The Sports Authority of India (SAI) is set to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Safdarjung Hospital's Sports Injury Centre (SIC) to ensure priority care for athletes after the collaboration got in-principle approval from Sports Minister Mansukh Mandaviya.

Under the proposed framework, SIC will handle advanced sports medicine and surgical interventions, while SAI will manage applied sports science rehabilitation and return-to-play protocols.

The collaboration would ensure "priority care and safe return to competition for Indian athletes."

Dr Deepak Joshi, who is the Director of SIC, said that coordinated integration of sports science, sports medicine, and injury management can fundamentally alter an athlete's career trajectory.

"This collaboration will be a boon for India's sports ecosystem. Athletes referred by SAI will receive priority treatment, continuous clinical management, and a seamless pathway back to training and competition," he said.

Estimation of tigers, co-predators, prey base and habitat assessment as part of the All-India Tiger Estimation - 2026 started in Pollachi and Tiruppur Forest Divisions of the Anamalai Tiger Reserve (ATR) on Wednesday.

The exercise, which follows an eight-day protocol of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), will cover Pollachi, Valparai, Ulandy and Manambolly forest ranges of Pollachi Division and Udumalpet, Amaravathy, Kozhumam and Vandaravu forest ranges in Tirupur Division.

Forest Department sources said that a training for the staff on the exercise was held on Monday. Enumerators were trained to use the M-STrIPES (Monitoring System for Tiger-Intensive Protection and Ecological Status) app, which is used for the estimation. The field survey started on Wednesday and the estimation will conclude on January 13.

The government has said that the Bal Vivah Mukt Bharat campaign is aimed at reducing the prevalence of child marriage by 10 per cent by 2026 and making India child marriage-free by 2030.

Launched in November 2024 by the Ministry of Women and Child Development, the initiative focuses on eradicating child marriages across the country. This campaign addresses a pervasive social issue that disproportionately affects young children, especially girls in a majority of cases, and particularly from the marginalised communities.

Since its launch, this mission has made substantial strides in curbing child marriages across India, achieving key enforcement and awareness milestones that align with national child protection goals. Balod district in Chhattisgarh has achieved a historic milestone by becoming the country’s first child marriage-free district. For two consecutive years, not a single child marriage has been reported across its 436 Gram Panchayats and 9 urban local bodies.

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has uncovered a new type of astronomical object nicknamed Cloud-9, which is apparently a starless, gas-rich, dark-matter cloud. This object is considered a "relic" or remnant of early galaxy formation and is located 14 million light-years from Earth near the spiral galaxy Messier 94 (M94). The object, Cloud-9, is called a Reionization-Limited H I Cloud (RELHIC), which is composed of neutral hydrogen and dominated by dark matter.

The term "H I" refers to neutral hydrogen, which spans approximately 4,900 light-years, with a mass of about 1 million times that of the Sun. As per the calculations done by the researchers, Cloud-9's dark matter must be about five billion solar masses.

"'RELHIC' describes a natal hydrogen cloud from the universe's early days, a fossil leftover that has not formed stars," NASA noted.

In a significant step towards strengthening India’s engagement at the intersection of science, technology, and global policymaking, the Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser (OPSA) to the Government of India and the Observer Research Foundation (ORF) have announced a strategic partnership for the inaugural Raisina Science Diplomacy Initiative (SDI) 2026. The initiative will be held alongside the prestigious Raisina Dialogue from March 5 to 7, 2026, in New Delhi.

The partnership was jointly announced by Principal Scientific Adviser Prof. Ajay Kumar Sood and ORF President Dr. Samir Saran during a meeting at the Office of the PSA. Senior officials from OPSA and ORF were present, reflecting the institutional commitment to shaping a dedicated global platform for science diplomacy.

Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw will confer the 70th Ati Vishisht Rail Seva Puraskar 2025 upon 100 railway officials and present 26 shields to the best-performing railway zones in New Delhi today. The prestigious awards are being given in recognition of exemplary service and outstanding contributions to Indian Railways.

The ceremony will also be attended by Minister of State for Railways V. Somanna, Minister of State for Railways Ravneet Singh, Chairman and CEO of the Railway Board Satish Kumar, along with Members of the Railway Board and General Managers of various Railway Zones and Production Units.

The Ministry of Railway said that 26 Shields will be awarded to personnel who played acritical role in ensuring safe and seamless railway operations during large-scale events such as the Mahakumbh.

The Unique Identification Authority of India, UIDAI, today launched the Aadhaar mascot, Udai. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology said the mascot will be helpful in making Aadhaar-related information more relatable and people-friendly. It added that the mascot will simplify communication of Aadhaar services – including updates, authentication, and offline verification.

UIDAI had rolled out a nationwide Mascot Design Contest on the MyGov platform last year, inviting people to design an official mascot for Aadhaar. 875 entries were received from across the country.

CEO of UIDAI, Bhuvnesh Kumar, said, UIDAI reaffirmed the core principle of Aadhaar by inviting people to design and name this mascot. He said that the responses of citizens demonstrated people’s connection with Aadhaar.

Scientists at the Raman Research Institute (RRI), Bengaluru, have developed a novel, non-invasive technique to measure the local density of cold atoms in real time without significantly disturbing their quantum state – an advance that could accelerate progress in quantum computing, quantum sensing and precision measurement technologies.

The method, known as Raman Driven Spin Noise Spectroscopy (RDSNS), overcomes key limitations of conventional atom-imaging techniques used in cold atom experiments. Cold atoms – cooled to temperatures close to absolute zero using laser cooling and trapping – exhibit pronounced quantum behaviour and are central to emerging quantum technologies. However, accurately detecting their quantum state and density has remained challenging.

Traditional approaches such as absorption and fluorescence imaging often interfere with the atoms being measured. Absorption imaging struggles with dense atomic clouds because probe light cannot penetrate deeply enough, while fluorescence imaging requires long exposure times and is typically destructive, altering the atomic state during observation.

In a bid to reduce road crashes especially in low-visibility situations like dense fog, the government will soon roll out vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication technology which will allow cars to “talk” to each other and alert drivers during contingencies, Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari announced on Thursday.

“The technology features an On Board Unit (OBU) installed in cars for wireless data exchange between vehicles -- this will enable sharing of real-time information like speed, location, acceleration, braking etc.,” Gadkari said in a press briefing after the 43rd meeting of the transport development council comprising transport ministers and secretaries of states.

The system will prevent crashes by warning drivers early.

India has strengthened its national quality and measurement infrastructure with the inauguration of two apex-level calibration facilities at the CSIR-National Physical Laboratory (CSIR-NPL). The new facilities aim to support indigenous measurement, certification, and quality assurance across key sectors of the economy.

CSIR-NPL, the country’s apex metrology institution and custodian of national measurement standards, is marking eight decades of service as India’s National Metrology Institute. Over the years, the laboratory has played a central role in establishing reference measurements that support research institutions, manufacturing units, municipal bodies, and strategic sectors, with direct implications for industrial quality, fair trade, environmental reliability, and public safety.