School children in unforms and colourful dances enthrall Republic Day every year but this year’s parade will have just one school with 162 students performing the key dance on the national tri-colour with the theme ‘Tiranga Sakshi Hai’.
Their performance is being choreographed to convey how our national flag has been a witness to the glorious tales of our freedom fighters, formation of Indian democracy, the endless affection of Indians, women empowerment, and such countless achievements, said the organisers in a statement.
In all, over 600 boys and girls are participating in this year’s Republic Day Celebrations with three cultural items from Directorate of Education, Delhi Government and another from South Central Zone Cultural Centre, Nagpur.
Another 150 students of Sarvodaya Kanya Vidyalaya, Chirag Delhi will render a song and dance in tribute to the youth of our country who have led the country to the path of success and development. The song is based on the spirit of patriotism to inspire the youth to take the country to new heights of development, said the organisers. It ends with a map formation during the performance denoting India’s unique feature – ‘Unity in Diversity’.
The Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal B.S. Dhanoa along with AFWWA President, Mrs Kamalpreet Dhanoa visited NCC Republic Day Camp 2017, in New Delhi on January 09, 2017.(PIB Photo)
Another event by 165 students drawn from South Central Zone Cultural Centre, Nagpur will portray the ‘Saila Karma’ dance, which is popular tribal dance for the harvest season in Madhya Pradesh. It starts with the worship of Sun God.
Saila is the popular dance of the Gond Tribe of Dindori District in Madhya Pradesh. It also shows some of the dancers in disguise as scarecrow, which is a useful element to protect the crops from wild invaders. Saila is accompanied by rural instruments like Mandal, Timki, Flute and with the melodies of folk songs, with its colourful-decorated costumes, turns into a centre of attraction.
Also 150 school students from Mount Abu Public School, Sector-5, Rohini, Delhi will perform a dance based on Assam Nritya Shaili or ‘Sattriya’, which seeks to honour the Supreme Power that instils positivity and vitality in our lives. With the rhythm of Takori, the children will create a holy environment to realize the omnipresence of the Almighty and celebrate the unique creation of God, said the statement.
An Israeli delegation led by the Agriculture and Rural Development Minister of Israel, Mr. Uri Ariel met Indian Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh on Wednesday to discuss bilateral cooperation in agriculture.
Both sides expressed their commitment to further strengthen bilateral relations in the field of Agriculture which is manifested by the fact that the third phase of Action Plan for 2015-18 in the field of Horticulture has recently been finalized by the two countries.
Under this program, as many as 27 Centres of Excellence (CoEs) in the cultivation of various fruits and vegetables, in 21 states, are being set up, out of which 15 CoEs are completed.
Further, both sides vowed to embark upon newer areas of cooperation at the Government to Government and Business to Business levels between the two countries to strengthen the relationship.
India Development Foundation of Overseas Indians (IDF-OI), a not-for-profit Trust set-up by the Government of India, was set up on the occasion of the closing day of the PBD convention in Bangalore on Monday. It facilitates philanthropic contributions by Overseas Indians to social and development projects in India and it will be chaired by External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj.
Presently, IDF-OI is promoting flagship programmes of Government of India- Swachh Bharat Mission and National Mission for Clean Ganga; and projects identified by the State Govts, for funding by Overseas Indians.
Working with State Governments in areas such as sanitation; education; drinking water; women’s empowerment et/c, IDF-OI is offering projects for funding by Overseas Indians. Overseas Indians can contribute as an individual, or a group of individuals or even through their respective Indian Associations.
IDF-OI does not recover any administrative cost from contributions received from Overseas Indians.
At the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas Convention 2017 the Plenary Session I focused on the Indian Diaspora- Catalyst for Realising India’s Development on 08 January 2017, chaired by Minister of State for External Affairs M.J Akbar.
The session discussed how IDF-OI can effectively enable Overseas Indians to reconnect and contribute to India’s social and development efforts. They expressed interest in working with IDF-OI and highlighted the need for credibility i.e. accountability, efficiency, and transparency in project implementation and fund utilisation. At the conclusion of the session IDF-OI also received contributions from Overseas Indians.
Portugal Prime Minister António Costa, who is on an official visit to India, was greeted with six Memorandum of Understandings (MoUs) between India and Portugal being signed on the occasion, including one pact on defence cooperation.
