R Praggnanandhaa has become India’s youngest and world’s second youngest Grandmaster after he made it to final round of the Gredine Open in Italy. All of 12 years and 10 months old, Praggnanandhaa is being showered with heaps of praises, if just a cursory glance through the Internet is all to go by. He beat Moroni Luca Jr in the eighth round and was then paired with GM Prujjsers Roeland, leading him on to make the third norm.

While Praggnanandhaa became the second youngest Grandmaster of the world of all time, the fourth spot in youngest Grandmasters too, is held by an Indian — Parimarjan Negi, at the age of 13 years and 4 months.

Indian hockey team registered their second consecutive win of the Champions Trophy as they defeated Olympic champions Argentina 2-1. India sit at the top of the table.

Goals from Harmanpreet Singh and Mandeep Singh guided sixth-ranked India to a comfortable victory.

India had thrashed arch-rivals Pakistan 4-0 in their inaugural match.

Harmanpreet Singh opened the scoring for India as he found the back of the net from a penalty corner in the 17th minute.

India did not have to wait long to double the lead. In the 28th minute, Mandeep Singh scored as he doubled India's advantage.

This was Mandeep's second goal of the Champions Trophy in two matches.

On its website dedicated to the Day, the United Nations calls the abuse of widows and their children “one of the most serious violations of human rights and obstacles to development today.”

“We must consider both the vital role widows play in our society, the ways in which gender inequality impacts their ability to thrive on their own, and the specific recognition and attention that they need from all of us,” underscored Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Executive Director of UN Women in her message for the Day.

Across a wide range of countries, religions and ethnic groups, when a woman’s husband dies, she is left destitute – often illiterate or uneducated with no access to credit or other economic resources – rendering her unable to support herself or her family, according to the UN.

According to UN Women’s 2018 Turning Promises into Action: Gender Equality in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, nearly one-in-ten of the estimated 258 million widows globally live in extreme poverty – with little or no input to policies impacting their survival.

“When widows with young children lose property, income and other assets—especially in the absence of support for unpaid care work—they may be forced to take their daughters out of school to work or help take care of siblings and housework,” continued Ms. Mlambo-Ngcuka.

“This is how gender inequality perpetuates itself, continuing the cycle of disadvantage for girls and women for decades to come,” she added.

Paris: Former World No 1 Amelie Mauresmo on Saturday became the first woman appointed to captain France's Davis Cup team.

Mauresmo succeeds Yannick Noah next year, the French tennis federation (FFT) announced.

In contrast, Julien Benneteau, who retires after the US Open in September, will take the reins of France's side in the women's equivalent the Fed Cup.

Mauresmo, who turns 39 on 5 July, was captain of the Fed Cup team in 2015 and 2016, and led them from the second division to the final of the competition, which they lost to the Czech Republic in Strasbourg.

At a press conference to unveil the two captains, FFT president Bernard Giudicelli hailed a "completely groundbreaking choice" of putting "a woman in charge of French men's tennis."

Lauding the achievements of the Ministry of Women and Child Development in delivering the promises made and for its significant achievements and initiatives from the last 4 years, SKOCH has conferred the ‘Best performing Social Sector Ministry’ award on the Ministry of Women and Child Development. Minister for Women and Child Development Smt.Maneka Sanjay Gandhi has received the award on behalf of the Ministry in an event held in New Delhi today.

Outlining the achievements and initiatives of the Ministry, Smt.Maneka Sanjay Gandhi has said that under the leadership of the Prime Minister, flagship schemes like Beti Bachao Beti Padhao has achieved huge success within a very short period of time.  Under this scheme, efforts were made at National, regional and local level which led to behaviour change which is reflecting in the improved sex ration at birth. 

