1) Indian-American journalist receives Edgar A Poe award.
- An Indian-American journalist Neela Banerjee was felicitated with a prestigious Edgar A Poe award along with of her colleagues from Inside Climate News.
- She was felicitated by US President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle during the annual White House Correspondents Dinner in Washington.
- The award was shared by Terrence McCoy of the Washington Post, who explored the issue of lead poisoning among poor black children in Baltimore after Freddie Gray died in custody in a high-profile case of alleged police abuse.
About Neela Banerjee:
- Neela Banerjee is Washington based journalist from Inside Climate News.
- She is a graduate of Yale University and had served as a Moscow correspondent with The Wall Street Journal.
- Before joining Inside Climate News, she was energy and environmental reporter for the Los Angeles Times’ Washington bureau. In her journalistic career, she had covered global energy, Iraq War and other issues with The New York Times.
2) Three Indian Scientists elected as Fellows of The Royal Society.
- Three eminent Indian Born scientists listed in the fifty scientists elected as Fellows of the Royal Society, a premier scientific academy of the U.K and the Commonwealth.
- Their names are Physicist Sriram Ramaswamy, Biochemist Ramanujan Hegde, Applied mathematician Lakshminarayanan Mahadevan.
About three Scientists:
- Physicist Sriram Ramaswamy, Director of TIFR Centre for Interdisciplinary Sciences, Hyderabad and and is on leave from the Indian Institute of Science(IISC), Bangalore.
- His research helped found the field of Active Matter, which studies the collective behaviour of objects, such as motile organisms.
- Biochemist Ramanujan Hegde, MRC Laboratory of Microbiology, U.K.
- Ramanujan Hegde is a whose research has deepened humans’ understanding of how newly made proteins are localised correctly inside cells.
- Applied mathematician Lakshminarayanan Mahadevan, Harvard University.
- Lakshminarayanan Mahadevan’s work attempts to understand the geometrical and dynamical patterns of shape and flow in physical and biological matter.
- His work has been recognized by awards that include the Edgerton Prize at MIT and the Ledlie Prize at Harvard.
3) BCCI recommends Virat Kohli for Khel Ratna, Ajinkya Rahane for Arjuna Award.
- BCCI has nominated Indian Test captain Virat Kohli for the prestigious Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award and his teammate Ajinkya Rahane for Arjuna Award.
- Virat kohli is also at the top of his game in the preceding ICC World T20, singlehandedly guiding India to wins over Australia, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
- Rahane equalled the record of holding the highest number of catches in a Test innings during India’s series win against Sri Lanka under Kohli’s leadership.
- Other sports bodies and associations are also in the process of sending their nominations.
- Sports persons nominated for the Khel Ratna Award so far are Incheon Asian Games gold medallist shooter Jitu Rai, squash star Dipika Pallikal, athlete Tintu Luka and ace golfer Anirban Lahiri.
- For Arjuna Awards, Athletes Lalita Babar and O.P. Jaisha, shooters P.N. Prakash and Apurvi Chandela, and archer Laxmirani Majhi have been nominated.
- The Khel Ratna award carries a cash prize of Rs. 7.5 lakh along with a citation while the Arjuna Award will carries a cash prize of Rs. 5 lakh and a citation.
4) Space boffins win $3m prize for discovering gravitational waves.
- Scientists and engineers of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, who detected gravitational waves and reported their discovery, have been awarded a $3 million Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics.
- The three founders of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observaton (LIGO) are Rainer Weiss, emeritus professor of physics at MIT; Kip Thorne, Caltech’s Richard P. Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics, emeritus; and Ronald Drever, emeritus professor of physics at Caltech.
- Founded by a group of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, the Breakthrough Prizes recognize the world’s top scientists in life sciences, fundamental physics, and mathematics.
- The LIGO team’s observation of gravitational waves brought a 50-year search to a spectacular conclusion.
- Using twin instruments sensitive enough to detect distortions in spacetime as small as one thousandth the diameter of an atomic nucleus.
- And also they recorded the gravitational shudders released when two black holes spiralled ever closer together and ultimately collided in a violent merger.
5) President Pranab Mukherjee confers Niryat Shree and Niryat Bandhu Awards.
- President Pranab Mukherjee has conferred the 15th set of Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) Niryat Shree and Niryat Bandhu Awards in New Delhi.
- The awards were presented at the Golden Jubilee celebrations of Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO).
- The awards were conferred to the companies from various sectors of exports besides service providers, banks, and various facilitating agencies which are promoting exports during the year 2015-16.