Later Mr Costa visited Goa, his ancestral home and Bengaluru where he was the Chief Guest at the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas opened on Saturday. The Portugal PM is on a seven-day visit to India. Portugal PM Costa presented PM Modi with Portuguese soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo’s jersey.
PM Narendra Modi, welcoming the visiting Portugal PM, said, “It gives me immense pleasure to welcome you and your delegation to India. We are deeply honoured that you accepted our invitation to be the Chief Guest at the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas. In my extensive discussion with Portugal PM we reviewed the full range of India-Portugal ties.”
On Portugal’s support to India’s Nuclear Supply Group membership, he said, “We are grateful to Portugal for their continued support for India’s membership in Nuclear Suppliers Group. The MoU on Defence cooperation signed today will help us harness our respective strengths in this field for mutual benefit.”
Costa’s father was writer Orlando da Costa, who was of Goan, Portuguese, and French descent. His 200-year-old ancestral house on Abade Faria Road in Margao, where Anna Kaarina Costa, first cousin of the Portugal Prime Minister, currently lives was spruced up for his visit.
This is his second visit to the house, the first was when he had come with his parents as a teenager. Portugal ruled Goa till 1961.
The announcement of Election Commission of India on State Assembly Elections in five States on 4th January, 2017 has gone viral reaching 21 lakh people on social media within 24 hours, achieving widest possible outreach of information on the election schedules and other ECI guidelines for citizens.
The combined effort made by Press Information Bureau (PIB) and Ministry of Information & Broadcasting (MIB) to use Social Media (SM) Platforms like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, coupled with the live-streaming of it on YouTube channel, and on the Facebook Pages of PIB, MIB and Facebook India proved successful with tweets going LIVE.
The actual figures of the reach of the information on the ECI Press Conference as on 7:00 PM, on 4th January, 2017, showed a total of 22 tweets, 5 Facebook and 1 YouTube posts on Ministry of Information & Broadcasting platform. On Facebook, the 5 posts reached over 5.24 Lakh people, with 1,219 Likes and 140 Shares. The ECI press conference was also Live-streamed on Ministry’s Facebook page, which received 12,000 views and reached over 4.95 Lakh people.
Also, a total of 55,127 Impressions were achieved for the 22 tweets made from MIB handle and these were re-tweeted 1,448 times and 550 favourites were received. Further, the Live Stream of the ECI Press Conference on YouTube got 1,700 views.
Among PIB’s social media accounts, a total of 68 tweets and 10 Facebook posts were made on Assembly Election Schedule. The Facebook posts achieved a total reach of more than 29,700 people, 167 Likes and 46 Shares, while PIB’s tweets resulted in 6.5 lakh impressions (views), 4,140 retweets and 951 favourites. The live-streaming of the event on PIB’s Facebook page has reached 3.04 lakh people and fetched more than 800 views.
In addition to the above platforms, the ECI press conference was live streamed for the first time on two Facebook pages, namely Facebook India and Government, Politics and Non Profits, which collectively received a massive response with more than 1 Lakh video views and reached over 13 Lakh people on Facebook. The Facebook Live Stream received 6,400 likes and 624 shares. (Figures as on 7:00 PM, 4th January, 2017)
On Twitter, Top Trending Hashtags throughout the day were #ElectionCommission, #AssemblyElection, Manipur & Goa, 5 States, Phase2, Uttarakhand and Model Code of Conduct. The maximum potential reach was achieved on the hashtags #ElectionCommission and #AssemblyElection of about 21.2 crores and 20.1 crores of people respectively.
The Ministry of External Affairs has announced new passport rules liberalizing the process of issue of passport to benefit the ordinary citizens as government officials and ministers and legislators have the privilege of getting a Silver Passport that is considered a status symbol and obtained easily within the legislature and bureaucracy.
