• Russian President Vladimir Putin arrives in New Delhi on a four-day State visit to India.

• Commerce Ministry decides to make bar coding mandatory for all exports from December 1.

• India, Russia sign a strategic pact. The agreement is signed in New Delhi by Russian President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee.

• India, Russia sign an agreement to establish an inter-ministrial commission on military-technical cooperation and sign three other defence deals.

• Mr. Yogendra Narain is appointed as new Defence Secretary. He replaces T.R. Prasad who is promoted as Cabinet Secretary.

• Government collects almost Rs.135 crore from the Company Law Settlement Scheme 2000, launched on June 1.

• Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs approves $310 million ADR issue of Satyam Computer Services.

• Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs approves 5.34 per cent increase in the statutory minimum price of sugarcane by sugar factories at Rs.59.50 per quintal for 2000-01. The Committee also extends fiscal concessions to nuclear power projects.

• India is elected to the executive board of the International Coffee Organisation.

• India's tea exports between January and August this year increase by 4.1 million kg.

• Pakistan bans the import of onions from India to safeguard the interest of its local growers.

• Reserve Bank of India to issue Rs.1000 notes on October 9.

• Indian software exports to France in the current year could exceed $50 million as against $28 million recorded in 1999.

• Federation of Indian Export Orgsnisations (FIEO) expects Indo-China trade to touch $400 billion by 2002.

• Government to provide financial support to promote research in the pharmaceutical sector.

• Government decides to sell off 33.59 per cent share in IBP. Cabinet Committee on Disinvestment also decides to reduce the government stake in MMTC and STC.

• US, India announce a set of programmes to increase cooperation between public and private sectors to promote e-commerce.

• Government clears 21 proposals for foreign direct investment worth Rs.100 crore.

• Government constitutes a Committee headed by Planning Commission Chairman to strengthen the khadi and village industries sector.

• ADB approves $250 million loan to establish a national grid for power transmission in India.

• Cabinet gives approval to Indo-Hungarian agriculture treaty and the investment promotion and protection treaties entered into with Croatia, Ghana and Laos by India.

• Centre formally decides to make Dehra Dun the provisional capital of Uttaranchal.

• US intelligence agencies agree in principle to provide India with highly classified information.

• Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry and the US-India Business Council decide to launch cyberspace initiative to promote trade and investment.

• Former Chief Minister Jayalalitha and her associate Sasikala are convicted and sentenced by a special court to three years and two years rigorous imprisonment in two Tansi land deal cases.

• Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee arrives in Mumbai and admitted to Breach Candy Hospital for knee surgery.

• Central Bureau of Investigation is filing a chargesheet against three NRI Hinduja brothers in Bofors case.

• K. Sibal is appointed as Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs.

• Human Resource Management panel constituted by the Indian Banks' Association recommends rollback of retirement age to 58 from the present 60 years.

• Praful Bidwai and Achin Vanaik are selected by the International Peace Bureau for its annual peace prize.

• Government liberalises the procedures associated with obtaining foreign exchange by corporate travellers.

• Mumbai, Delhi to have MTNL mobile services from December 2000.

• Left knee joint of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee is replaced in a successful surgery.

• Reserve Bank of India announces guidelines on the issue of commercial papers, categorization and valuation of the bank's investments and bank financing of equities and investment in shares.

• Supreme Court asks the Karnataka counsel to submit report on efforts to nab Veerappan.

• India and Malaysia sign an agreement to push trade and identify nine infrastructure development projects in Andhra Pradesh.

• Addressing a feedback session with Swiss investors, Union Commerce and Industry Minister, Murasoli Maran expects that Foreign Direct Investment inflows are likely to touch $5 billion during this calendar year.

• Former Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao and his Home Minister Buta Singh are sentenced to undergo three years rigorous imprisonment and pay a fine of Rs.2 lakhs each by a special court in the 'JMM bribery case'.

• Indian plant geneticist Surinder K. Vasal is awarded Millennium World Food Prize along with Mexican biochemist Evangelina Villegas for lifetime work for developing a higher-yielding, protein-rich corn that could help prevent malnutrition in millions of people.

• Centre decides to procure below standard paddy from Punjab at below minimum support price.

• Mike Pandey wins top award for environmental films on TV at the Wildscreen 2000 festival, also known as the 'Green Oscars'.

• India's Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi win men's doubles Japan Open tennis tournament.

• India lose to New Zealand in the ICC Knock-Out cricket final in Nairobi.

• Sydney Olympics came to an end.

• Legislation to provide 600,000 new visas over the next three years for overseas workers is passed by US Senate.

• US House of Representatives approves a bill doubling the application fees for temporary visas for high tech foreign workers to $1000 from $500. The legislation provides 195,000 temporary visas for skilled workers per year for the next three years.

• Vojislav Kostunica takes oath of office as the President of Yogoslavia. He replaces Slobodan Milosevic.

• Dr. Arvid Carisson of Sweden, Dr. paul Greengard and Dr. Eric Kandel of the US are jointly awarded the Nobel medicine prize for 2000 for their discoveries concerning 'signal transduction in the nervous system'.

• Zhores I. Alferov of Russia, Herbert Kroemer and Jack Kilby to share this year's Nobel prize for Physics.

• Alan Heeger, Alan Macdiarmid and Hideki Shirakawa are awarded the Nobel prize for Chemistry.

• An estimated 75 per cent of Sri Lanka's 12 million voters turn out to elect the 11^th Parliament.

• Sirimavo Bandaranaike, world's first woman Prime Minister, 84, passes away.

• October 11

• US Economists, James Heckman and Daniel Mcfadden win this year's Nobel prize in Economics.

• United Cricket Board of South Africa imposes a life-ban on former cricket captain, Hansie Cronje.

• French-Chinese language writer, Gao Xingjian wins the Nobel prize for Literature.

• Space shuttle Discovery blasts off from Florida's Kennedy Space Centre on a mission to the International Space Station.

• Sri Lanka's President invites People's Alliance(PA) to form new Government. PA with 107 seats gets the support of SLMC and EPDP for a coalition.

• South Korean President Kim Dae-Jung wins this year's Nobel peace prize.

• Ratnasiri Wickramanayake of People's Alliance, is sworn in as Sri Lanka's Prime Minister.

• All aboard hijacked Saudi aircraft are freed and hijackers are taken away by Iraqi authorities.

• Pakistan's Information Minister Javed Jabbar quits.

• US temporarily closes 37 embassies and consulates in Africa, West Asia and South Asia

• US successfully test-fired Patriot missile-3 (PAC-3).

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