S Jaishankar, Minister of External Affairs, Government of India will inaugurate the 27th edition of Shaastra, the annual technical festival at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras).

The student-managed event, to be held from January 2 to 6 next year, is expected to draw over 80,000 visitors and will feature a diverse programme of competitions, exhibitions, workshops, conferences and shows.

Speaking at a press conference here on Friday, V Kamakoti, Director, IIT Madras, said that the event would be held as part of a 15-day period where the institute plans to organise Shaastra, along with an Open house and Saarang, the annual social and cultural festival.

Virat Kohli played his second game of the Vijay Hazare Trophy as Delhi took on Gujarat in Round 2 of the tournament. He came into the game on the back of a match-winning century against Andhra Pradesh in the first match. He continued his sparkling form in this game too. Even though he could not score a second consecutive century in this game, Kohli went on to slam 77 runs from 61 balls in an innings studded with 13 fours and 1 six, before being dismissed by Vishal Jayswal. He thus went on to smash a massive world record.

Virat Kohli has now slammed 16,207 runs in List A cricket with his 77-run knock vs Gujarat. He has scored these runs at a stunning average of 57.87. This is now the highest batting average for any batter in the history of List A cricket. He breaks the record of legendary Australian lower middle order batter Michael Bevan, who had scored 15,103 List A runs at an average of 57.86.

President Droupadi Murmu will take a sea sortie in a submarine from Karnataka’s Karwar Harbour in on December 28, the Rashtrapati Bhavan said on Friday. The visit is part of a four-day tour covering Goa, Karnataka and Jharkhand from December 27 to 30.

The President will begin her three-state tour with a visit to Goa on the evening of December 27 and will undertake a submarine sortie from Karwar Harbour on the next day, although the statement did not specify the duration of the sortie or the type of submarine involved.

On December 29, the President will participate in the centenary celebrations of Ol Chiki in Jharkhand’s Jamshedpur. On the same day, she will deliver a speech at the 15th convocation ceremony of the National Institute of Technology, Jamshedpur.

The Bureau of Indian Standards has released an Indian standard for incense sticks. The newly notified standard specifies the prohibition of certain insecticide chemicals and synthetic fragrance substances in agarbattis, which may pose risks to human health, indoor air quality, and the environment, an official government statement noted.

Union Minister for Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution, Pralhad Joshi, made this announcement on the occasion of National Consumer Day 2025.

The standard lists substances prohibited for use in agarbattis. “This includes certain insecticidal chemicals such as alethrin, permethrin, cypermethrin, deltamethrin, and fipronil, as well as synthetic fragrance intermediates like benzyl cyanide, ethyl acrylate, and diphenylamine. Many of these substances are restricted or banned internationally due to their potential impact on human health, indoor air quality, and ecological safety,” the Ministry’s statement added.

In western India, strata of old rocks are providing a glimpse of what may have been a world of heat, a world of creeping continents, and one of giant reptiles. The fossil evidence discovered in Gujarat has attracted scientific notice due to evidence of a snake of extraordinary size that existed during what is loosely defined as the Eocene era, some 47 million years ago. The era is significant from a geological perspective in that it represented one of Earth’s hottest periods in recent geological history, during which “tropical climates covered large regions of Earth’s surface.” Finding proof of an extraordinary snake from an era in which Earth was extremely hot may appear esoteric; nevertheless, it remains significant in an area of scientific research where proof of past existence increasingly depends on interpreting data from fossils.

Patna has joined India’s growing network of high-performance computing hubs with the inauguration of Param Rudra, a state-of-the-art supercomputer installed under the National Supercomputing Mission (NSM). The system was formally launched on Friday at IIT Patna, in the presence of senior government officials and academic leaders.

Speaking at the event, Amitesh Kumar Sinha, additional secretary in the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, said the installation reflected the steady expansion of India’s supercomputing ecosystem. Under the NSM, he noted, 37 supercomputers have already been deployed nationwide, delivering a combined computing capacity of around 39 petaflops and serving more than 12,000 researchers. A further 10 systems are expected to be installed soon, taking the country’s total capacity beyond 100 petaflops.

China on Friday opened to traffic a 22.13-km-long tunnel, which it claimed to be the "world's longest", in Xinjiang province.

The Tianshan Shengli tunnel, which traverses through the central Tianshan Mountains in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, has reduced a treacherous mountain journey of several hours to about 20 minutes, official media reported.

According to Song Hailiang, chairman of China Communications Construction Company, the tunnel has "set two world records".

"It is the longest expressway tunnel in the world and has the deepest vertical shaft for a highway tunnel," Song said.

Tripura Assembly Speaker Biswa Bandhu Sen passed away in Bengaluru on Friday (December 26, 2025). He was 72.

Sen was undergoing treatment for some months after suffering a massive cardiac arrest in Agartala. The State government facilitated his shifting to Bengaluru to respect the wishes of his family.

Sen, who had been with the Congress, switched to the BJP ahead of the 2018 Assembly election. He was elected to the Assembly several times from the Dharmanagar constituency in north Tripura.

In a significant move to bolster India's fight against organised crime, terrorism, and extremism, the first-ever weapons database, the 'Lost, Looted and Recovered Firearm' database, was launched in India on Friday.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah launched the database prepared by the National Investigation Agency (NIA), India's central anti-terror agency under the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).

The database was formally dedicated to the nation on Friday when the Union Home Minister launched it during the inaugural session of the 'Anti-Terror Conference-2025, a two-day annual event organised by the NIA.

Mohammad Bakri, a prominent Palestinian actor and director who was known for his work in "Homeland" and the Oscar-nominated 1984 drama 'Beyond the Walls', passed away on December 24 in Israel, reported Variety. He was 72.

CNN and other outlets reported that Bakri had been suffering from heart problems. He was seen in Season 2 of Amazon Prime Video's Biblical drama House of David and the Wonder Project, portraying the King of Edom.