Under the changed rules, all applicants born after January 26, 1989 should submit the Birth Certificate as the proof of Date of Birth (DOB) and it should have been issued by the Registrar of Births & Deaths or the Municipal Corporation or any other prescribed authority empowered under the Registration of Birth & Deaths Act, 1969 to register the birth of a child born in India;
The Transfer/School leaving/Matriculation Certificate issued by the school last attended/recognized educational board containing the Date Of Birth of the applicant; or
PAN Card issued by the Income Tax Department with the DOB of applicant; or
Aadhar Card/E-Aadhar having the DOB of applicant; or
Copy of the extract of the service record of the applicant (only in respect of Government servants) or the Pay Pension Order (in respect of retired Government Servants), duly attested/certified by the officer/in-charge of the Administration of the concerned Ministry/Department of the applicant, having his DOB; or
Driving licence issued by the Transport Department of concerned State Government, having the DOB of applicant; or
Election Photo Identity Card (EPIC) issued by the Election Commission of India having the DOB of applicant; or
Policy Bond issued by the Public Life Insurance Corporations/Companies having the DOB of the holder of the insurance policy.
In case of children applying for a passport, a three-member Committee comprising of the officials of the Ministry of External Affairs and the Ministry of Women and Child Development was constituted to examine various issues pertaining to passport applications where mother/child has insisted that the name of the father should not be mentioned in the passport and also relating to passport issues to children with single parent and to adopted children. The Report of the Committee has been accepted by the Minister of External Affairs.
The following policy changes have been made inter-alia on the basis of the recommendations of this Committee:
(i) The online passport application form now requires the applicant to provide the name of father or mother or legal guardian, i.e., only one parent and not both. This would enable single parents to apply for passports for their children and to also issue passports where the name of either the father or the mother is not required to be printed at the request of the applicant.
(ii) The total number of Annexes prescribed in the Passport Rule, 1980, has been brought down to 9 from the present 15. Annexes A, C, D, E, J, and K have been removed and certain Annexes have been merged.
(iii) All the annexes that are required to be given by the applicants would be in the form of a self declaration on a plain paper. No attestation/swearing by/before any Notary/Executive Magistrate/First Class Judicial Magistrate would be henceforth necessary.
(iv) Married applicants would not be required to provide Annexure K or any marriage certificate.
(v) The Passport application form does not require the applicant to provide the name of her/his spouse in case of separated or divorced persons. Such applicants for passports would not be required to provide even the Divorce Decree.
(vi) Orphaned children who do not have any proof of DOB such as Birth Certificate or the Matriculation Certificate or the declaratory Court order, may now submit a declaration given by the Head of the Orphanage/Child Care Home on their official letter head of the organization confirming the DOB of the applicant.
(vii) In case of children not born out of wedlock, the applicant for the passport of such children should submit only Annexure G while submitting the passport application.
(viii) In case of issue of passport to in-country domestically adopted children, submission of the registered adoption deed would no longer be required. In the absence of any deed to this effect, the passport applicant may give a declaration on a plain paper confirming the adoption.
(ix) Government servants, who are not able to obtain the Identity Certificate (Annexure-B)/ No-Objection Certificate (Annexure-M) from their concerned employer and intend to get the passport on urgent basis can now get the passport by submitting a self-declaration in Annexure-‘N’ that he/she has given prior Intimation letter to his/her employer informing that he/she was applying for an ordinary passport to a Passport Issuing Authority.
(x) Sadhus/ Sanyasis can apply for a passport with the name of their spiritual Guru mentioned in the passport application in lieu of their biological parent(s) name(s) subject to their providing of at least one public document such as Election Photo Identity Card (EPIC) issued by the Election Commission of India, PAN card, Adhar Card, etc wherein the name of the Guru has been recorded against the column(s) for parent(s) name(s).
4.Necessary notifications would be soon published in the Official Gazette to give effect to these changes. Instructions are also being issued to the Passport Issuing Authorities in India and abroad on these revised regulations.
5.The Ministry of External Affairs expects that the above changes in the Passport Rules would further ease the process for passport applicants in getting their Passport. At the same time, it would enable this Ministry to continue to deliver passport related services to the citizens in a timely, transparent, more accessible, reliable manner and in a comfortable environment through streamlined processes and committed, trained and motivated workforce.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has said that an experimental Ebola vaccine has been found to be highly protective against the deadly virus in a major trial in Guinea.
WHO said that an international vaccine-focussed organization, GAVI, provided $5 million to Merck, and the medical firm committed to ensure that 300,000 doses of the vaccine are available for emergency use in the interim, and to submit the vaccine for licensure by the end of 2017.
