Veteran journalist Vinod Mehta passes away
(i) Veteran journalist and author Vinod Mehta passed away after prolonged illness in the
(ii) Mr. Mehta, 72, who had founded the Outlook Magazine and served as its Editor-in-Chief, last held the post of editorial Chairman of the publication.
(iii) An eminent political commentator, Mr. Mehta was served as the editor of several publications, including The Pioneer, The Sunday Observer, The Independent and The Indian Post.
Arun Singh appointed India’s ambassador to US
(i) Arun Singh has been appointed as India’s ambassador to the U.S. succeeding S. Jaishankar, who was named the Foreign Secretary in January, the External Affairs Ministry announced on Sunday.
(ii) Currently India’s Ambassador to France, the 1979-batch IFS officer is expected to take up his assignment shortly, the Ministry said.
(iii) However, it is believed that Mr. Singh will take up his new posting after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s proposed visit to France next month.
(iv) Mr. Modi is likely to travel to Canada in April on a bilateral visit and is expected to make a stop-over in Germany while going and in Paris on his return.
(v) Mr. Singh, who has been joint secretary in-charge of Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan division in MEA, has done postings in Japan and Israel among other countries.
India-China border row can be resolved, says Rudd
(i) China is “changing its language towards the Dalai Lama” as also its “tonality” towards Tibet, says former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.
(ii) It is important from New Delhi’s perspective that Tibet, Dharamsala and the Dalai Lama, represent a significant constituent element of the long unresolved border questions between India and China,” Mr. Rudd told The Hindu in an exclusive interview, adding that the changed attitude could create “space for the resolution of the border dispute” between India and China.
(iii) He was in Delhi as president of the Asia Pacific Policy Institute and met National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, who is expected to travel to Beijing soon for border talks.
India lowest among 16 Asia-Pacific countries in economic parity for women
(ii) Indian women stand even lower than their counterparts from Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, the survey said.
(iii) The survey further said that five markets, namely New Zealand, the Philippines, Vietnam, Sri Lanka and Thailand had a score of 100.0, indicating that women are on par or better represented in secondary and tertiary institutions than their male counterparts.
(iv) Comparatively, women in India (85.7), South Korea (85.9) and Bangladesh (87.6) have fewer opportunities than men when it comes to secondary and tertiary education.
NASA’s Dawn spacecraft reaches dwarf planet Ceres
(i) NASA’s Dawn spacecraft has created history by becoming the first mission to achieve orbit around the dwarf planet Ceres with an aim of providing new insights and capturing images from the distant world.
(ii) The spacecraft was approximately 61,000 kilometres from Ceres when it was captured by the dwarf planet’s gravity, NASA said.
(iii) “Since its discovery in 1801, Ceres was known as a planet, then an asteroid and later a dwarf planet,” said Marc Rayman, Dawn chief engineer and mission director at JPL.
(iv) “Now, after a journey of 3.1 billion miles (4.9 billion kilometres) and 7.5 years, Dawn calls Ceres, home,” said Rayman.
(v) In addition to being the first spacecraft to visit a dwarf planet, Dawn also has the distinction of being the first mission to orbit two extraterrestrial targets.
Haryana govt to introduce bill on banning cow slaughter
(ii) In the proposed 'Govansh Sanrakashan and Gau Samvardhan (Cow Protection and Cow Conservation and Development) Bill' efforts will be made to ban cow slaughter and for conservation and better care of indigenous cattle, he said.
(iii) "For the scientific test and analysis, government is considering to establish laboratories to differentiate beef from meat of that of other animal species.
(iv) Test reports of these laboratories will be valid evidence in the court of law," Dhankar said adding that sale of packaged beef has been banned in the state.
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