Junior Digest

WASHINGTON, July 31,2024: In the moments before NASA’s DART spacecraft slammed into the asteroid Dimorphos in a landmark planetary defense test in 2022, it took high-resolution images of this small celestial object and its larger companion Didymos.

These images have enabled scientists to unravel the complicated history of these two rocky bodies located in the vicinity of Earth and gain insight into the formation of what are called binary asteroid systems – a primary asteroid with a secondary moonlet orbiting it.

An analysis of the craters and surface strength on Didymos indicated it formed about 12.5 million years ago. A similar analysis indicated Dimorphos formed about 300,000 years ago. Didymos probably formed in our solar system’s main asteroid belt, between the planets Mars and Jupiter, and then was knocked into the inner solar system, the researchers said.

An examination of the largest boulders on Didymos and Dimorphos gave clues about the origins of the two asteroids.

“Both asteroids are aggregates of rocky fragments formed from the catastrophic destruction of a parent asteroid,” said astronomer Maurizio Pajola of the National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF) in Italy, lead author of
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on the asteroids published on Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications.

“These large boulders could not have formed from impacts on the surfaces of Didymos and Dimorphos themselves, as such impacts would have disintegrated these bodies,” Pajola added.

Didymos, which has a diameter of about a half mile (780 meters), is classified as a near-Earth asteroid. Dimorphos is roughly 560 feet (170 meters) wide. Both are “rubble pile” asteroids, comprised of pieces of rocky debris that coalesced through the influence of gravity.

“Their surface is covered with boulders. The largest on Dimorphos is the size of the school bus, while the largest on Didymos is big as soccer field,” said Olivier Barnouin, a planetary geologist and geophysicist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland and lead author of
another of the studies, opens new tab

.

“There are cracks on the surface and the rocks of Dimorphos, while Didymos may have finer-grained soils at the equator, although it is difficult to be sure with the images we have. The surfaces of both asteroids are weak, much weaker than loose sand,” Barnouin added.

The researchers concluded that Dimorphos is composed of material that flew off the equatorial region of Didymos due to the speed at which it was spinning.

“In the case of Didymos, it is thought that in the past, it rotated faster around its axis due to the YORP effect (spin acceleration driven by the effect of sunlight on its uneven surface), and thus ejected the boulders from its equatorial region, forming Dimorphos,” Pajola added.

Didymos currently spins at a rate of once every 2-1/4 hours.

Few boulders were observed at the equatorial region of Didymos.

“Its equator is much smoother, while mid-latitudes up to the poles are much rougher, with big boulders sitting on the surface,” Pajola said.

The U.S. space agency’s DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) carried out a proof-of-principle mission, demonstrating that a spacecraft could apply kinetic force to change the path of a space object that otherwise might be on a collision course with Earth. Didymos and Dimorphos do not pose an actual threat to Earth.

DART struck Dimorphos on Sept. 26, 2022, at about 14,000 miles per hour (22,530 kph) at a distance of roughly 6.8 million miles (11 million km) from Earth, and succeeded in modestly changing its path. The collision also slightly changed the shape of Dimorphos.

The DART data has improved the understanding of binary asteroid systems.

“Binary asteroid systems represent about 10-15% of the total number of asteroids that are in near-Earth space,” Barnouin said. “More generally, with every new observation of an asteroid or asteroid system, we learn more about how asteroids form and evolve. They are complex systems, but have some key similarities, especially when we consider the smaller – less than a kilometer (0.62 mile) – asteroids.”

WASHINGTON, July 17,2024: NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, which explored Saturn and its icy moons, including the majestic Titan, ended its mission with a death plunge into the giant ringed planet in 2017. But some of the voluminous data gathered by Cassini during its 13 years of surveying the Saturnian system is only now being fully examined.

Cassini’s radar observations are providing intriguing new details about the seas of liquid hydrocarbons on the surface of Titan, our solar system’s second-largest moon and a place of interest in the search for life beyond Earth.

Titan, shrouded in a smog-like orange haze, is the only known world other than Earth exhibiting liquid seas on the surface, though they are not composed of water but rather nitrogen and the organic compounds methane and ethane, components of natural gas.

The study involved three seas near Titan’s north pole: Kraken Mare, the largest, covering an area comparable to Eurasia’s Caspian Sea; Ligeia Mare, the second-largest and comparable in area to North America’s Lake Superior; and Punga Mare, roughly equivalent to Africa’s Lake Victoria.

