Enhanced PINAKA rocket successfully flight tested

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, CCEA on Wednesday approved 1 thousand 8 hundred 10 crore rupees investment proposal of 210 Mega Watt Luhri Stage-I Hydro Power Project on river Satluj which is situated in Shimla and Kullu districts of Himachal Pradesh. Briefing media in New Delhi, Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar said, the project will be commissioned within 62 months and it will lead to reduction of 6.1 lakh tonne of carbon dioxide from the environment annually. He said, the project is being implemented by Satluj Jal Vidyut Nigam Limited, SJVNL on Build-Own-Operate-Maintain basis with active support from the Centre and State Government.The Cabinet approved the Memorandum of Understanding, MoU between India and Israel on cooperation in the field of health and medicine. Cabinet also approved signing of an MoU between India and United Kingdom on cooperation in the field of telecommunication or ICTs. Post-Brexit, the MoU is also aiming for enhanced scope of cooperation and opportunities for India.

-The 14th edition of Central Teacher Eligibility Test, CTET will be held on 31st January, 2021. Earlier, the CTET examination was scheduled to be held on 5th of July this year in 112 cities all over the country but was postponed due to administrative reasons. The Central Board of Secondary Education- CBSE in a statement said that to maintain social distancing and other safety measures, the examination will now be conducted in 135 cities. The new examination cities include Lakhimpur, Nagaon, Begusarai, Gopalganj, Purnia, Rohtas, Bilaspur, Hazaribagh, Jamshedpur, Ludhiana, Ambedkar Nagar, Bijnor, Bulanshahar, Gonda, Mainpuri, Pratapgarh, Shahjahanpur, Sitapur and Udham Singh Nagar. A list of cities is also available on CTET website www.ctet.nic.in. Keeping in view the difficulty faced by candidates due to COVID-19, the Board decided to give one time chance to the candidates for corrections in their option of city from which they want to appear in the CTET examination.The candidates who wish to change their examination city can make online corrections from 7th of November to 16th of November till 11.59 P.M.

-Enhanced PINAKA rocket, developed by Defence Research and Development Organisation, DRDO has been successfully flight tested today  from Integrated Test Range, Chandipur off the coast of Odisha . Development of Enhanced Pinaka system was taken up to achieve longer range performance compared to earlier design with reduced length. The design and development has been carried out by Pune based DRDO laboratories, namely  Armament Research and Development Establishment, ARDE and High Energy Materials Research Laboratory, HEMRL.A total of six rockets were launched in quick succession and the tests met complete mission objectives. All the flight articles were tracked by Range instruments such as telemetry, radar and Electro Optical Tracking Systems which confirmed the flight performance.

-Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has constituted a committee to review guidelines on Television Rating agencies in India. Prasar Bharti CEO Shashi Shekhar Vempati will be Chairman of the Committee. The Members of the Committe are Dr Shalabh, Professor of Statistics in Department of Mathematics and Statistics in IIT Kanpur, Dr Rajkumar Upadhyay, Executive Director of C-DOT and Proffesor Pulak Ghosh of Decision Sciences Centre for Public Policy. In an order, the Ministry said, the present guidelines on Television Rating agencies in India were notified after detailed deliberations by the Parliamentary Committee, Committee on Television Rating Points constituted by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and recommendations from Telecom Regulatory Authority. The Committee can invite any expert as a special invitee. The Committee will submit its report to the Minister for Information and Broadcasting within two months.

-The Commander in Chief of the Defense Services of Myanmar Senior General Min Aung Hlaing has accused the civilian government of the country of making ‘unacceptable mistakes’ in the preparation for the elections scheduled for November 8. In an interview to a local news outlet on Tuesday, the Army Chief said some opposition parties had complained about the irregularities over the voter list which could have been taken care of as there was enough time for that, reports Reuters.The Military Chief also criticised the Union Election Commission (UEC) of mistakes in preparing the voter list, disputes on early voting and campaign amid the COVID 19 outbreak despite having enough time for preparation. However, the military clarified it is the government which is responsible for actions of the UEC.The general elections in Myanmar are scheduled to take place on November 8. Close to 7000 candidates are vying for about 1100  seats in both the houses of parliament for which 25 percent of seats are reserved for the military under the constitution.

-The Sports Authority of India has received several complaints from grassroot -level athletes from across the country. In an advertisement posted on social media platforms athletes have been asked to deposit 6000 rupees for enrolling in the Khelo India camp to participate in the Khelo India Games. The games are scheduled in Panchkula in Haryana in 2021. Acting as an aspirant SAI officials managed to get bank account details of the person, who is a resident of Agra.The advertisement also uses the logos of the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, Sports Authority of India and Khelo India, which misled several athletes to believe it to be a government advertisement.The Sports Authority of India has lodged an FIR with the Uttar Pradesh police and asked for an immediate investigation of the issue. Khelo India is a government scheme and athletes do not need to pay any money to participate in it.