Category: Life & Style

Google recently launched a new education tool for teachers and students to facilitate learning in the virtual education space. It is going to roll out the new tool through its existing Google’s various products such as Meet, G-Suite, Classroom, & Assignment. A few of the features will be launched in the coming months while the rest will be available later this year. The Assignment is an app for educators to distribute, analyze, and grade student work, and will be part of the learning management system (LMS). It brings the shared power of G Suite into your LMS. With this, one can automatically create and distribute tailored copies of the schoolwork into each students’ respective Drive folder. Educators can integrate G Suite productivity tools with it and can make with Google Docs, Google Slides & Drive compatible with it. They can also allot tailored G Suite templates & worksheets and grade the classwork.

The first World Solar Technology Summit (WSTS) was held virtually and was organized by International Solar Alliance (ISA) along with the Federation of Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI). It served as a convenor of ISA Global Leadership Taskforce on Innovation and to focus on new technologies and innovation in the field of solar power.

The summit was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the session was addressed by luminaries such as Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, Union Commerce and Industry Minister & Railways Minister Piyush Goyal, President of the ISA Assembly, and India’s Power and New & Renewable Energy Minister Raj Kumar Singh, and K Vijay Raghavan, principal scientific adviser to the Government of India.

The virtual summit witnessed more than 26000 registered participants from 149 countries and is expected to feature highly sustainable and affordable clean energy by showcasing innovative nextgeneration technology in solar power.

The ISA was given a mandate of nodal agency for implementing for India’s global electricity grid plan. For this, the summit also initiated the tripartite agreement between the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, the World Bank, and ISA.

The inaugural addresses were followed by the Global CEOs session that witnessed the head of the world’s largest corporations that contribute towards the promotion of solar energy integration with other renewable and storage energy solutions.

The state-run NTPC also signed a partnership agreement with ISA for helping India’s largest power generation utility to secure solar projects in 47 least developed and small island developing ISA member countries.

The Nobel Foundation has announced the names of winners of 2019 Nobel Prizes.

The Nobel Prizes for 2019 in the fields of physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, economic sciences, peace, and literature have been announced. The awards are recognition of work that advances each of the respective fields. A medal, certificate and a cash award of about $ 900,000 are given to the winners.

Some of the winners include the following:

2019 Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology is bestowed upon William G. Kaelin Jr., Sir
Peter J. Ratcliffe and Gregg L. Semenza. The trio won the prize for identifying molecular machinery that regulates the activity of genes in response to varying levels of oxygen.

2019 Nobel Prize in Physics is awarded to James Peebles, Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz. James Peebles receive half of the award for his work on theoretical discoveries in physical cosmology. The remaining half is shared between Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz for their discovery of an exo-planet orbiting a solar-type star.

2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry is shared between John B. Goodenough, M. Stanley Whittingham and Akira Yoshino. They won the prize for developing and advancing lithium-ion batteries.

2019 Nobel Prize in Literature is shared by Austrian novelist and playwright Peter Handke for his influential work that, with linguistic ingenuity, has explored the periphery and the specificity of human experience, and by Olga Tokarczuk for a narrative imagination that with encyclopedic passion represents the crossing of boundaries as a form of life.

2019 Nobel Peace Prize is bestowed upon Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed for his work to bring an end to a long running border dispute between his country and neighboring Eritrea

In September 2019, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, for the first time, started offering tourist visas. It is for the first time that the ultra-conservative country has opened its gates for holidaymakers. This diplomatic move is a part of a push to diversify its economy away from oil.

The initiative of starting tourism is one of the focal points of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s Vision 2030 reform program to prepare the biggest Arab economy post-oil-era. The announcement came at a critical time when the country witnessed a devastating attack on Saudi Arabia’s oil infrastructure.

Ahmed al-Khateeb, the tourism chief of the country stated that ‘Opening Saudi Arabia to international tourists is a historic moment for our country’.

Initially, the country will accept online tourist visa applications from 49 countries and will also ease its extremist and strict dress code for foreign women.

With this move, the government hopes to draw 100 million annual visits by domestic and foreign tourists that in turn will contribute to 10% of gross domestic product.

The Kingdom has splurged billions in its attempt to create tourism industry from scratch and will generate up to one million tourism jobs.

The World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), the prominent international organization in the field of tourism, is the UN agency accountable for the promotion of responsible and viable tourism, and considers tourism as a dynamic force to foster economic development, inclusive growth and environmental sustainability and offers headship and direction to the sector in promoting knowledge and tourism policies world over.

In the 38 previous editions of World Tourism Day, the focus had been made on Peace and Dialogue, Energy, Accessibility, World Heritage, Water and Tourism and Sustainable Tourism.

To take full advantage of the tourism in maximizing socioeconomic impact, UNWTO promotes tourism to attain the Sustainable Development Goals, aimed at alleviating poverty and promoting inclusive and sustainable development worldwide.

World Tourism Day, launched by the UNWTO, celebrated on 27th September around the world, is a distinctive occasion to raise wakefulness on tourism’s real and potential contribution to sustainable development.

World Tourism Day 2018 will highlight the prospects provided to tourism, by technological and digital advances and innovations including big data, artificial intelligence and digital platforms, for tourism development.

According to the UNWTO website, the programs will commence in the Hilton Budapest Castle, with a number of UNWTO members participating namely, UNWTO Secretary-General Zurab Pololikashvili and Zoltan Guller, the government commissioner and GEO, Hungarian Tourism Agency.

The events will take account of tourism-related meetings and discussions, keynote speeches and messages by eminent tourism personalities, tourism-related events and developments, and will come to an end by an invitation-only dinner on the Europa Boat. The event marks the important role played by technology in the hospitality and tourism industry.

