The Haryana Council of Ministers on Wednesday accorded approval for the creation of Hansi as a new district, a formal decision taken a day after chief minister Nayab Singh Saini made the announcement to make Hansi 23rd district of the state.

The Cabinet, which met under the chairmanship of chief minister Saini here late on Wednesday evening, decided that the newly proposed Hansi district will comprise 110 villages falling under the Hansi and Narnaund Assembly Constituencies, presently part of Hisar district.

The state re-organisation committee, chaired by development and panchayats minister Krishan Lal Panwar, in its meeting held on December 9, 2025 approved and recommended the creation of district Hansi. The recommendation was thereafter approved by chief minister Saini.

Renowned poet-author and the 2024 Jnanpith winner Vinod Kumar Shukla died in Raipur on Tuesday (December 23, 2025). He was 88-years-old and had been undergoing treatment at All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Raipur since December 2.

AIIMS spokesperson Dr. Laxmikant Choudhary said he passed away at 4:58 p.m and that the cause of death was multiple organ infection and failure. In an earlier statement on Monday (December 22), the hospital had stated that Shukla had been suffering from severe respiratory illness interstitial lung disease (ILD), along with multiple co-morbid conditions including type-2 diabetes mellitus and hypertension.

Vice-President C P Radhakrishnan today released the book Sanatan Sanskriti Ki Atal Drishti, authored by the Speaker of the Rajasthan Legislative Assembly, Vasudev Devnani, in New Delhi.

Addressing the event, the Vice-President described the book as a timely and significant contribution, especially as the nation commemorates the 100th birth anniversary of former Prime Minister Bharat Ratna Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

The combined Index of Eight Core Industries increased by 1.8 per cent in November this year as compared to the same month last year. The Commerce and Industry Ministry said that the production of Cement, Steel, Fertilizer and Coal recorded positive growth in November.

The Ministry said that the Coal production increased by 2.1 per cent, Fertilizer production by 5.6 per cent, Cement production by 14.5 per cent and Steel production increased by 6.1 per cent in November this year, as compared to the same month last year. However, the Crude Oil production declined by 3.2 per cent and Natural Gas production also declined by 2.5 per cent in November.

The Index of Eight Core Industries measures the combined and individual performance of the production of eight core industries – Coal, Crude Oil, Natural Gas, Refinery Products, Fertilisers, Steel, Cement and Electricity. The eight core industries comprise over 40 percent of the weight of items included in the Index of Industrial Production.

Oman has introduced its first polymer one-rial banknote, designed to last longer and stay more secure than previous ones. The new banknote, which will start circulating from January 11, 2026, also highlights the country’s cultural and economic achievements.

The Central Bank of Oman has released the one-rial polymer banknote, the country has first time issued currency in this material. Unlike the traditional cotton based notes, polymer is durable and comes with advanced security features to help prevent counterfeiting.

The note measures 145 by 76 millimetres combining design, heritage, and national pride. The front side features the Oman Botanic Garden, representing the nation’s commitment to preserving its natural heritage. On the rear side, the Sayyid Tariq bin Taimur Cultural Complex appears alongside the Duqm Port and Refinery, showing Oman’s cultural landmarks and economic progress. Together, these images offer a clear picture of the country’s identity and achievements.

Vishwa Bandhu scholarships and fellowships to attract foreign students and faculty, and easing regulation frameworks to enable more international campuses in India — including exploring the “campus within campus” model — are among the policy recommendations made by the NITI Aayog as part of a road map for the “internationalisation” of higher education in India. The public policy think tank has also proposed setting up an Erasmus+-like programme, updated curricula, and expanding the criteria of the NIRF rankings to achieve goals set out in the National Education Policy 2020.

The NITI Aayog on Monday (December 22, 2025) released a report titled “Internationalisation of Higher Education in India: Prospects, Potential, and Policy Recommendations”, which recommended 22 such policy interventions in order to deal with the “imbalance between inbound and outbound student mobility”. The study, conducted over the past year, noted that in 2024, for every international student who came to India to study, 28 Indian students went abroad for higher education.

A new Letter of Intent (LoI) has been signed to establish a new Centre of Excellence for CRISPR Innovation and Translation (CoE-CIT) as a dedicated hub to harness cutting-edge CRISPR technologies to facilitate translation of scientific discoveries in a laboratory into real-world clinical applications.

The Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR), Bengaluru an autonomous institute of Department of Science and Technology (DST) and CRISPRBITS Private Limited (CrisprBits) based in Delhi, focused on Biotechnology using CRISPR gene-editing technology for developing affordable diagnostics, has announced the signing of a Letter of Intent (LOI) to jointly establish the CoE-CIT, in a landmark public–private partnership between academia and industry which is among the first of its kind in India.

The CoE-CIT is envisioned to bridge the bench to bed gap leading and have therapeutic impact by combining JNCASR’s strengths in fundamental biomedical sciences with CrisprBits’ expertise in applied gene-editing and translational platforms. Demonstrating how Indian scientific innovation can be effectively translated into societal and clinical benefit, the CoE will serve as a replicable national model for academic–industry partnerships to strengthen India’s biotechnology and innovation ecosystem.

India and the Netherlands on Saturday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to strengthen cooperation in maritime heritage, marking a major step towards the development of the National Maritime Heritage Complex (NMHC) at Lothal in Gujarat.

The MoU was exchanged during a bilateral meeting between External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and Dutch Foreign Minister David van Weel. The agreement brings together the NMHC, being developed under the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways, and the National Maritime Museum in Amsterdam.

Under the MoU, both sides will collaborate on the exchange of knowledge, expertise and best practices in maritime museum design, curation and conservation. The partnership will also enable joint exhibitions, research initiatives and cultural exchange programmes, along with the adoption of innovative approaches to enhance visitor experience, education and public outreach.

In Badminton, Indian pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty won Bronze in the BWF World Tour Finals 2025 at Hangzhou in China last night. They went down to the local pair of Liang Wei Keng and Wang Chang in the semi-finals, by a scoreline of 10-21, 21-17, 21-13. However, this is only the second BWF World Tour Finals medal ever won by Indian shuttlers. Earlier in 2018, PV Sindhu had won the women’s singles title and became the only gold medallist from India in the competition.

The Supreme Court’s December 19 judgment on protecting the critically endangered Great Indian Bustard (GIB), which is rapidly declining, will directly reshape India’s Green Energy Corridor (GEC) projects in Rajasthan and Gujarat, locking large volumes of renewable capacity into narrowly defined transmission routes and heightening the risk of stranded assets in the country’s desert heartlands.

The ruling closes a four-year legal battle that repeatedly disrupted GEC planning and execution. In April 2021, the court ordered all overhead power lines across nearly 99,000 square kilometres of GIB habitat to be placed underground within a year. The direction effectively stalled approvals under GEC Phase I, delayed commissioning of evacuation lines, and cast uncertainty over Phase II projects, which were designed to carry large volumes of new solar and wind power from desert districts to interstate and national grids.