The chemical composition of these seas – methane-rich versus ethane-rich – was found to vary depending on their latitude. The study also documented the extent and distribution of sea surface ripples, indicating active tidal currents and increased roughness near estuaries – the mouths of rivers.

Titan, 3,200 miles (5,150 km) wide, is our solar system’s second-biggest moon behind Jupiter’s Ganymede and is larger than the planet Mercury. Titan and Earth are the only worlds in the solar system where liquids rain down from clouds, flow as rivers into seas and lakes on the surface and evaporate back up to the sky to begin the hydrological process again.

On Earth, water rains down from clouds. On Titan, clouds spew methane – which is a gas on Earth – in liquid form due to the frigid climate.

“Titan is really an Earth-like world with a diverse set of very familiar surface morphologies shaped by a methane-based hydrologic system operating in a dense nitrogen atmosphere,” said Cornell University engineer and a planetary scientist Valerio Poggiali, lead author of the study published on Tuesday in the journal.
“Seas and lakes of liquid hydrocarbons dot the surface in the polar regions, especially the northern one. Precipitation-fed channels flow into these seas creating estuaries, in some cases deltas,” Poggiali added.

The Cassini data indicated the rivers carry pure liquid methane that then mixes into the more ethane-rich liquids of the seas, much as freshwater in Earth’s rivers mixes into saltwater oceans.

“Titan’s seas are pulled by Saturn’s massive gravity, just like our seas, and the tidal range on some of its shorelines may be around a foot (30 cm). Because the tidal period – Titan’s day – is long, 16 Earth days, the tidal cycle is slow, so the tidal currents are generally weak,” said planetary scientist and study co-author Ralph Lorenz of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.

The study used “bistatic” radar data collected during Cassini flybys of Titan, three in 2014 and one in 2016. Cassini aimed a radio beam at targets on Titan’s surface, which then reflected toward a receiving antenna on Earth. This provided richer information about the composition of the reflecting surface and its roughness than ordinary Cassini “monostatic” radar, which bounces a radio signal off a target and back to the point of origin.

“This is likely the last untouched dataset that the Cassini spacecraft left us,” Poggiali said.

Titan boasts environments with conditions considered potentially suitable for life. For instance, Titan appears to harbor a vast subsurface ocean of liquid water.

“Are the heavy organic molecules produced in Titan’s atmosphere prebiotic in nature?” Poggiali asked, referring to chemistry that could led to formation of life. “Has all this organic material ever been in contact with liquid water? We believe that similar interactions could have led to the origin of life on our planet, with the generation of molecules able to produce energy or store information.”

Male [Maldives], July 29,2024: Maldives President Mohamed Muizzu thanked India for its support of the island nation in easing its debt repayment and affirmed hope that New Delhi and Male would forge stronger ties and sign a free trade agreement.
Muizzu was addressing the official Independence Day function in the Maldives on Friday. During his address, he commended the administration’s foreign policy, celebrating eight months of ‘diplomatic success,’ according to the Maldives President Office.
President Muizzu expressed gratitude to India and China for their support in easing the Maldives’ debt repayment, thereby enabling the country to ensure economic sovereignty.
Emphasising the need to alleviate the local shortages of US dollars, he said that the Maldives government is negotiating currency swap agreements with both New Delhi and Beijing.
The Maldives President also announced that his administration is negotiating a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the United Kingdom and expressed hope to reach a similar agreement with India.
Notably, the Mohamed Muizzu government in the Maldives took a reconciliatory tone after ties between the two nations soured, leading to a diplomatic row.
Last month, President Muizzu also attended the oath ceremony of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, after he took office for the third consecutive term.
Earlier this year, Muizzu sought debt relief measures in the repayment of the hefty loans taken from the country over consecutive governments. He even stated that India will continue to remain the Maldives’ “closest ally” and emphasised that there was no question about it.
The loan amount owed by Maldives to India by the end of last year stood at 6.2 billion Maldivian Rufiyaa, according to Maldives-based The Edition.

Paris, July 27,2024: After a century-long wait, Paris welcomed back the Olympic Games with a rainy yet historic ceremony held on the River Seine.

French President Emmanuel Macron declared the Games open before the waterborne ceremony reached its climax when Teddy Riner and Marie-Jose Perec lit the cauldron with the Olympic flame.

Han Zheng, Chinese vice president and President Xi Jinping’s Special Representative, was among a host of international dignitaries in attendance at the opening ceremony.

International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach expressed his gratitude towards the organizers and the French people.