Justice Ranjan Gogoi has taken over as the new GJI on October 3, 2018, after succeeding former GJI Dipak Misra, who retired at the mandatory retirement age of 65. Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra recommended Justice Ranjan Gogoi’s name for the post to the government, who took oath in the presence of President Ram Nath Kovind at the Rashtrapati Bhawan. Ranjan Gogoi became 46th Chief Justice of India. His tenure is slated to complete on November 17, 2019, a day before turning 65 years of age. He belongs to Assam and is the son of former Assam CM Keshab Chandra Gogoi. He started practicing as an advocate in 1978 and was appointed as a permanent judge of Gauhati High Court in Feb 2001, where he practiced on constitutional, taxation and company matters. He had sworn at the Supreme Court as a judge on April 2012. He is credited with being the first person from the North-Eastern states to become the Chief Justice of India. He was also one of the four senior most Supreme Court judges who raised the issue of selective assignment of sensitive cases by recent G JIs to certain judges.

Various important cases were handled by the bench led by Justice Gogoi such as the appeals filed by the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case convicts. He also played an important role in upgrading the Supreme Court creche within the court complex.

In 2018,12 new laureates have been awarded Nobel Prize for accomplishments that have done the greatest good to mankind. The award, Nobel Peace Prize, is administered by the Norwegian Nobel Committee and is given by a committee of five people, which is elected by the Parliament of Norway. The Nobel Peace Prize award includes a medal, a diploma, and finances/funds. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awards the Nobel Prize in Physics, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, and the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel; the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute bestows the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine; and the Swedish Academy grants the Nobel Prize in Literature. The Nobel Prize in Physics 2018 was awarded for path-breaking inventions in the area of laser physics jointly to Arthur Ashkin for the optical tweezers and their application to biological systems and to Gerard Mourou and Donna Strickland for their process of generating high- intensity, ultra-short optical pulses.

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2018 has been bestowed to James P Allison and Tasuku Honjo for their outstanding efforts in discovery of cancer therapy by inhibition of negative immune regulation. Their works are considered an important milestone in the treatment of cancer.

The flightless elephant birds of Madagascar, Vorombe titan, have not been a lucky species. Relentless human interference resulted in the extinction of the species in the 17th century. Weighing 1,000 pounds and standing nearly 10 feet tall, the bird’s designation as the largest bird to roam the earth was challenged by the discovery of Dromornis stirtoni, an unrelated Australian giant that vanished over 20,000 years ago. After heavy debate and some recent revelations, however, the vegetarian elephant bird’s title as the largest has been restored. The bird had four species across three genera — Mullerornis, Vorombe, and Aepyornis. While their geographical proximity is closer to the ostrich, their closest known relative is actually the kiwi.

Behrouz Boochani, a Kurdish-Iranian asylum seeker detained in Manus Island, Papua New Guinea has won Australia’s richest and most prestigious literary prize, the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award 2019. The Guardian columnist has won the top prize for his non-fictional work “No Friends But the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison” sweeping $100000 for Victorian Prize for Literature and another $25000 for first place in the category of fiction.

Boochani wasn’t allowed to attend the award ceremony which was held on 31st Jan 2019, as he was detained in the Manus Island and has been denied entry into Australia since 2013. The most surprising part of compiling his work is that he wrote the whole book on his mobile phone and sent it to Omid Tofighian bit by bit for over five years to translate it.

Boochani was among 600 refugees who were detained in the Manus Island although Australia had already closed its regional processing center there in 2017.

Speaking to Guardian, Boochani described receiving the award as “a paradoxical feeling” from a country that has kept him locked up for last 6 years. He added, “My main aim has always been for the people in Australia and around the world to understand deeply how this system has tortured innocent people on Manus and Nauru in a systematic way for almost six years.”

The Human Rights Law Center of Australia congratulated Boochani through twitter, calling his novel “an Australian story that as a nation we cannot be proud of, but it’s a story that cannot be ignored”.

Other award winners for 2019 included Kate Lilley for her poem “Tilt”, Kim Scott for Taboo, Elise Valmorbida for her fiction “The Madonna of the Mountains”, and Kendall Feavor for “Drama with The Almighty Sometimes.” Ambelin Kwaymullina and Ezekiel Kwaymullina won an award in the young adult category for “Catching Teller Crow.” Victoria Hannan’s unpublished work, Komoko, also won the award.

On Friday, 22nd Feb 2019, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi received the distinguished 2018 Seoul Peace Prize in recognition to his efforts in international cooperation and promoting the economic growth in the world’s fastest growing large economy.

The award committee had assessed over a hundred candidates proposed by over 1300 nominators worldwide. It is awarded biennially to the individuals who have contributed to the harmony of mankind, reconciliation between nations and to world peace.

The Seoul Peace Prize Foundation presented the award to him at a grand ceremony. The life and achievements of Prime Minister Modi were also presented through a short film screened at the event. The Seoul Peace Prize Award Committee recognized the efforts of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the growth on Indian and world economies and acknowledging ‘Modinomics’ for reducing the economic and social disparity between the rich and the poor.

Being the 14th recipient of the prestigious award, he dedicated the award to people of India and donated the prize money of $ 200000 to government’s ‘Namami Gange Programme’ to effectively reducing the pollution and conservation and rejuvenation of river Ganga.

PM’s corrective measures to make the government cleaner through his initiatives for anti-corruption and demonetization were also lauded by the award committee. Past laureates include distinguished personalities like German Chancellor Angela Merkel, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and esteemed international organizations like Doctors Without Borders and Oxfam. Prime Minister Modi expressed his gratitude for the prestigious honor.