Arunachal Pradesh: CM dedicates Padi Yubbe outdoor stadium to people

Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu dedicated the Padi Yubbe outdoor stadium to the people of Lower Subansiri district. The stadium is named after the first cabinet minister from Apatani community and it has a seating capacity of 4000. The memorial statue of Padi Yubbe was also unveiled by the Chief Minister.

The Padi Yubbe Outdoor Stadium is the third after Pasighat and Daporijo to be completed and ready for use. Other big stadiums, in various stages of completion, are also coming up at Chimpu near Itanagar, and Aalo (West Siang) and Tezu (Lohit).

Scientists discover a new ‘archaea’ organism in Sambhar lake

Scientists at the NCMR-NCCS in Pune have reported a new kind of microorganism – ‘archaeon‘, which they discovered in Sambhar Salt Lake in Rajasthan. Archaea are a primitive group of microorganisms that thrive in extreme habitats such as hot springs, cold deserts and hypersaline lakes. They are known for producing antimicrobial molecules, and for anti-oxidant activity with applications in eco-friendly waste-water treatment.

The new archaeon has been named Natrialba swarupiae. They named the species after Dr. Renu Swarup, Secretary, Department of Biotechnology, Government of India, in recognition of her invaluable role in simplifying some of the provisions of the Biodiversity Act 2002 to ease the deposition of microorganisms in repositories for microbes (culture collections) located outside India.

World’s largest meditation centre to be inaugurated in Hyderabad

Hyderabad is all set to add one more global landmark. The world’s largest meditation centre and the global headquarters of the Heartfulness Institute will be inaugurated on January 28. To mark the 75th anniversary of the organisation, Kanha Shanti Vanam will be dedicated to the first guide of Heartfulness, fondly called Lalaji by the present global guide Daaji.

Baba Ramdev, the popular yoga guru, will be present on the occasion and address about 40,000 abhyasis or practitioners. Kanha Shantivanam, about 40 km on the outskirts of Hyderabad, spread over 30 acres, has one central and eight secondary halls. It can accommodate 100,000 practitioners at one go, making it the largest closed structure meditation centre in the world.

Three, three-day sessions will be held during January 28-30, February 2-4 and February 7-9, 2020, will host 1.2 lakh practitioners as part of mass meditation activity to commemorate the milestone of 75 years. The President of India Ramnath Kovind and Anna Hazare will address the practitioners on February 2 and 7, respectively.

Government nominates Debashish Panda on SBI Central Board

The Central government has nominated Debashish Panda, Special Secretary, Department of Financial Services, Finance Ministry as a director on the Central Board of State Bank of India. He is appointed with immediate effect replacing the earlier nominee Ravi Mittal.

SBI, the country’s largest bank had posted a 218 per cent jump in standalone net profit for the September quarter to Rs 3,011.73 crore. The lender had posted a profit of Rs 944.87 crore in the same quarter last year. Under exceptional items, the bank reported a net profit of Rs 3,484.30 core on sale of partial investments in subsidiary SBI Life Insurance Company.

Fresh slippages had halved to Rs 8,800 crore from Rs 16,000 crore on a quarterly basis. The asset quality of the bank improved with gross non-performing asset (NPA) ratio coming in at 7.19 per cent, down 276 bps yearly and 34 bps sequentially. Net NPA ratio was at 2.79 per cent, down 205 bps YoY and 28 bps QoQ.

Indigenously-developed military systems to be showcased at DefExpo 2020

The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) will display various indigenously-developed military systems and technologies at the 11th edition of DefExpo 2020, that will be held in Lucknow from 5th to 9th February. In the 5-day event, DRDO will exhibit more than 500 products from all technology clusters. The theme of the event will be “Digital Transformation of Defence”.

It will showcase over 23 products in the India Pavilion, which has been set up to showcase the combined strength of DRDO, public and private sector in defence manufacturing. The participation of DRDO at the expo is marked with the live demonstration of Advanced Towed Artillery Gun System (ATAGS), Main Battle Tank (MBT) Arjun MK IA, Wheeled Armoured Platform (WhAP), Counter Mine Flail, 15m Advanced Composite Modular Bridging System (ACMBS) and modular bridge.

Grandmasters B Adhiban and S L Narayanan wins in Gibraltar chess

Indian Grandmasters B Adhiban and S L Narayanan registered impressive wins in the third round of the Masters’ category of the ongoing Gibraltar chess festival. Adhiban and Narayanan scored wins over Martin Petrov of Bulgaria and Tingjie Lei of China while young GM Raunak Sadhwani securing 1.5 points shared the point with higher-ranked David Navara.

Apart from Adhiban and Narayanan, there are a few other Indians on 2.5 points, including Vaibhav Suri and Karthikeyan Murali. Young Grandmaster R Praggnanandhaa beat International Master Padmini Rout to take his tally to 2.

He had lost to fellow Indian P V Nandhidhaa in the opening round. D Gukesh, another rising star from India and the second youngest GM ever, was held to a draw by Adrian Gschnitzer. GM Karthikeyan Murali, took a draw against Ori Kobo to take his tally to 2.5.

Georgia’s Ivan Cheparinov, Kyrsa Leandro of Argentina, Vasif Durarbayli of Azerbaijan, Pier Luigi Basso of Italy and Maksim Chigaev from Russia are ahead of the field with three points after the third round.