“You are bringing our Olympic Agenda reforms to life by making these Games wide open. All of us will experience Olympic Games that are more inclusive, more urban, younger and more sustainable – the first Olympic Games with full gender parity on the field of play,” said Bach.

For the first time in Olympics history, the opening ceremony took place outside the host city’s main Olympic stadium. From the Austerlitz Bridge to the Trocadero, around 6,800 athletes, assembled behind their flagbearers, cruised down a 6km stretch of the Seine on 85 boats.

Despite the rainy conditions, the parade allowed athletes to bask in the beauty of Paris’ most famed monuments, including the Louvre, Place de la Concorde, the Grand Palais and the Eiffel Tower, with some playing host to the opening ceremony’s musical performances.

The 2024 Olympics marks the third time that Paris has hosted the Summer Games. The first was in 1900, and the last was a century ago in 1924.

Hours before the opening ceremony, arson attacks on French railways caused widespread delays and cancellations to rail services across Europe, casting a shadow over the sporting extravaganza.

The attacks, however, did not dampen the mood surrounding the ceremony, as crowds crammed the Seine’s banks and bridges to watch.

China has dispatched a delegation of 405 athletes, including 42 Olympic champions, who will compete in 236 events across 30 sports at the Games.

Wayanad, July 31,2024: The death toll in landslide isn Kerala’s Wayanad district rose to 174 on Wednesday, with 225 people still missing, officials said.

A total of 191 people are still undergoing medical treatment at various hospitals, according to the Revenue Department sources.

The massive landslides hit Mundakkai and Choormala in Vellarimala village in Meppadi panchayat in Kerala’s Wayand district on Tuesday..

A total of 89 bodies have been identified so far and postmortem of 143 bodies completed, health department sources said.

As many as 72 bodies were recovered from Chaliyar river including 13 on Wednesday, between Pothukkal to Munderi areas in Malappuram district, which was around 38 Km away from the accident spot at Mundakkai, while 14 bodies recovered from the debris of the houses at Mundakkai.

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan attended an all-party meeting while 8 relief camps have been set up at Mundakkal to accommodate around 1,000 victims from 500 odd houses.

Only 30 houses were remaining at Mundakkai, said a local resident.

Around 600 rescue personnel from Army, Navy, Coast Guard, NDRF, Kerala Police special force,dog squad, local volunteers have been conducting search and rescue operations at Mundakkal, Chooralmala areas, they have rescued around 250 stranded people.

The Army personnel have started the construction of bailey bridge connecting Chooramala to Mundakkai, after the bridge was washed away in the landslide on July 30.

Revenue Minister K Rajan and five member ministers are still camping at Mundakkai areas to assist in rescue and search operations.

Paris [France], July 28,: Ace India shooter Manu Bhaker finished third to secure a bronze medal in the final of the Women’s Air Pistol event in the ongoing Paris Olympics 2024 on Sunday.

She became the first Indian women to win a medal in shooting at Olympics.

Bhaker brought India’s first medal in the ongoing mega event as she won a bronze medal with a score of 221.7.

It was a redemption arc for Manu after her pistol malfunctioned in Tokyo Olympics. She scripted history by becoming the first Indian woman in 20 years to reach an shooting final in an individual event of Olympics since Suma Shirur in 2004.

South Korea’s Ye Jin clinched the gold medal with an Olympic record of 243.2 points. Her compatriot, Kim Yeji settled for silver with 241.3 points.

On the opening day, Bhaker finished third in the qualification round of Women’s 10 Metre Air Pistol to qualify for the final at the ongoing Paris Olympics on Saturday. While Rhythm Sangwan failed to make her place in the final after finishing in 15th place.

Rome [Italy], July 29,2024: Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who is on an official visit to Beijing, announced she was signing a three-year action plan to revive cooperation with China.
Italy had last year pulled out of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), having been the only G7 country to sign up in 2019 to the infrastructure and transportation plan that seeks to build a sort of modern-day Silk Road.
The ANSA news agency reported that Meloni made the announcement at the start of a meeting with Chinese Prime Minister Li Qiang in Beijing on July 28.
The Beijing visit marks the first official visit of Meloni since she became PM in 2022.
Chinese ambassador to Italy, Jia Guide said that on Sunday, Meloni addressed the 7th China Italy Business Forum in Beijing where she also attended the signing ceremony for agreements together with Chinese Premier Li Qiang.
Both countries signed a three-year plan to strengthen collaboration in areas including trade, investment, education, environmental protection and food security.” Qiang said in a statement on X
Meloni said that six agreements had been signed in fields ranging from industry to food safety and education.