  The Minister further shared the details on the achievements of the Ministry including 6 months maternity leave, Sexual Harassment at Work Place Act, SHe-box, One stop centres, Universal Women help line (181), 33 per cent reservation in police.  The Minister also mentioned that a special division has been set up recently by Ministry of Home Affairs for women related issues, on the request of WCD Ministry. Stressing that forensic analysis plays a critical role in nabbing the culprits in sexual assault cases, the Minister has said that earlier this month, foundation of  Sakhi Suraksha Advanced DNA Forensic Laboratory was laid in Chandigarh and added that 5 more advanced forensic labs would come up in Guwahati, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Pune and Bhopal. The Minister also said that special forensic kits for rape cases will be provided to all police stations and hospitals.The funds for these kits will be provided from Nirbhaya Fund.

The government today appointed Arjit Basu as managing director of the country's largest lender State Bank of IndiaNSE 1.64 %. He will fill the position that fell vacant following the elevation of Rajnish Kumar as the chairman. Now, after this the SBI will have four managing directors. As per the SBI Act, the bank can have four managing directors. 

According to a statement, the government has appointed deputy managing director Basu as managing director with effect from the date of taking over charge till his superannuation in October 2020. 

Prior to becoming deputy managing director, he served as managing director of SBI Life Insurance. A graduate in Economics and a Master of Arts in History, Basu started his career with State Bank of India in 1983 as a probationary officer. Basu has held several key positions in various circles of SBI including the bank's office at Tokyo. 

Seychelles parliament will not ratify a pact allowing India to build naval facilities on one of the archipelago's islands, a top foreign affairs ministry official said on Friday.

The two countries signed an agreement in January to build military facilities on the remote island of Assumption, but the project quickly attracted criticism from opposition members of the tiny Indian Ocean nation's parliament and lead to public protests.

Opposition lawmakers had argued that allowing India access to Assumption, which is near a busy shipping route, would be surrendering territory to another country and joint management of the facility with India undermined the 115-island nation's sovereignty.

"The government will not present the agreement to the National Assembly (parliament) for approval because opposition members (who are the majority) have already said they will not ratify it," Seychelles Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Barry Faure told Reuters by phone.

A team of scientists and engineers of Physical Research Laboratory (PRL), Ahmedabad have discovered a sub-Saturn or super-neputune size planet around a Sun-like star. The planet discovered by the team led by Prof. Abhijit Chakraborty for PRL will be known as EPIC 211945201b or K2-236b. The mass of the new planet is about 27 Earth mass ; and its size about of six Earth radii.

The discovery gains significance as it helps the scientists to understand the formation mechanism of such super-Neptune or sub-Saturn kind of planets, that are too close to the host star and as well as planet formations 

The official statement said that was made by measuring the mass of the planet using the indigenously designed “PRL Advance Radial-velocity Abu-sky Search” (PARAS) spectrograph integrated with 1.2m Telescope at PRL’s Gurushikhar Observatory in Mount Abu, India.

“Only 23 such planetary systems (including this discovery) are known to this date with masses between 10 and 70 Earth mass and size of 4 to 8 Earth radii with such precise measurement of mass,” the statement said.

With this discovery, India has joined a handful of countries, which have discovered planets around stars beyond our solar system. Further, PARAS is the first of its kind spectrograph in Asia, which can measure the mass of a planet going around a star. Very few spectrographs exist around the world that can do such precise measurements, the statement added.

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday laid the foundation stone of Vanijya Bhawan, a new office complex here for the department of commerce that is to be built at an estimated cost of Rs 226 crore.

Located near India Gate, the complex is being built on a plot of 4.33 acres, belonging to erstwhile Directorate General of Supplies and Disposals (DGS&D), the commerce ministry said in a statement.

It will be a completely paperless office with modern facilities such as smart access control, video conferencing and completely networked systems. The statement said that over 56 per cent of the 214 trees on the plot are either being left untouched or are being replanted on the same plot.

Adressing the media at the event Prime minister Narendra Modi said, India has moved away from culture of delaying work. He added that, GST is transforming business in the country, 54 lakh new indirect tax payers have registered after GST to take total base to over 1 crore.