1st Male Member of National Commission for Women

Former Cabinet Secretary Alok Rawat has been appointed as the first male member of the National Commission for Women, filling the fourth seat in the five-member body.Mr Rawat is a 1977 batch Sikkim cadre IAS officer, and  has served as Director/Joint Secretary in Ministry of Defence and Ministry of Road Transport and Highways; Secretary (UPSC).He has also served as Secretary (Coordination and Public Grievances) in the Cabinet Secretariat and Secretary in Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation.

Basel-III reforms

Basel III  is a comprehensive set of reform measures, developed by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, to strengthen the regulation, supervision and risk management of the banking sector. It has to to implemented by countries central bank for growth of banking sector.

reforms target:

bank-level, or microprudential, regulation, which will help raise the resilience of individual banking institutions to periods of stress.

macroprudential, system wide risks that can build up across the banking sector as well as the procyclical amplification of these risks over time.

Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development for 2015

Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development for 2015 will be awarded to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The prize carries a cash award of Rs. 25 lakh and a citation. It was first awarded in 1986.UN General Assembly established UNHCR on December 14, 1950 initially to help people displaced by World War II. Since then it became the principal agency that has helped displaced persons the world over.International jury of the prize, headed by Vice President Hamid Ansari, has taken the decision, Secretary, Indira Gandhi Memorial Trust, Suman Dubey said.

space agency is attempting to grow flowers in space

Flowers could be blooming on the International Space Station (ISS) after New Year,NASA's first flowering crop (lettuce) experiment on the orbiting laboratory became success on August 2015 and now attempting to grow Zinnias.NASA astronaut and Space Station crew member Kjell Lindgren set up a plant growth experiment.The Zinnias will grow for 60 days, which is twice as long as the first and second crop of lettuce that grew on the space station. During the growth cycle, the LED lights will be on for 10 hours and off for 14 hours in order to stimulate the plants to flower.

Junior Asia Cup hockey tournament 2015

India has won the 8th Asian junior hockey championship by defeating Pakistan in the final match in Malaysia. Harmanpreet became the highest scorer with his four goals in the match taking his tournament tally to 15 goals in the tournament.

First ‘Distinguished Indologist’ award

President Pranab Mukherjee conferred the first `Distinguished Indologist` Award to Prof. Emeritus Heinrich Freiherr Von Stietencron of the Federal Republic of Germany during the International Conference of Indologists at Rashtrapati Bhavan.First time a World Indology Conference in collaboration with Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR).Conference concluded with a special lecture by former President of ICCR, Dr. Karan Singh on Upanishads.