Why in news?

• The Assam government will confer the state’s highest civilian awards to industrialist Ratan Naval Tata, Olympian Lovlina Borgohain and an array of personalities from diverse fields.

About Assam’s Awards

• The state govt of Assam will honour industrialist Ratan Naval Tata with the Assam Baibhav award for his contribution towards cancer care facilities in the state.
• Assam Govt has planned to confer Assam Baibhav 2021, Assam Saurav 2021 and Assam Gaurav Awards 2021 to 19 personalities and the award ceremony will be conducted on January 24th, 2022.
• The Assam Baibhav award will be worth Rs 5 lakh, the Assam Saurav award will be worth Rs 4 lakh, and the Assam Gaurav award will carry a cash component of Rs 3 lakh.
• Assam Baibhav award will be presented to Ratan Tata, and Assam Saurav award will be distributed to 5 personalities including Prof Kamalendu Deb Krori, Dr Lakshmanan S, Prof Dipak Chand Jain, Lovlina Borgohain and Neel Pawan Baruah.

Why in news?

• A deep depression in the Bay of Bengal has intensified into cyclonic storm Jawad and has made landfall near Odisha coast.
• Under its influence, some parts of eastern and north eastern region of India are likely to receive rains for further more days.

About cyclone Jawad

How Cyclone Jawad got its name?

• As per updates, Saudi Arabia has given the cyclone its name ‘Jawad’. The meaning of ‘Jawad’ is liberal or merciful. The carries significance as this cyclonic storm will not be as severe as the previous ones.

How are storms named?

• It is interesting to know that the naming of cyclones was started with a treaty in 1953 in the Atlantic region.
• In the Indian Ocean region, the name of cyclone system started from 2004. To name the cyclones, the member countries give a list of names on their behalf. After this, the alphabetical listing is done. In the way, storm cyclones are named after the suggested name.

Why in news?

• UNESCO recently presented two Heritage Awards to the Nizamuddin Basti Project. The project was awarded for its conservation efforts. It was awarded with the Special Recognition for Sustainable Award and Award of Excellence.

About Delhi’s Nizamuddin Basti

What is Nizamuddin Basti Project?

• The project restored more than 20 historic monuments located around 14th century Sufi Saint Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya.
• The Nizamuddin area consists of Humayun Tomb and Batashewala Tomb and tomb of a 16th century poet Rahim (Khan I Khanan). These regions were segregated and damaged. They were also renewed by the Nizamuddin Basti Project.
• The project was started in 2007 by the Aga Kahn Trust for Culture, Archaeological Survey of India, Delhi Urban Heritage Foundation and the Delhi Municipal Corporation.

Objectives of Nizamuddin Basti Project

• The Nizamuddin Basti Project is an Urban Renewal Project. It successfully unified the segregated zones of the seven-century old settlement of the Nizamuddin Basti and its surrounding 70 acres.
• It integrated socio – economic development, conservation and environmental development objectives in these areas.
• It unified three major sites namely Sundar Nursery, Nizamuddin Basti and Humayun Tomb.

Why in news?

• The Central government is set to launch the Residential Education for Students in High Schools in Targeted Areas (SRESHTA) scheme for the upliftment and development of scheduled castes (SC) students.

About SRESHTA

• The Centre is set to launch the Residential Education for Students in High Schools in Targeted Areas (SRESHTA) scheme recently for the upliftment and development of scheduled castes (SC) students.
• The announcement was made by Social Justice and Empowerment Minister Virendra Kumar recently.
• The scheme will focus on the socio-economics upliftment and overall development of the Scheduled Caste students by providing quality residential education to meritorious Scheduled Caste students in reputed private schools, having residential facility.

Why in news?

• NASA’s TESS reveals ‘lightest’ Exoplanet ever with a year lasting around 8 hours
• Astronomers have discovered an exoplanet named GJ 367b that orbits its star in just 7.7 hours and has just half the mass of Earth.