List of award recipients:
Reliance Industry: It was awarded as the top foreign exchange earner and leading exporter of last 50 years.
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS): It won the Gold Award in IT services.
State Bank of India (SBI): It won the Gold award among the supporting institutions.
6) Angelique Kidjo honoured with Amnesty International top human rights award.
- Amnesty International has given its top 2016 human rights award to Grammy award-winning musician Angélique Kidjo and to three African youth activist movements for their work standing up to injustice.
- The award will be shared between the singer and the activist groups Y’en a marre from Senegal, le Balai Citoyen from Burkina Faso and Lutte pour le Changement (LUCHA) from DRC. All will be honoured at the awards ceremony in Dakar, Senegal.
- Last year it was awarded to Chinese artist Ai Weiwei and American singer-songwriter Joan Baez.
7) Corporation Bank gets ``Excellence Award on Empowering MSMEs 2016``.
Corporation Bank has been awarded the ``Excellence Award on Empowering MSMEs 2016`` instituted by the Federation of Industry, Trade and Services [FITS].
Bank Managing Director and CEO Jai Kumar Garg received the award from Kalraj Mishra, Union Minister for MSMEs, at New Delhi.
Steps taken by the Corporation Bank:
The bank ensures collateral-free loans up to Rs. 1 crore under Credit Guarantee Scheme of CGTMSE and bears the cost of guarantee cover for loans up to Rs. 10 lakh.
Corporation Bank is offering 25 bps concessions in interest rate to women beneficiaries in addition to 50 bps concessions available to guarantee covered accounts.
Corporation Bank has also adopted Environment and Social Risk Framework guidelines of World Bank/SIDBI for SME borrowers to make MSMEs lending environmentally sustainable.
8) Switzerland Government honours Yash Chopra with special statue.
- Switzerland Government has honoured late veteran filmmaker Yash Chopra by unveiling bronze statue at Interlaken.
- The bronze statue weighing about 250 kilos was inaugurated by his wife Pamela Chopra and daughter-in-law Rani Mukerjee.
- Chopra was known for opening a legacy of South Asian tourists flocking to Switzerland and spend much time in the country besides shooting his movies.
- This statue has been installed at the heart of Interlaken, inside the Kursaal area near the Congress Centre which is a prime, popular spot with tourists.
- Earlier in 2011, government of Interlaken awarded him the honorary title of Ambassador of Interlaken and Jungfrau Railways had named a train after him – an honour shared only with the railway’s founder, Adolf Guyer.
9) Indian Parashar Kulkarni wins 2016 Commonwealth Short Story Prize for Asia Region.
- Indian Parashar Kulkarni won the Commonwealth Short Story Prize for 2016, for the Asia region. He was awarded for his politically grounded unpublished short fiction `Cow and Company`.
- He would receive a cash prize of 2500 pounds (3835 US dollars).
- The story `Cow and Company` narrates the story of four men in search of a cow. The story manages to keep the reader engaged through twists and turns show the connections between culture and commercial interests.
- Parashar Kulkarni is an assistant professor in Social Sciences at Yale NUS College Singapore.
10) President presents Gallantry Awards and Distinguished Service Decorations to Defense personnel.
- President Pranab Mukherjee has presented Gallantry Awards and Distinguished Service Decorations to Defence personnel at a ceremony at Rashtrapati Bhavan, New Delhi.
- Constable Gautam Koch of Assam Armed Branch who made supreme sacrifice fighting UPLA insurgents in Assam`s Difu was awarded Kirti Chakra posthumously.
- Naib Subedar Rajesh Kumar Singh who made supreme sacrifice while fighting terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir was awarded Kirti Chakra posthumously.
- Civilian Bikaramjeet and Rakesh Sharma who displayed bravery and apprehended a dreaded militant in Jammu and Kashmir was also awarded Shaurya Chakra.
- President also conferred the Param Vishisht Seva Medal,Kirti Chakra, Uttam Yudh Sewa Medal, Atti vishisht Sewa Medal and Shaurya Chakra.
- Thirteen personnel were awarded Param Vishisht Seva Medal and Twenty Five Personnel were awarded Ati Vishisht Seva Medal which included Director General of NCC Lieutenant General Aniruddha Chakravarty. Two personnel were given Uttam Yudh Seva Medal and Ati Vishist Seva Medal Bar.
- Vice-President Hamid Ansari, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, Three services Chiefs were present in the ceremony.