RECORDS, COMMONWEALTH Nations – Page 8

Another feather in cap for Telangana mountaineer Poorna as she climbs Mt Denali in US

Poorna, who hails from the erstwhile Nizamabad district, scaled the highest peak of Mount Everest at the age of 13 years and became the youngest Indian and the youngest girl in the world to have reached the summit.

“I am very happy to climb Mt Denali, I thank my sponsor Prof YV Gopala Krishna Murthy, Chairman of Ace Engineering Academy, Dr RS Praveen Kumar for identifying my talent and Bhukya Shoban Babu, Chairman of Bhukya Shoban Babu Foundation, Hyderabad, for supporting me,” Poorna said in a statement.

With the sponsorship of the ACE Engineering Academy for the Mt Denali expedition, she started for North America from India on May 18 and reached the starting point Anchorage in Alaska on May 19.

She was accompanied by four other Indians — Ajeet Bajaj, Padma Shri Awardee in adventure sports, Deeya Bajaj, Anmish Varma from Visakhapatnam and Varma, a mountaineer.

nie/youngest

India and Vietnam sign mutual logistics agreement

The defence minister and his Vietnam counterpart General Phan Van Giang signed a joint vision statement

India and Vietnam on Wednesday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on mutual logistics support in presence of the two Defence Ministers during the ongoing visit of Defence Minister Rajnath Singh to the Southeast Asian nation.

“In these times of increasing cooperative engagements between the defence forces of the two countries, this is a major step towards simplifying procedures for mutually beneficial logistic support and is the first such major agreement which Vietnam has signed with any country,” the statement said on the logistics agreement.

India has signed several logistics agreements including all Quad countries, France, Singapore and South Korea beginning with the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement with the U.S. in 2016.

QS Ranking | IISc Bengaluru fastest rising South Asian university, two IITs in top 200

The Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, is the fastest rising South Asian university among the coveted QS World University Rankings top 200 varsities, having gained 31 places while four IITs have also figured in the category attaining a higher rank compared to the previous edition.

Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), London based global higher education analyst, on Thursday released the 19th edition of the world’s most consulted international university ranking.

The Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, which has bagged the 172nd position, is India’s second best institution, rising five places while IIT Delhi has risen eleven places to bag 174th rank.

NHAI enters Guinness World Record for laying 75 km highway in 105 hours: Nitin Gadkari

Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari announced that the 75 km stretch of the Amravati-Akola highway in Maharashtra was laid in 105 hours and 33 minutes, setting a Guinness World Record

State-owned NHAI has created a Guinness World Record for the longest continuously laid bituminous lane of 75 kilometres in 105 hours and 33 minutes on the national highway between Amravati and Akola districts in Maharashtra.

Mentioning about the record, Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari on Wednesday said the project was implemented by 720 workers including a team of independent consultants who worked day and night.

The total length of the 75 kilometres of single lane continuous bituminous concrete road is equivalent to 37.5 kilometres of two-lane paved shoulder road and the work started on June 3, at 7:27 am and was completed on June 7, at 5 pm, the minister said in a video message.

The previous Guinness World Record for the longest continuously laid bituminous was for building 25.275 kilometres of road that was achieved in Doha, Qatar in February 2019 and that task was completed in 10 days, Mr. Gadkari said.

International Catholic Migration Commission elects Christine Nathan new president

The Council of the International Catholic Migration Commission (ICMC) has elected Christine Nathan from India as the commission’s new president. She is the first ICMC president from Asia. She belongs to the Archdiocese of Bombay and nominated to the ICMC Council by the CCBI Migrant Commission.

The ICMC Council has its members from the National Episcopal Conferences. The 58 members representing the Episcopal Conferences all over the world elected her on June 1, 2022 at its meeting held in Rome.

Apart from the Episcopal Conference His Eminence Cardinal Pietro Parolin Secretary of State, Giorgio Bertin O F M Bishop of Djibouti and Fr Fabio Baggio, cs, Co-Undersecretary of the Dicastery for the Promotion of Integral Human Development attended the ICMC Council meeting in Rome.

She is the member of Migrant and Labour Commission of the Archdiocese of Bombay. Christine is a senior education specialist in Adult and Workers Education with experience over 40 years. Having a strong multi-speciality background Christine has worked with the International Labour Organisation (ILO – UN) with Govts, employers and workers. Regional specialist on adult education, Occupational safety and health.She has engaged herself with NGO’s and Civil Society Organisation’s on several social issues at the National and international levels.