Merck has also submitted the vaccine to WHO’s Emergency Use and Assessment Listing procedure, a mechanism through which experimental vaccines, medicines and diagnostics can be made available for use prior to formal licensure.
“The vaccine is the first to prevent infection from one of the most lethal known pathogens, and the findings add weight to early trial results published last year,” WHO said in a release, noting the results of the latest trial, published in the medical journal The Lancet.
According to WHO, the vaccine, rVSV-ZEBOV was studied in a trial involving 11,841 people in Guinea during 2015. Among the 5,837 people who received the vaccine, no Ebola cases were recorded 10 days or more after vaccination. In comparison, there were 23 cases 10 days or more after vaccination among those who did not receive the vaccine.
“While these compelling results come too late for those who lost their lives during West Africa’s Ebola epidemic, they show that when the next Ebola outbreak hits, we will not be defenceless,” said Dr. Marie-Paule Kieny, WHO’ Assistant Director-General for Health Systems and Innovation, and the study’s lead author.
The Ebola virus was first identified in 1976 and caused sporadic outbreaks in Africa. However, the 2013-2016 outbreak in west Africa, that killed more than 11,300 people, underlined the urgent need of a vaccine.
The trial took place in the coastal region of Basse-Guinée, the area of Guinea still experiencing new Ebola cases when the trial started in 2015.
It employed an innovative design, a so-called “ring vaccination” approach – the same method used to eradicate small pox. This involved tracing all people who may have been in contact with a new Ebola case within the previous three weeks as well as certain “contacts of contacts.” These “rings” were randomized to receive the vaccine either immediately or after a three-week delay.
However, the authors note that the trial was not designed to measure this effect, so more research will be needed.
A capacity addition of 14.30 GW of renewable energy has been reported during the last two and half years under Grid Connected Renewable Power, which include 5.8 GW from Solar Power, 7.04 GW from Wind Power, 0.53 from Small Hydro Power and 0.93 from Bio-power. As of 31st October, 2016, Solar Energy Projects with an aggregate capacity of over 8727.62 MW has been installed in the country.
Confident by the growth rate in clean energy sector, the Government of India in its submission to the United Nations Frame Work Convention on Climate Change on Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) has stated that India will achieve 40% cumulative Electric power capacity from non-fossil fuel based energy resources by 2030 with the help of transfer of technology and low cost International Finance including from Green Climate Fund.
The increased use of indigenous renewable resources is expected to reduce India’s dependence on expensive imported fossil fuels. India has an estimated renewable energy potential of about 900 GW from commercially exploitable sources viz. Wind – 102 GW (at 80 meter mast height); Small Hydro – 20 GW; Bio-energy – 25 GW; and 750 GW solar power, assuming 3% wasteland
The Government of India has set a target of 175 GW renewable power installed capacity by the end of 2022. This includes 60 GW from wind power, 100 GW from solar power, 10 GW from biomass power and 5 GW from small hydro power.
A target of 16660 MW grid renewable power (wind 4000 MW, solar 12000 MW, small hydro power 250 MW, bio-power 400 MW and waste to power 10 MW), has been set for 2016-17. Besides, under off-grid renewable system, targets of 15 MW eq. waste to energy, 60 MW eq. biomass non-bagasse cogeneration, 10 MW eq. biomass gasifiers, 1.0 MW eq. small wind/hybrid systems, 100 MW eq. solar photovoltaic systems, 1.0 MW eq. micro hydel and 100,000 nos. family size biogas plants have been set for 2016-17.
The target set for the various renewable energy sources for the next three years are:
In its 38th flight (PSLV-C36), ISRO’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle successfully launched the 1,235 kg RESOURCESAT-2A Satellite on Wednesday morning (December 07, 2016) from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre SHAR, Sriharikota.
After PSLV-C36 lift-off at 10:25 am IST from the First Launch Pad with the ignition of the first stage, the subsequent important flight events, namely, strap-on ignitions and separations, first stage separation, second stage ignition, payload fairing separation, second stage separation, third stage ignition and separation, fourth stage ignition and cut-off, took place as planned.
After a flight of 17 minutes 05 seconds, the vehicle achieved a polar Sun Synchronous Orbit of 824 km height inclined at an angle of 98.725 degree to the equator (very close to the intended orbit) and 47 seconds later, RESOURCESAT-2A was separated from the PSLV fourth stage.
