1. The Union Government launched a new scheme called SevaBhojYojna in the interests of charitable religious institutions offering free food for the public. The institutions include Temples, Gurudvara, Mosque, Church, Ashram Dharmik, Darga, etc..., which correspond to the list of government criteria.
2. The social networking giant Facebook has partnered with the National Commission for Women's Affairs (NCW) to launch the Digital Literacy Program (DLP). DLP will be launched in cooperation with the Cyber Peace Foundation (CPF).
3. The Income Tax Department has issued a new compensation scheme called "Benami Transactions Informants reward program, 2018" to find people's participation in the efforts of the Income Tax Department to identify black money and reduce tax evasion.
4. The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) has launched a new Ensemble Prediction Systems (EPS) to provide probabilistic weather forecasts for the next 10 days. According to the IMD, the new systems should improve on the basis of deterministic forecasts, which tend to be highly error. EPS includes the creation of several forecasts using slightly varying initial conditions.
5. The Centre constituted the Cauvery Water Management Authority (CMA) in compliance with a Supreme Court order to address the dispute over sharing of river water among the states of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala, and Puducherry. The Centre will initially contribute a sum of two crore rupees for the functioning of the authority.
6. Union Minister for Women and Child Development Maneka Gandhi laid the foundation stone of India's first advanced DNA forensic laboratory in Chandigarh as part efforts to reduce the backlog of cases needing advanced forensic analysis.
7. Prime Minister Narendra Modi handed over the Padma Shri award, one of India's highest civilian awards, to former Singaporean diplomat Tommy Koh. He was among 10 ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) receipts of the prestigious award this year.
8. China successfully launched a new Earth observation satellite 'the Gaofen-6' which will be mainly used in agricultural resources research and disaster monitoring. It was the 276th mission of the Long March rocket series.
9. "Praapti" is the web portal and app launched by the Ministry of Power which aims at bringing transparency in power sector of India.
10. Japan is the country which has won the Uber Cup badminton tournament (women's) for the first time after 1981 defeating Thailand in the finals.
11. India on Sunday successfully test-fired it’s indigenously developed nuclear-capable Long Range Ballistic Missile Agni-5, which has a strike range of 5,000 km, off the Odisha coast. It was launched with the help of a mobile launcher from launch pad-4 of the Integrated Test Range (ITR) at Dr Abdul Kalam Island.
12. Scientists have discovered the peripheries of a 14th century Maori village in New Zealand, containing tools and food items that can shed more light on the lifestyle of the settlers. The site was located on the edge of an old riverbed. The materials found are estimated to date back to the early 1300s.