ISSF World Cup | Elavenil, Ramita and Shreya win gold in 10m air rifle team event

issf completes on June 07th

Elavenil Valarivan, Ramita and Shreya Agrawal outplayed Denmark 17-5 in the gold medal contest of the 10m air rifle team women’s event at the ISSF World Cup

India opened their account at the ongoing ISSF World Cup with the trio of Elavenil Valarivan, Ramita and Shreya Agrawal claiming the gold medal in the 10m air rifle team women competition in Baku, Azerbaijan.

The Indian trio outplayed Denmark represented by Anna Nielsen, Emma Koch and Rikke Maeng Ibsen, 17-5 in the gold medal contest. Poland won bronze

** India supplying 1,160 MW power to B’desh, 1,500 MW more in pipeline: Jaishankar

Addressing the “NADI (River) Conclave 2022” here, he also said that India is collaborating on a series of road projects in Bangladesh, including improving the Ashuganj River Port-Akhaura Land Port Road under an LoC of more than $400 million.

“The road project connecting Baruerhat to Ramgarh on the India-Bangladesh border, which will increase Tripura’s road connectivity with Bangladesh, is also being implemented under another LoC of $80.06 million,” he said.

The Minister said that overland movement of goods is taking place using 28 notified Land Customs Stations (LCSs) and three Integrated Check Posts (ICPs) along the border.

He also noted that the “Maitree Bridge” over the Feni, connecting Sabroom in Tripura, to Ramgarh in Bangladesh, was opened by both the Prime Ministers in March 2021 and negotiations are also underway to operationalise the BBIN Motor Vehicle Agreement to ensure seamless vehicular movement.

With the success of four “Border Haats” – two each in Meghalaya and Tripura, nine new haats (markets) are being set up – three in Meghalaya, four in Tripura and two in Assam.

** Geetanjali Shree’s ‘Tomb of Sand’ first Hindi novel to win International Booker Prize

Indian author Geetanjali Shree has won the prestigious International Booker Prize for her Hindi novel Ret Samadhi, translated into English as Tomb of Sand by Daisy Rockwell.

The Mainpuri-born, 65-year-old Ms. Shree follows in the footsteps of Indian-origin author Salman Rushdie, Kiran Desai, Arundhati Roy and Arvind Adiga to win the award.

The book was chosen among 135 longlisted ones.

The Hindi original was published in 2018 while the English translation hit the stores in India in March this year. “This rather chunky text,” as Ms. Rockwell said at the award ceremony, “is the first time the translation of a Hindi language book had been nominated for the award”.

“Shortlisting from 135 books was daunting. Choosing a single one from them has been agonising,” as the compere said before the announcement.

First / th

India becomes largest producer, second largest exporter of sugar

The government on Wednesday claimed that India has become the largest producer of sugar in the world in the year 2022-23, more than Brazil, while it would be the second largest exporter of sugar.

Sugar production in 2018-19 was 332 lakh metric tonnes (LMT) after discounting diversion of 3 LMT for ethanol; in 2019-20, it was 274 LMT (after discounting diversion of 9 LMT for ethanol); in 2020-21, the production increased to 310 LMT (after discounting diversion of 22 LMT for ethanol) and for 2021-22, it is 335 LMT (after discounting diversion of 35 LMT for ethanol).

The production of sugar has increased and so has sugar exports. In sugar seasons 2017-18, 2018-19 & 2019-20, only about 6.2 LMT, 38 LMT & 59.60 LMT of sugar was exported. “In sugar season 2020-21 against target of 60 LMT, about 70 LMT have been exported. In the current sugar season 2021-22, against the projected 100 LMT exports, contracts for export of about 90 LMT have been signed, about 82 LMT sugar has been dispatched from sugar mills for export and approximately 78 LMT have been exported. Export of sugar in current sugar season 2021-22 is the historically highest,” Subodh Singh, Joint Secretary, Food, told media persons.

About 80 per cent of sugar is produced in Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka and because the two states south of Narmada are nearer to the ports, export takes place more from these states.

** Vizagite now world Number 1 in Under-11 girls chess

Child chess prodigy from the City of Destiny Alana Meenakshi has become world number one in Under 11 girls chess as per the FIDE ratings of May 2022. She achieved the milestone with an ELO rating of 1,829. Alana is the only player from India who figured in 10 top rankings in the U-11 girls’ chess category. She was earlier world number 2 in U-10 girls chess.

Incidentally, US player Megan Althea slipped to second slot with 1,811 ELO points. Alana, who got 1,829 ELO points, climbed to number one. Aparna Kolagatla, mother of Alana, told TNIE that they were happy that she became the world number one in U-11 girls chess.

Andhra / nie