After separation, the two solar arrays of RESOURCESAT-2A deployed automatically and ISRO’s Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) at Bangalore took over the control of the satellite. In the coming days, the satellite will be brought to its final operational configuration following which it will begin to provide imagery from its three cameras. The data sent by RESOURCESAT-2A will be useful for agricultural applications like crop area and crop production estimation, drought monitoring, soil mapping, cropping system analysis and farm advisories generation.
Like its predecessors RESOURCESAT-1 and 2, RESOURCESAT-2A has a unique 3-Tier imaging system with Advanced Wide Field Sensor (AWiFS), Linear Imaging Self Scanner-3 (LISS-3) and Linear Imaging Self Scanner-4 (LISS-4) cameras. The AWiFS provides images with a sampling of 56 metres, a swath of 740 km and a revisit of 5 days whereas the LISS-3 provides 23.5 metre sampled images with 141 km swath and a repitivity of 24 days. LISS-4 provides 5.8 metre sampled images with 70 km swath and a revisit of 5 days.
"With today’s launch, the PSLV has yet again demonstrated its reliability," said ISRO in a statement. The total number of satellites launched by India’s workhorse launch vehicle PSLV including today’s RESOURCESAT-2A has now reached 122, of which 43 are Indian and the remaining 79 are from abroad.
Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani, Prime Minister of Qatar called on President Pranab Mukherjee at Rashtrapati Bhavan on Saturday after an eventful visit that witnessed strengthening of ties between the two nations.
Welcoming the Qatar Prime Minister to India, the President said that the third high-level visit in two years highlights the importance that both countries attach to strengthening their bilateral relations. India accords very high importance to relations with countries in the Gulf, which is its extended neighbourhood. India sees Qatar as a key interlocutor in the Gulf and Arab world.
The President said, “India’s relations with Qatar are deep-rooted in history and have been nurtured by active contacts amongst our two peoples through trade and commerce ties over centuries. The two countries have a common goal of intensifying co-operation. We should identify opportunities to make trade more broad-based and balanced. Indian companies are willing to be partners in infrastructure development being undertaken by Qatar in preparation for the FIFA 2022 World Cup and Qatar’s development plans under ‘Vision 2030’ for Qatar.”
The Qatar Prime Minister too reciprocated the President’s sentiments and said that he had good discussions with the Indian Prime Minister. Qatar sees India as a strategic partner and is keen to expand relations.
The Nobel Prize in physics for 2016 has been awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on Tuesday with one half to David J. Thouless of University of Washington, Seattle, US and the other half to F. Duncan M. Haldane of Princeton University, US and J. Michael Kosterlitz of Brown University, Providence, US for theoretical discoveries of topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter.
F. Duncan M. Haldane. Photo: Princeton University, Comms. Office, D. Applewhite
It said, “This year’s Laureates opened the door on an unknown world where matter can assume strange states. They have used advanced mathematical methods to study unusual phases, or states, of matter, such as superconductors, superfluids or thin magnetic films.”
After their pioneering work, the hunt is now on for new and exotic phases of matter and many people are hopeful of future applications in both materials science and electronics, it said in a statement.
The three Laureates’ use of topological concepts in physics was decisive for their discoveries. Topology is a branch of mathematics that describes properties that only change step-wise. Using topology as a tool, they were able to astound the experts. In the early 1970s, Michael Kosterlitz and David Thouless overturned the then current theory that superconductivity or suprafluidity could not occur in thin layers. They demonstrated that superconductivity could occur at low temperatures and also explained the mechanism, phase transition, that makes superconductivity disappear at higher temperatures.
In the 1980s, Thouless was able to explain a previous experiment with very thin electrically conducting layers in which conductance was precisely measured as integer steps. He showed that these integers were topological in their nature. At around the same time, Duncan Haldane discovered how topological concepts can be used to understand the properties of chains of small magnets found in some materials.
We now know of many topological phases, not only in thin layers and threads, but also in ordinary three-dimensional materials. Over the last decade, this area has boosted frontline research in condensed matter physics, not least because of the hope that topological materials could be used in new generations of electronics and superconductors, or in future quantum computers.