The Memorandum of Industrial Cooperation signed between the two counties was described by Meloni as “a significant step”. “It now includes strategic industrial sectors such as electric mobility and renewables, sectors where China has already been operating on the technological frontier for some time,” the Italian PM said.
China has been in trade conflict with the United States and European Union (EU) over electric vehicles (EV), renewable energy goods among others.

Italy has a big trade deficit with China and there is also an imbalance when it comes to investments. “Chinese investment in Italy is about a third of the level of Italian investments in China,” Meloni was quoted by the Italian news agency.
“It’s a gap that I’d like to see narrowed in the right way”, she said.
On December 6, 2023, the Italian government formally announced that it will not renew the 2019 memorandum of understanding (MOU) regarding its formal participation in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s flagship Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The initiative was announced a decade ago
According to a report in the Voice of America, Italian President Sergio Mattarella plans to visit China this October, and the US media outlet analysts say the trips show that Rome hopes to repair relations damaged when Italy became the first country to pull out of the BRI since it was launched in 2013.
As per the VOA report, Italy is China’s fourth-largest trading partner in the European Union, and China is Italy’s largest trading partner in Asia, with bilateral trade at USD 80 billion, mostly Chinese exports to Italy.
Italian data show exports to China reached nearly USD 18 billion in 2022 from USD 14 billion in 2019, while Chinese exports to Italy nearly doubled during that same period from more than USD 34 billion to more than USD 62 billion.

Patna, July 29,2024: Election strategist-turned-politician Prashant Kishor announced on Sunday that he would launch a new political party on the occasion of Gandhi Jayanti on October 2.
The most significant aspect of his annoucement is that the he would launch his political outfit ahead of Bihar assembly polls.
Addressing the functionaries during the Jan Suraaj Abhiyan at Bapu Sabhaghar in Patna, he said that the foundation stone for the party would be laid on October 2, and the party would begin with over one lakh people as its office bearers.
The election strategist also informed that he would not lead the party instead the leaders would be elected from their respective assembly constituencies.
Prashant Kishore further exuded confidence of winning the assembly elections in Bihar in 2025.
In this meeting, three big names joined the Jan Suraaj campaign including former Chief Minister Karpoori Thakur’s granddaughter Dr Jagriti in the presence of Prashant Kishore.
Anand Mishra, an independent candidate from Buxar in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, also joined the party and extended his support to this campaign. He praised Prashant Kishore’s efforts.
Professor Rambali Singh Chandravanshi also took membership in Jan Suraaj campaign after being impressed by Prashant Kishore aim of bringing in development in the state.

Chandigarh, July 18,2024: The Aam Aadmi Party announced that it will be contesting in the upcoming assembly elections in Haryana on its own. Th AAP had contested one seat in the Haryana Lok Sabha election in alliance with the Congress.
During a press conference that saw the presence of Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann and AAP MPs Sanjay Singh and Sandeep Pathak in Chandigarh, Mann said that the AAP has decided to contest the Haryana assembly elections with full force.
“The Aam Aadmi Party has decided that it will contest the Haryana assembly elections with full force. We have governments in Delhi and Punjab; half of Haryana touches Delhi and half of Haryana touches Punjab. The people of Haryana appealed to us, that’s why we came here. Haryana gave a chance to the BJP, Congress and all parties, but everyone looted. Now bring Kejriwal,” Mann said.
Mann further said that AAP will form a team, contest elections and defeat the double-engine government in Haryana, which ruled the state for 10 years, as the people of Haryana want change.
This time, AAP will be contesting in all 90 assembly seats in Haryana solo.

New Delhi, July 25,2024: Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju on Thursday slammed Opposition leaders for creating ruckus in Parliament and alleged that they have “insulted the House by lowering the dignity” of the budget session.

Addressing a press conference, Kiren Rijiju said, “The way the leaders of some parties commented during the budget session and the way they gave speeches, I would like to say that they have insulted the House by lowering the dignity of the budget session.”

The Union minister said, “The Opposition people did not say anything on the Budget, they just did politics in the House on Wednesday.”

“They have insulted the mandate of the country and the Opposition people have abused the prime minister,” he said.

Referring to Opposition’s remarks against the Budget, Rijiju said they insulted the mandate given by the people of the country for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s third term.

The Parliament Affairs Minister also appealed to the Opposition leaders to participate in the discussion in a constructive manner during the budget session.

