IPS officer VK Johri has been appointed as the next Director General (DG) of country's largest border guarding force, BSF, an official order said Sunday.

The order has been issued by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) that is headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and has Home Minister Amit Shah as its member.

Johri, a 1984-batch Indian Police Service (IPS) officer of Madhya Pradesh cadre, is presently serving as the Special Secretary in the external intelligence agency RAW, under the Cabinet Secretariat.

He will take over the charge of the Border Security Force from incumbent Rajni Kanti Mishra, who retires on August 31. The order also stated that Johri has been appointed as an Officer on Special Duty (OSD) in the Union home ministry with "immediate effect."

Global Tiger Day is being celebrated across the world today. This day is observed every year to create awareness about tiger conservation and protection of natural habitat of tigers. 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will release the results of the fourth cycle of the All India Tiger Estimation in New Delhi. The Tiger Estimation exercise is believed to be the world’s largest wildlife survey effort in terms of coverage, intensity of sampling and quantum of camera trapping. India conducts the All India Tiger Estimation every four years. The Government and National Tiger Conservation Authority have also carried out an economic valuation of tigers in mitigating the adverse impact of climate change.  

BHUBANESWAR: Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Friday launched the revamped website of Odisha Tourism, odishatourism.gov.in. The website has the potential to empower lakhs of people operating in the tourism and hospitality sector and showcase Odisha to the world.

“It has been our constant endeavour to showcase Odisha to the world. Tourism is amongst the most sustainable routes to maximising employment opportunities for our youth and ensuing shared prosperity through community participation,” the Chief Minister said while launching the revamped digital platform of Odisha Tourism.

“Leveraging digital technologies is consistently helping us unlock the true potential of Odisha Tourism. Our digital platform will also empower lakhs of people operating in the tourism and hospitality sector, individually and collectively, by virtue of it being an all-inclusive participatory platform,” he said.

Michael Phelps has lost his second world record of the week, this time at the hands of American swimmer Caeleb Dressel in the 100-meter butterfly.

Earlier this week at the FINA world championships, 19-year-old Hungarian swimmer Kristof Milak broke a record Phelps held since 2001 in the 200-meter butterfly. He came in .78 seconds faster than the 28-time Olympian, with a time of 1:50.73.

On Friday, it was Dressel who stole the show, breaking Phelps' previous world record of 49.82 in the 100-meter fly with a final time of 49.50.

Chandigarh on Friday received affiliation from the BCCI after nearly four decades.

“Today, in the meeting of BCCI, the affiliation of Chandigarh has been approved. I got the message from BCCI that Chandigarh has been formally inducted as cricket playing state with the Board,” Union Territory Cricket Association (UTCA) president Sanjay Tandon told reporters here in the evening.

Without naming anyone, he said there were some individuals in the BCCI who came in the way of Chandigarh’s affiliation in the past.

Chief Minister Pema Khandu today launched the statewide tree plantation programme ‘Clean-Green Arunachal Campaign 2019’ in Itanagar. 

The campaign under the State Forest department will plant 1-lakh tree saplings in the next 24 hours. On the occasion, Mr. Khandu said that the campaign is being held as part of Van Mahotsav celebration and has set the target of planting 1 Crore tree within the next five years.

Speaking on the biodiversity richness of the state, the Chief Minister said Arunachal is known globally for its huge forest cover and is considered one of the eighteen 'biodiversity hotspots' in the world. 

He said the forest carbon stock in Arunachal comes to 148.52 tonnes per hectare, which is highest in the country and whose value in terms of carbon credit at 6 Euros per tonne works out to 48000 Crore rupees annually. 

Highlighting on the relevance of forest in tribal societies, Mr. Khandu said both are interconnected and culturally bonded where dependence on the forest is vital for tribal people for their everyday needs. 

He called upon the forest department to come up with a vision to preserve this intricate link and to enable the tribal people to reap economic benefit from the forest in a sustainable way.

Pakistan on Thursday announced that it will send its first astronaut to space in 2022 using ally China's satellite launching facilities. 

Pakistan's decision came as India on Monday successfully launched its second lunar mission Chandrayaan-2. 

Fawad Chaudhry, Minister for Science and Technology, said the selection process of the astronaut for the space mission would start from February 2020.

"Proud to announce that selection process for the first Pakistani to be sent to Space shall begin from February 2020. Fifty people will be short listed. The list will then come down to 25 and in 2022 we will send our first person to space. This will be the biggest space event of our country," Mr Chaudhry said in a tweet. 

A Chinese startup successfully launched the country’s first commercial rocket capable of carrying satellites into orbit Thursday, as the space race between China and the US heats up.

Beijing-based Interstellar Glory Space Technology -- also known as iSpace -- said it launched two satellites into orbit around 1:00 pm Beijing time (0500 GMT) from Jiuquan, a state launch facility in the Gobi desert.

The three-year-old company is one of dozens of Chinese rivals jostling for a slice of the global space industry, estimated to be worth about $1 trillion by 2040 according to Morgan Stanley.

The sector is currently dominated by SpaceX and Blue Origin in the US.

The Lok Sabha today passed the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage), Bill, 2019 commonly known as Triple Talaq bill by voice vote. 

Replying to the debate on the Bill, Law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said it was important to bring in a law banning instant triple talaq as the practice has continued despite a Supreme Court verdict passed in 2017. 

Mr Prasad said, despite Supreme Court’s direction against the Triple Talaq, the practice is still continuing in different parts of the country. Several hundred cases have been reported. 

The 20th Anniversary of Kargil Vijay Diwas is being celebrated today. The day is named after the successful Operation Vijay in 1999, when India regained the control of the high outposts which had been stealthily taken over by Pakistan. 

The Kargil war was fought for more than 60 days and ended with India regaining control of all the previously held territory. The central theme of this year's celebrations is ‘Remember, Rejoice and Renew’. On the occasion, President Ram Nath Kovind, who is also the Supreme Commander of the armed forces, will lay wreath at Cinar Corps Headquarters, Badamibag at Srinagar. President's earlier programme of paying homage to war soldiers at Dras was cancelled due to bad weather.