News in Short

• Lakshwadweep’s Administrator and former Intelligence Bureau chief Dineshwar Sharma passed away at a Chennai hospital. He was 66.
• Mr. Sharma was a 1979-batch Indian Police Service (IPS) officer of Kerala cadre. He served as IB Director from 2014 to 2016.
• After his retirement, the government appointed him as an interlocutor for talks with the Assam-based insurgent groups and also headed a committee to restructure the Home Ministry.
• Mr. Sharma was appointed the Centre’s “Special Representative” to initiate and carry forward a dialogue in Jammu and Kashmir on October 23, 2017, and given the rank of Cabinet Secretary.

• Iran’s watchdog body has approved a law that obliges the government to halt U.N. inspections of its nuclear sites and step up uranium enrichment beyond the limit set under Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal.
• Under the new law, Tehran gives one month to the deal’s European parties to ease sanctions on Iran’s oil and financial sectors, imposed after Washington quit the pact between Tehran and six powers in 2018.
• It also says the government should resume uranium enrichment to 20% and install advanced centrifuges at its Natanz and Fordow nuclear facilities.

• Japanese space agency’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft is on its intended trajectory as it approaches Earth to deliver a capsule containing samples from a distant asteroid.
• JAXA has set up satellite dishes at several locations in the target area to receive the signals, while also preparing marine radar, drones, and helicopters to assist in the search and retrieval of the capsule.
• Scientists believe the samples, especially ones taken from under the asteroid’s surface, contain valuable data unaffected by space radiation and other environmental factors.
• JAXA hopes to find clues to how the materials are distributed in the solar system and are related to life on Earth.

• The kingdom of Bahrain has become the second nation in the world to grant an emergency-use authorisation for the coronavirus vaccine made by Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech.
• The confirmation of approval by the National Health Regulatory Authority of the kingdom of Bahrain followed thorough analysis and review undertaken by the authority of all available data.
• The immediate challenge for Bahrain would be the conditions in which the vaccine must be kept. They must be stored and shipped at ultra-cold temperatures of around minus 70 degrees Celsius. Bahrain is a Mideast nation that regularly sees temperatures in the summer of around 40 degrees Celsius with high humidity.

• Indian-American Gitanjali Rao, a young scientist, and inventor, has been named by TIME magazine as the first-ever ‘Kid of the Year’.
• Ms. Rao, 15, was selected from a field of more than 5,000 nominees as TIME’s first-ever Kid of the Year. She was interviewed by actor and activist Angelina Jolie for the TIME special.
• She has been honoured for her astonishing work using technology to tackle issues ranging from contaminated drinking water to opioid addiction and cyberbullying, and about her mission to create a global community of young innovators to solve problems the world over.