In a significant move, the Maharashtra government announced on Monday that higher education for girls belonging to the Economically Weaker Section (EWS), Socially and Economically Backward Classes (SEBC), and Other Backward Classes (OBC) will be made free.

This initiative, aimed at promoting women's education, was decided during a cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde. Additionally, tuition and exam fees for orphaned students of both genders will be waived, as per a government resolution (GR).

India’s Health Ministry has appointed Dr Soumya Swaminathan as ‘Principal Advisor’ at the Union Ministry of Health & Family Welfare for the National Tuberculosis Elimination Programme. Her appointment is on a pro bono basis.

Prof Swaminathan was the former Chief Scientist of the World Health Organization. She has previously served as the Director General of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).

In a statement, the Health Ministry said, as the Principal Advisor for the National Tuberculosis Elimination Programme, “she will provide technical advice on the overall strategy to achieve program goals, suggest policy directions and necessary course corrections for optimal outcomes, and advise on research strategy.” She will also assist in the formation of expert groups with top talent globally. Additionally, Dr Swaminathan will support the Union Health Ministry, state officials, and development partners in assessing the impact of the TB elimination programme.

Following the 22nd Annual Bilateral Summit between Russia and India on Tuesday, in Moscow, President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Narendra Modi reaffirmed their commitment to deepening the Russia-India Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership. The two sides outlined nine key areas for future cooperation, aiming to enhance bilateral trade and economic relations.

India and Russia have agreed to enhance bilateral trade to over USD 100 billion by 2030, with a focus on investments, national currency usage for trade, and cooperation across various sectors such as energy, agriculture, and infrastructure. This decision emerged from the 22nd Annual Bilateral Summit in Moscow, where Russian President Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi reiterated their commitment to a "special and privileged strategic partnership."

The two sides agreed on nine key areas of cooperations that spanned trade, trade settlement using national currencies, increased cargo turnover through new routes such as the North-South Transport Corridor, raising volume of trade in agri products, food and fertiliser, deepening cooperation in the energy sector, including nuclear energy, strengthening interaction for infrastructure development, promotion of investments and joint projects across digital economy, collaborating on supply of medicines and development of humanitarian cooperation.

Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla will be leading an Indian Parliamentary Delegation (IPD) to the two-day 10th BRICS Parliamentary Forum meeting which begins in Russia's St Petersburg on Thursday.

The forum is being held with the theme of 'Role of Parliaments in Strengthening Multilateralism for Just Global Development and Security'.

The Indian delegation also includes Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman Harivansh, Rajya Sabha MP Shambhu Sharan Patel, Lok Sabha Secretary General Utpal Kumar Singh and Rajya Sabha Secretary General PC Modi, among other officials.

In a big announcement on Wednesday, Gautam Adani, the chairman of the Adani Group, has announced that the conglomerate will be sponsoring the Indian team travelling to Paris for the 2024 Olympics Games. With the Indian contingent in the last leg of its preparations for the 2024 Olympics, the Adani Group has pledged its whole-hearted support to the champions of the nation through a campaign with the theme #DeshkaGeetAtOlympics. The campaign centres around the athletes, who have spent hours and years in training to win and hear the national anthem after the victory.

The social media campaign has been launched even as the Indian sportspersons continue to put in the hard yards before flying out to Paris for the Olympic Games set to be held from July 26 to August 11.

The ionosphere of Earth is a layer of electrically charged gas that is essential for long-distance radio transmission. NASA's GOLD satellite has uncovered a startling discovery there. This area develops as a result of molecules being ionized by solar radiation, producing plasma that facilitates signal transmission, as per the reports of 'Yahoo News'.

Recent observations of the ionosphere by NASA's GOLD mission show surprising X- and C-shaped formations. These shapes, which are usually observed during geomagnetic disturbances, appeared even in the absence of such events, confounding experts.

Rajasthan will shortly become the first State in the country to adopt an action plan for road safety for the next 10 years. The action plan, to be accompanied by a government policy, will be aimed at reducing road accidents in the State by 50% till 2030.

Deputy Chief Minister Prem Chand Bairwa said on July 8 that the policy would generate awareness among the public at large about road safety provisions and bring about behavioural changes for complying with road safety rules. The action plan, being formulated by the Transport Department’s road safety cell, forms part of the 100-day blueprint of the BJP government.

The Women Entrepreneurship Platform (WEP) and TransUnion CIBIL have launched SEHER, a credit education programme to enhance financial literacy and business skills among women entrepreneurs. This initiative aims to provide vital support, enabling women to access the financial tools needed for business growth and job creation.

The SEHER programme is part of WEP’s (a public-private partnership platform incubated at NITI Aayog) Financing Women Collaborative (FWC), a first-of-its-kind initiative aimed at accelerating access to finance for women entrepreneurs and equipping them with the knowledge to build strong credit histories and better manage their finances.

The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and the M. S. A Research Foundation (MSSRF) entered an MoU to work together for livelihood generation among rural, tribal, and farming communities. The MoU was signed by Dr. N. Kalaiselvi, DG, CSIR and Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, Chairperson, MSSRF. Senior officials from CSIR and representatives of MSSRF witnessed the signing of the MoU.

Speaking on the occasion, Dr. N. Kalaiselvi, DG, CSIR expressed that although CSIR labs disseminate technologies developed in the labs to potential users, the outreach, especially in the societal sector, would be enhanced through joining hands with organizations such as MSSRF, which works at the grassroot level.

Dr Soumya Swaminathan, Chairperson, MSSRF stated that the Foundation, in its efforts to reach out to the tribal and vulnerable communities, is seeking select low-cost, affordable and potential technologies and technical support from CSIR laboratories as a technology facilitating partner under this umbrella MoU since the tribals or various other such groups are not able to directly approach CSIR labs due to many inherent reasons such as geographical location, language of communication and lack of required resources.

The Reserve Bank has launched the next round of quarterly order books, inventories and capacity utilisation survey of manufacturing companies, a key input for the monetary policy formulation.

The 65th round of survey is for the reference period January-March 2024 (Q4:2023-24), the central bank said.

The Reserve Bank has been conducting the order books, inventories, and Capacity Utilisation Survey (OBICUS) of the manufacturing sector on a quarterly basis since 2008.

The information collected in the survey includes quantitative data on new orders received during the reference quarter, backlog of orders at the beginning of the quarter, and pending orders at the end of the quarter.