri Lanka’s political terrain, national security and the presidential race are the main talking points this season, both bringing a measure of anxiety for many.


• Almost lost in that buzz is the quiet achievement of a team of Sri Lankan scientists in outer space.


• Astronomers from the country have sighted two new ‘exoplanets’, or planets outside the solar system, a rare feat in the study of stars and galaxies that puts Sri Lanka in a special league.

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• August 20 marked 400 years since the first slaves from Africa arrived on the shores of Virginia. This began centuries of exploitation, servitude and profound cruelty at the hands of European settlers.


• On June 19, the 154th anniversary of the announcement of the abolition of slavery in the State of Texas (‘Juneteenth’), a subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives held a hearing on reparations for the living descendants of slaves — the first of its kind in over a decade.

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• Pakistan Senate Chairman Sadiq Sanjrani has decided to cancel his pre-scheduled trip to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) over Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent trip to the Gulf nation, a media report said.


• The Senate chairman’s visit to the UAE would hurt the feelings of the Kashmiri people; therefore, he has decided to cancel his and a parliamentary delegation’s visit to the country, The Express Tribune said in its report citing an informed source as saying.

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• The Indian Air Force (IAF) is hoping that its fresh attempt to procure 114 fighter jets will be a speedier hunt than the process that led to the procurement of French Rafale which took more than 10 years.


• After the Rafale contract was curtailed from 126 to 36, the IAF had once again hit the global market for procuring 114 jets.


• All the leading fighter manufacturers like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Eurofighter, Russian United Aircraft Corporation and Saab are in the fray for the estimated $15 billion contracts.

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• Prime Minister Narendra Modi is addressing the nation through his ‘Mann Ki Baat’ on radio broadcast at 11 am today.


• This will be his third radio address since he was re-elected for a second term as the prime minister in May.


• The last episode of the radio program was on February this year, where he had expressed confidence in BJP-led NDA’s victory in the Lok Sabha elections and said that the program will return after the polls.

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• Prime Minister Narendra Modi will head back to France on Sunday to take part in the G-7 summit, which will be held from August 25 to 26 in Biarritz.


• Modi is slated to visit Shreenathji Temple in Bahrain before departing for the summit.


• On Saturday, on the last leg of his three-nation tour, PM Modi was honoured with the ‘The King Hamad Order of the Renaissance’ during his meeting with the King of Bahrain, Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa.

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• Railway Recruitment Board (RRB) has released the admit card for its junior engineer recruitment computer based test (CBT) 2nd stage that will be conducted on August 28, 2019.


• RRB will be releasing thee- call letters for other exams that will be conducted on August 29 and onwards from tomorrow.


• According to the notice given on the RRB website, the admit card for RRB JE CBT 2 will be released four days prior to the exam. So, candidates can expect they admit cards on August 24, 2019.

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• Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the RuPay card here, making the UAE the first country in West Asia to initiate the Indian indigenous system of electronic payment.


• RuPay card scheme was launched in 2012 to fulfil the Reserve Bank of India’s vision to have a domestic, open and multilateral system of payments.

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• The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) suspended the accreditation of the National Dope Testing Laboratory (NDTL) of India for 6 months due to non-conformities with the International Standard for Laboratories (ISL), as identified during a WADA site visit in New Delhi, with effect from August 20, 2019.


• The disciplinary proceedings were initiated by WADA’s Laboratory Expert Group (LabEG) in May 2019 and the process was carried out by an independent disciplinary committee as per the procedure.

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• English-language monthly magazine ‘Euromoney’ has named DBS bank as the ‘World’s Best Bank’. DBS as of now is the only bank in the world to concurrently hold three global best bank awards.


• Previously it won Global Finance’s “Best Bank in the World” in August 2018 and The Banker’s “Bank of the Year – Global” in November 2018.

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• A new book recounting the story of how Binny Bansal and Sachin Bansal (both-former founders of flipkart) built e-commerce giant Flipkart written by MihirDalal is launched on August 21,2019.


• The book is titled as “Big Billion Startup: The Untold Flipkart Story” and is published by “Pan Macmillan India”.