? The Centre has identified 16 islands in Andaman and Nicobar Islands and 10 in Lakshadweep for holistic development by promoting tourism and offering facilities for export of seafood and coconut-based products.
? Union Road, Transport and Highway Minister, Nitin Gadkari presented the National Highway Excellence Awards 2019 to recognize the well-performing companies in the field of construction, operations, maintenance, toll collection and road safety on National Highways.
? Agricultural Scientist, Dr M S Swaminathan was recently honoured as the first recipient of ‘Muppavarapu Venkaiah Naidu National Award for Excellence’ for his distinguished contribution to the field of agriculture.
? Dhaka University will soon have a Hindi chair to facilitate honours level studies for students of Bangladesh.
? The India-Bangladesh Information and Broadcasting Ministers’ Meet 2020 was held in New Delhi.
? In Tamil Nadu, fresh investment proposals worth 6608 crore rupees have been approved. They have been cleared by the higher-level committee on industrial guidance and single window system, led by the state chief minister Edappadi K Palaniswamy.
? Ishwar Sharma has won the Global Child Prodigy Award for his skill to chant up to 50 shlokas from the Vedas and ‘Bhagavad Gita’ and practicing yoga.
? ‘St Louis Superman’, a documentary film by two Indian-American filmmakers, Smriti Mundhra and Sami Khan, has been nominated in the Documentary Short Subject category at Oscars 2020.
? The global e-commerce firm, Amazon has announced the incremental investment of USD 1 billion in India.
? Retail inflation in December 2019 rose to 7.35% as against 5.54% in November and 2.19% in December 2018.
? Indian Bollywood actor Aamir Khan presented the Swachhata Darpan Award 2019 to Puri Municipality Additional Executive Officer Saroj Kumar Swain.
? Puri, Odisha has been awarded the Swachhata Darpan Awards 2019 for its initiatives for plastic waste management.
? Dr Gutta Muniratnam has been chosen for ‘Muppavarapu National Award for Social Service’ for his contributions in improving the quality of people’ life through his social service activities.
? The Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation (DDWS) and Ministry of Jal Shakti organised the Open Defecation Free Sustainability Workshop held in New Delhi.
? The International Cricket Council has named Rohit Sharma as the ICC’s ‘2019 ODI Cricketer of the Year’.
? The International Cricket Council has named Virat Kohli as the winner of ICC’s ‘Spirit of Cricket’ award.