“Why doesn’t the opposition discuss the provisions made for farmers and small tribal communities? The people have given a mandate to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and trying to insult this is not right. The Budget should be discussed in the budget session,” he added.

Meanwhile, the discussion on the Union Budget 2024-25, presented on July 23, continued in both Houses of Parliament on Thursday. The debate on the Jammu and Kashmir Budget for 2024-25, also presented on Tuesday, will also continue.

Earlier, Congress MP Manish Tewari filed an adjournment notice in the Lok Sabha on Thursday, requesting a discussion on the border situation and the significant trade deficit with China.

In his letter to the Lok Sabha Secretary-General, Tewari highlighted border clashes between India and China.

The letter asked for a suspension of zero hour and other business to address these urgent issues.

July 17,2024: Elon Musk has said he will move SpaceX and X out of California over a law that bans schools from forcing teachers to notify parents when their child changes their gender identity.

Musk said on Tuesday that he would relocate the companies’ headquarters to Texas after California Governor Gavin Newsom signed the first-of-its-kind law barring policies that require educators to disclose when a student asks to use a different name or pronouns.

“This is the final straw,” Musk said on X. “Because of this law and the many others that preceded it, attacking both families and companies, SpaceX will now move its HQ from Hawthorne, California, to Starbase, Texas.”

Musk, who has an adult transgender daughter, added that he had previously told Newsom “that laws of this nature would force families and companies to leave California to protect their children”.
Musk said in a follow-up post that he would also relocate X, formerly Twitter, from San Francisco to Austin, saying he had “had enough of dodging gangs of violent drug addicts just to get in and out of the building”.

Musk, the world’s richest man, has in recent years gravitated towards Texas, which has no state corporate or income tax and is known for its conservative politics.

Kyiv, July 20,2024: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Saturday that he and former US President Donald Trump agreed during a telephone conversation to discuss in a private meeting what steps would help to reach a peace in Ukraine.

“We agreed with President Trump to discuss at a personal meeting what steps can make peace fair and truly lasting,” Zelenskyy said on his social media.

He also said that he condemned the assassination attempt on the former president that took place during his rally last Saturday.

Trump has repeatedly claimed that, if reelected, he would put a prompt end to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, adding that the conflict in Ukraine would never have started if he had been the current US president instead of Joe Biden.

ADDIS ABABA, July 25,2024: The death toll from landslides in Ethiopia earlier this week has risen to 257 and is expected to almost double, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) said on Thursday.

Heavy rains triggered a landslide burying people in the Gofa Zone of southern Ethiopia on Sunday night and a second one on Monday engulfed those engaged in rescue efforts.

“The death toll is expected to rise to up to 500 people as per information received from local authorities,” UNOCHA said in a report.

On Tuesday, Ethiopia’s National Disaster Risk Management Commission had put the death toll at 229.

Dagmawi Ayele, an administrator for the Gofa Zone said rescuers had so far recovered 226 bodies, which had been buried after a funeral ceremony, and were searching for 20 more.

“It is too dangerous to approach to the site,” he said, adding that the rains were continuing on Thursday.

MILWAUKEE, July 18,2024: Donald Trump’s vice presidential running mate, U.S. Senator J.D. Vance, presented himself to the nation on Wednesday night as the son of a neglected industrial Ohio town who will fight for the working class if elected in November.

In chronicling his hardscrabble journey from a difficult childhood to the U.S. Marines, Yale Law School, venture capitalism and the U.S. Senate, Vance, 39, introduced himself to Americans while using his story to argue he understands their everyday struggles.

“I grew up in Middletown, Ohio, a small town where people spoke their minds, built with their hands and loved their God, their family, their community and their country with their whole hearts,” Vance said, formally accepting the party’s 2024 nomination at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. “But it was also a place that had been cast aside and forgotten by America’s ruling class in Washington.”

He accused “career politicians” like President Joe Biden – who Vance noted has been in politics longer than he has been alive – of destroying communities like his with ill-fated trade policies and foreign wars.

“President Trump’s vision is so simple and yet so powerful,” he said. “We’re done, ladies and gentlemen, catering to Wall Street. We’ll commit to the working man.”

In a sign of his potential value to the ticket, Vance also appealed to the working and middle classes in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin specifically – three Rust Belt swing states likely to decide the Nov. 5 election.

Vance’s prime-time debut, less than two years after assuming his first public office, capped a meteoric rise that coincided with his transformation from a fierce Trump detractor to one of his most devoted defenders. He is one of several high-profile Republicans, such as U.S. Senators Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, whose reversals from critics to loyalists underscore Trump’s takeover of the party.

