ASSAM

The state government will provide free textbooks to visually impaired students of the state.

The chief minister made the announcement while releasing a guidebook for visually challenged students for competitive examinations.

Titled ‘An Approach to Competitive Examinations in Braille’, the guidebook is prepared by the State-level Advisory Committee for Students and Youth Welfare.

INTERNATIONAL

Saudi Arabia has officially approved Yoga as a sporting activity under its Ministry of Trade and Industry.

So, anyone who now wishes to practice or teach yoga can do so by applying for a licence.

The Crown Prince known as MBS launched the new vision 2030 that focuses on development and investing in youth.

· Founding Ceremony of International Solar Alliance Held in Germany

A Curtain Raiser Event for the Founding Ceremony of the International Solar Alliance (ISA)was held in Bonn, Germany.
Shri Anand Kumar, Secretary, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy was present at the event from the Indian side.
The ISA was jointly launched on 30 November 2015 by Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, and then-President of France, H.E. Francois Hollande, on the sidelines of the UNFCCC Conference of Parties 21 (CoP21) at Paris, France.

· China launches worlds first fully electric cargo ship

Chinalaunched the world’s first all-electric ship, which can travel up to 80 km with 2000-tonnes cargo after a two-hour charge.
The ship is 70.5-metre-long and weighs about 600 tonnes.
It was launched in Guangzhou in South China’s Guangdong Province.
The ship has been manufactured by the Guangzhou Shipyard International Company Limited.
It is powered by a 26-tonne lithium battery and can cruise at the top speed of 12.8 km per hour.

The Space Kingdom of Asgardia has launched its first satellite.
This so-called ‘virtual nation’is the pet project of Russian scientist and billionaire Igor Ashurbeyli.
In 2016, he proposed a new nation which would be based in space in order to be outside of the control of nations on Earth.
The Asgardia-1 satellite, which is about the size of a loaf of bread, and contains half a terabyte of data.
It was launched from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia aboard a Cygnus spacecraft on an Orbital ATK Antares rocket.

NATIONAL

West Bengal has won a long-drawn-out battle over rasgulla when Chennai-based Geographical Indications (GI) Registry announced that one of India’s signature sweets originated in the state and not Odisha.
Bengal and Odisha have been locked in this fight over the GI registration of rasgulla since 2015.

West Bengal CM Mamta Benerjee expressed her happiness as Bengal has been granted GI (Geographical Indication) status for Rosogolla.

The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) under the aegis of Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology organized the Asia Pacific Computer Emergency Response Team (APCERT) Conferencein New Delhi.
This is the 15th Conference of APCERT and first ever conference in India and South Asia.
The conference theme is “Building Trust in the Digital Economy”.
This was inaugurated by Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad, Hon’ble Minister of Electronics & Information Technology, and attended by over 300 cybersecurity professionals.

National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT) Satheesh C Shenoy scientists from NIOT will build India’s first offshore desalination plant about 40km from the Chennai coast.
This desalination plant is estimated to cost Rs. 2,000 crore. It will be designed and built by NIOT scientists off the shores of Ennore.
The capacity of the plant will be 10 million liters of water per day.
The plant will operate on Low-Temperature Thermal Desalination (LTTD), a low cost and environment-friendly technology to get potable water.
The technology is based on the temperature difference in seawater at different depths.