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- Prof. MS Swaminathan, chief architect of India’s Green Revolution was awarded the World Agriculture Prize for this year.
- The global Jury of the 1st World Agriculture Prize had announced this this week.
- Professor MS Swaminathan, the most influential agriculturist and environmentalist of our times who spearheaded the green revolution movement in India has been instrumental in leading India towards food security.
- Recognized worldwide for his basic and applied research in genetics, cytogenetics, radiation and chemical mutagenesis, food and biodiversity conservation, MS Swaminathan has been hailed by the United Nations Environment Program as “The Father of Economic Ecology” owing to his commitment towards the ever-green revolution movement in agriculture.
- Professor Swaminathan has been acclaimed by the TIME magazine as one of the twenty most influential Asians of the 20th century and one of the only three from India, the other two being Mahatma Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore.
- The Award was presented by Vice President Naidu at Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi at a special session, named “Swaminathan Global Dialogue on Climate Change and Food Security” organised by Indian Council of food and Agriculture (ICFA).
- World Agriculture Prize has been instituted by Indian Council of Food and Agriculture with the vision to recognize the individuals, who have served the humanity through agriculture.
- The World Agriculture Award @ 1,00,000 USD to be presented annually to an individual or institution, importantly from Asian, African or Latin American countries, who played seminal role in transforming agriculture globally and saving the humanity from the curse of hunger.
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- Scientists have developed the world's smallest optical gyroscope device that helps vehicles, drones, and wearable and handheld electronic devices know their orientation in three-dimensional space.
- The new gyroscope, described in the journal Nature Photonics, is 500 times smaller than the current state-of-the-art device.
- Originally, gyroscopes were sets of nested wheels, each spinning on a different axis, said researchers from the California Institute of Technology in the US.
- However, today's cellphones have microelectromechanical sensor (MEMS), the modern-day equivalent, which measures changes in the forces acting on two identical masses that are oscillating and moving in opposite directions.
- These MEMS gyroscopes are limited in their sensitivity, so optical gyroscopes have been developed to perform the same function but with no moving parts and a greater degree of accuracy using a phenomenon called the Sagnac effect.
- The Sagnac effect, named after French physicist Georges Sagnac, is an optical phenomenon rooted in Einstein's theory of general relativity. The smallest high-performance optical gyroscopes available 26oct. are bigger than a golf ball and are not suitable for many portable applications, researchers said.
- As optical gyroscopes are built smaller and smaller, so too is the signal that captures the Sagnac effect, which makes it more and more difficult for the gyroscope to detect movement, they said.
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- A portrait created by artificial intelligence fetched $432,500 at Christie’s in New York on 25Oct, the first time a computer-generated artwork was offered by a major auction house.
- The print on canvas, titled “Edmond de Belamy, from La Famille de Belamy,” depicts a blurry and unfinished image of a man.
- Displayed in a gilded wooden frame, it was estimated to fetch $7,000 to $10,000 and offered as the final lot at Christie’s auction of prints and multiples.
- The work was the brainchild of Obvious Art, a Paris-based collective, with help from an algorithm known as GAN (Generative Adversarial Network).
- “We fed the system with a data set of 15,000 portraits painted between the 14th century to the 20th,” collective member Hugo Caselles-Dupre told Christie’s.
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- Viswanathan Anand scored his third victory and B. Adhiban held top seed Levon Aronian on a mixed day for the Indians in the Isle of Man International chess tournament here on 25Oct
- After overnight leader Abhijeet Gupta crashed to a quick loss to Hikaru Nakamura, Anand and S. P. Sethuraman joined the former at 4.5 points to share the seventh spot.
- The six leaders, at five points, are, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (France), Nakamura (USA), Rodoslaw Wojtaszek (Poland), Wang Hao (China), Arkadij Naiditsch (Azerbaijan) and Jeffery Xiong (USA).
- Anand, playing white, overpowered a fighting Daniel Fridman in 72 moves after holding a better position throughout their marathon encounter. Adhiban and Aronian reached a rook-and-pawn endgame after 31 moves and agreed to a draw.
- Abhijeet resigned in 28 moves when faced with the loss of a bishop against eighth seed Nakamura.
- Sethuraman, who next faces Anand, got the better of USA’s Gregory Kaidanov in king-and-pawn endgame after 50 moves. Harsha Bharathakoti pulled off a draw against higher-rated Emil Sutovsky and. D. Gukesh stunned former women World champion Alexandra Kosteniuk.
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- NRI billionaire Lakshmi Mittal-led ArcelorMittal 26Oct. said it has won a bid to acquire debt-laden Essar Steel for over Rs 42,000 crore, a deal that will help fulfil the world’s largest steel maker’s long-time ambition of having an India mill.
- A committee of Essar Steel creditors picked ArcelorMittal on October 25, a day when the Ruia family offered to pay lenders Rs 54,389 crore including Rs 47,507 crore in upfront cash to clear all their dues in a last-ditch effort to avert losing their flagship company.
- In a statement, ArcelorMittal said its resolution plan for Essar Steel, which the lenders auctioned to recover over Rs 49,000 crore of unpaid loans, includes “an upfront payment of over Rs 42,000 crore” to settle debt and “a further Rs 8,000 crore of capital injection into the company to support operational improvement, increase production levels and deliver enhanced levels of profitability”.
- Subsequent to being declared the highest bidder on October 19, the Committee of Creditors (CoC) has issued ArcelorMittal a Letter of Intent (LoI) declaring them as “successful applicant”.
- Essar Steel promoters, however, wanted the CoC to consider their offer as it offered maximum value to all stakeholders and cannot be ignored citing some process lacunae.
- A company spokesperson said the offer is superior to ArcelorMittal’s bid as it provides 100 per cent repayment to lenders and meets the objectives of maximisation of value and protection of the interest of all stakeholders.
- It cannot be ignored just because the offer to pull out the company out of bankruptcy was not made before CoC called bids.
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- The Tagore Award for Cultural Harmony for the years 2014, 2015 and 2016 were announced on 25oct.and awarded to a distinguished Manipuri dancer, a Bangladesh-based cultural organisation and an eminent sculptor, respectively.
- The award jury was headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and included Chief Justice of India Justice Ranjan Gogoi, former chief election commissioner N Gopalaswami and national vice president of the BJP Vinay Sahasrabuddhe.
- The award was instituted by the government during the commemoration of the 150th birth anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore in 2011.
- It was conferred first on sitar maestro Pandit Ravi Shankar. It carries an award prize of Rs 1 crore, a citation in a scroll and a plaque.
- For 2014, the award was given to Rajkumar Singhajit Singh, a doyen of Manipuri dance who is also a teacher, performer and choreographer.
- Chhayanaut, established in 1961, which has played a leading role in promoting Tagore’s works in Bengali culture, won the award for 2015.
- For 2016, the award was given to sculptor Ram Vanji Sutar, whose first notable work was the 45-feet Chambal monument at the Gandhi Sagar Dam in Madhya Pradesh.
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- Indian railways plans to connect New Delhi with Ladakh region through the world's highest railway line that will run along the India-China border.
- The national transporter plans to build a strategically-important Bilaspur-Manali- Leh line along the Indo-China border.
- The location survey of the first phase is complete. Besides giving quick all-weather access to the armed forces, the railway line will also boost tourism in the scenic Ladakh region that is currently connected by road and air.
- The Ladakh-Himachal region receives heavy snowfall and road and air connectivity are sometime affected due to bad weather.
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- Joining the dots
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