About GJ 367b

• Adding to the list of strangest exoplanets ever found, astronomers have discovered a new one which is the lightest and possibly the hottest one ever.
• Dubbed GJ 367b, the exoplanet is located 31 light-years away from our sun and orbits a small red dwarf star in just 7.7 hours, which means that one year on this planet is shorter than a full day here on Earth.
• Besides, the rocky planet also has several mind-bending features as it is just 70% the size of Earth and is nearly half as massive which makes it the lightest planet ever discovered.

Why in news?

Pharmaceutical company Zydus Cadila will supply 1 crore doses of ZyCoV-D the Centre by the end of December, 2021

About the Zydus Cadila vaccine

• India will initially introduce of Cadila Healthcare’s ZyCoV-D Covid-19 vaccine in seven states of India.
• The seven states are Bihar, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.
• Recently, the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) has approved ZyCoV-D for restricted use in emergency situation in the age group 12 years and above.
• ZyCoV-D is the first DNA plasmid vaccine in the world for human use, developed indigenously by the company against the Covid-19 virus.
• It is also the first COVID-19 vaccine that is needle-free and administered using PharmaJet, a needle-free applicator to ensure painless intradermal vaccine delivery which also leads to a significant reduction in any kind of major side effects.

Why in news?

• International Day for the Abolition of Slavery 2021 was observed on 2^nd

More about the day

• The day aims to highlight the importance of eradicating contemporary forms of slavery including trafficking in persons, sexual exploitation, child labour, forced marriage, etc.
• According to the United Nations, around 150 million children are subject to child labour across the world. More than 40 million people across the globe are victims of modern slavery.
• The day focuses on eradicating contemporary forms of slavery, including trafficking in persons, sexual exploitation, the worst forms of child labour, forced marriage, and the forced recruitment of children for use in armed conflict.
• The theme for International Day for the Abolition of Slavery 2021 is “ Ending Slavery’s Legacy of Racism: A Global Imperative for Justice ”. The theme reflects the global movement to end injustices whose roots lie in the slave trade.

Why in news?

• World Handicapped day also known as the International Day of Persons with disabilities (IDPWD) is observed every year on 3rd December globally.

More about World Handicap Day

• The day is marked and observed to support critical issues which are related to the inclusion of persons with disabilities.
• The IDPWD day was proclaimed in 1992 by the United Nations General Assembly.
• The theme for 2021 is “Leadership and participation of persons with disabilities toward an inclusive, accessible and sustainable post-COVID-19 world.”
• The day is celebrated to promote the rights and well-being of persons with disabilities in all spheres of society and development, and to increase awareness of the situation of persons with disabilities in every aspect of political, social, economic and cultural life.

Why in news?

• All India Radio has decided to begin a new programme called AIRNxt to offer youth a platform to air their voices as part of the ongoing Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav celebrations.

More about youth programme AIRNxt

• Through this programme AIR stations will allow youngsters from local colleges, universities to take part in programming, allowing them to discuss and curate youth-centric shows.
• About 20,000 youth from 1,000 educational institutions will be participating during the next year from every nook and corner of India through 167 AIR stations.
• These shows would encourage the youth to speak about the achievements of the country during last 75 years of independence and where do they expect the country to reach in various fields.
• The new programme #AIRNxt is part of the celebrations under the ongoing Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav.

Why in news?

• Parag Agrawal, the Chief Technology Officer of Twitter, is now taking over from Jack Dorsey as the Chief Executive Officer.

About Parag Agrawal

• Agrawal, an alumnus of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay, was appointed Twitter CTO on March 8, 2018.
• Agrawal joined Twitter in October 2011 as a Distinguished Software Engineer after completing his PhD in Computer Science from Stanford University. While studying at Stanford, he worked as a research intern for Microsoft, Yahoo!, and AT&T Labs.
• The news of his appointment has led to much celebration in India where the micro-blogging platform has more than 30 million users.