For Trump’s political opponents, his hold on the party portends a darker moment if he follows through on promises to vastly expand the power of the presidency, exact revenge on his enemies and threaten longstanding democratic institutions.

Author of the bestselling memoir “Hillbilly Elegy ,” Vance has helped to shape Trump’s populist instincts into a policy agenda that would pull the U.S. back from its dominant role in global affairs. As the first millennial on a major party’s ticket, he is positioned to carry Trump’s Make America Great Again movement beyond a potential second Trump term.

His speech embraced many of Trumpism’s core tenets, promising to prioritize domestic manufacturing over Chinese imports and warning allies they would no longer get “free rides” in securing world peace.
Vance has opposed military aid for Ukraine and defended Trump’s attempts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Biden. He has argued the government must do more to assist the working class by restricting imports, raising the minimum wage and cracking down on corporate largesse. Those positions, at odds with the Republican Party’s traditional pro-business stance, nonetheless track Trump’s program closely.

Democrats have already gone on the offensive around Vance’s strict anti-abortion views. In a statement on Wednesday, the Biden campaign said Vance would advance “an agenda that puts extremism and the ultra wealthy over our democracy.”

Agartala, July 29,2024: The union budget of the third NDA government has increased the allocation for tribal welfare to 73 percent under various schemes, informed Union Minister for Tribal Affairs, Jual Oram here.

As part of the ongoing campaign of the central government to highlight the thrust points of Union Budget 2024-25, he said that around Rs. 13,000 crore has been provided in the budget for the implementation of tribal welfare schemes across the country.

An amount of Rs 6,399 crore has been made in the budget for the construction of Eklavya Model Residential Schools, with a target to set up 728 such schools for the tribal students to study Class VI-IX free of cost, Oram stated adding that the development of livelihood options are given priority.

The schemes for the welfare of the poor, empowering women, skilling and employment opportunities for the youth, and farmers’ welfare to make their income double, the budget has proposed a ‘Prime Minister’s package of five schemes and initiatives’ for employment, skilling, and other opportunities for 4.1 crore youth over five years with a central outlay of Rs 2 lakh crore.

Oram underscored under the Uttar Purva Transformative Industrialization Scheme-2024, the budget has a vision for the progress of North East and Tripuram, which will be operational for the next ten years and will focus on the development of industries & employment generation in the region for Rs 10,037 crore.

He added that 14 projects under Northeast Special Infrastructure Development Scheme have been approved for Tripura with a cost of 458 crore rupees. The budget, he said, allocated more than Rs 3 lakh crore to schemes benefitting women and girls to promote women-led development.

Besides, the limit of MUDRA loans will be increased to Rs 20 lakh from the current Rs 10 lakh under the ‘Tarun’ category of PM MUDRA Yojana, which will further broaden the employment avenues, Oram claimed.

Pradhan Mantri Janjati Unnat Gram Abhiyan Scheme will cover 63,000 villages in the country and it will lay thrust on augmenting the infrastructure such as road connectivity, power supply, and medical facilities, he underlined.

The minister pointed out that Rs 2.6 lakh crore budgetary provision has been made for Rural Development, adding that Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana will cover 25,000 rural habitations across the country.

“Northeast region received record budgetary allocation for Railway infrastructure projects. The allocation has been proposed at Rs 10,376 crores, which is five times more than the average annual budget outlay of Rs 2122 crore for the region during 2009-14,” Oram added.

New Delhi, July 18,2024: The Supreme Court on Thursday said a re-conduct of National Eligibility cum Entrance Test-Under Graduate 2024 can only happen if there are sufficient grounds for it and directed the National Testing Agency (NTA) to publish by Saturday the full city and centre-wise results on its website while masking identities of students.

Hearing a batch of petitions concerning grievances related to NEET-UG 2024 and prayers to cancel the exam due to malpractices, a Bench comprising Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud, Justice J B Pardiwala, and Justice Manoj Mishra told the senior advocate Narendra Hooda, appearing on behalf of the petitioner students, “You have to show us that the leak was so systemic and affected the entire examination to warrant the cancellation of the entire exam.”

At the time of ordering publication of results, the Apex Court was unwilling to defer the counselling for selected students which is scheduled to begin from Monday.

The CJI said, “If we accept your wider submission, we would like your assistance on the lines on which the investigation must happen.”

The CJI said that an investigation is going on. If what the Central Bureau of Investigation has told us is revealed, it will affect the investigation. “People will become wise.”