13 Consecutive Win for Indian-American in Scripps National Spelling Bee

13 Consecutive Win for Indian-American in Spelling Bee

Indian-American has continued to win the prestigious Scripps National Spelling Bee for the record 13th year in a row.

Image courtesy:beacontn.org

This Year Ananya Vinay ,  a 12 year old Indian American girl has won the Spelling Bee. More than 11 million youngsters had entered the competition this time. 

Ananya took home $ 40,000 cash prize after correctly spelling 'marocain' to become the 13th consecutive winner from the community. She won the spelling competition after competing for 12 hours and spelled 35 words correctly. Her rival , Rohan Rajeev, 14 year old Indian-American misspelled Scandinavian  derived word 'marram' which means a beach grass.

Image courtesy:theringer.com

Ananya is the 13th consecutive Indian-American to win Scripps National Spelling Bee and the 18th of the past  22 winners with Indian heritage. This competition began in 1999 with the victory of Nupur Lala.

The Scripps National Spelling Bee is an annual spelling bee held in the United States. The bee is run on not-for-profit basis by E.W. Scripps Company. Contest participants can not be older than fourteen.  

Indian Immigrant's Son Now Ireland's Prime Minister

Indian Immigrant's Son Now Ireland's Prime Minister

Indo-Irish relations are the bilateral ties between India and Ireland. The two countries had a similar fight against a common adversary as former part of British Empire. Many of the provisions of Constitution of India were taken from their Irish counterpart. Indo-Irish relations were also strengthened by the great personalities such as Rabindra Nath Tagore, Jawahar Lal Nehru, W B Yeats, Sister Nivedita, Annie Besant, James Joyce.

Today the relation between India and Ireland has  reached to the highest level after son of an Indian immigrant  becoming Prime Minister of Ireland.

Governing Fine Gael party of Ireland has elected Leo Varadkar as its new leader, choosing the gay, 38 year old son of an Indian immigrant to succeed Enda Kenny as Prime Minister. Leo was born on 18th January 1979 in Castleknock,  Republic of Ireland

Leo Varadkar
Image Courtesy : irishtimes.com

This is a striking sign of rapid social change of the country. Leo will become the once staunchly Catholic country's first openly gay premier,  the youngest person ever to hold the office and also the first from an ethnic minority background.

Image courtesy:cnn.com 

Leo Varadkar's father Ashok, like his son, is a doctor and was born in Mumbai. He met his wife Miriam, an Irish nurse, in England in the 1970s before moving to Ireland where Varadkar was born. Dr Ashok hails from a family of nine siblings native to Varad region near Malwan along the Konkan coast India.

Rajasthan Bags Digital Leader of the Year Award

Rajasthan Bags Digital Leader of the Year Award

Rajasthan government has  recently bagged Digital Leader of the Year Award for bringing  digital revolution in the state. Amongst other states the desert state of Rajasthan has received four Digital India Summit Awards.

It was  facilitated with awards in four categories namely:

1.  Digital Leader of the Year - Hon'ble Chief Minister,                    Rajasthan

2.  eGovernance Initiative of the Year -Bhamashah

3.  Effective Use of Tech for Security & Safety - Abhay                    Command Centre

4.  Health Insurance Initiative of the Year - Bhamashah                    Swasthya Bima Yojana

Jaipur Development Authority of Rajasthan has launched a Smart  App. If someone wants to go in a certain area and wants to know about the security or road condition there, this app will give every such information. The government has claimed that such app is available in Jaipur only after Singapur.

Image courtesy:jaipuronline.com

It is now difficult to leave unclaimed bag. Jaipur Metro Railway Station has installed such a system which will help in identifying the person, going back in past history just after some time of leaving the unclaimed bag, and the complete information will be transmitted into the command centre. 

Image courtesy: youtube.com

If someone is going to a mall or market, the person can book the parking before leaving the house. Not only that, Jaipur Development Authority can get the information about filled-up dustbins in the whole city so that the same can be unloaded.

There are  environmental censors in 15 areas of Jaipur. Here a project has been initiated for saving the electricity through digitalization. The vehicle will keep moving forward in the night and street light will go off behind.

Varanasi To Get India's First "Freight Village" Status

Varanasi To Get India's First "Freight Village" Status

Lal Bahadur Shastri International Airport Varanasi
Image (C) Dr Ajay Kumar Ojha

A 'Freight Village' is a defined  area within which all activities relating to transport, logistics and distribution of goods , both for national and international transit, are carried out by various operators. 'Freight Village' includes an inter-modal terminal, which facilitates integration between different modes of transport.

As per government reports, being a strategic location  Varanasi provides the opportunity to make easy the transshipment of about 30 million tonnes of domestic freight as well as another nine million tonnes of export-import freight. 

Not only that. The project will provide connectivity to the Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor, the country's longest waterways, and the national highway as well.

Ganga Ghat in Varanasi
Image (C) Dr Ajay Kumar Ojha

When completed, Varanasi will become the first 'Freight Village' of India, spread over around hundred acres. This big facility will not only bring investment but also generate jobs.

First Ever 18 from Jammu & Kashmir Crack Civil Services Exam

First Ever 18 from Jammu & Kashmir 

Crack Civil Services Exam 

Image (C) Dr Ajay Kumar Ojha
Srinagar Jammu & Kashmir

It is a moment for great pride  for not only Jammu & Kashmir but for whole of India as eighteen candidates of this state has qualified the coveted Civil Services Examination held in 2016. 

Name                                         Rank

1. Bilal Mohiuddin Bhat           10

2. Zaffar Iqbal,                                39

3. Ayushi Sudan                       65

4. Syed Fakhrudin Hamid         85

5. Bisma Qazi                            115

6. Suhail Qasim Mir                  125

7. Akhil Mahajan                       213 

8. Aditya Bhardwaj                   441

9. Saqib Yusuf                          472

10.Inab Khaliq                          604

11.Faisal Javed                         610 

12.Sahil Sarangal                      628

13.Vikrant Bhushan                  639 

14.Mohnish Digra                     776

15.Anayat Ali Chowdhary         808

16.Danish Agastam                   814 

17.Sahil Digra                            917

18.Amir Bhasir                           1087

Bilal Mohiuddin Bhat
Image coutesy:hindustantimes.com

Bilal Mohiuddin Bhat has achieved the 10th position in CS Examintion 2016. He is sanguine that his achievement would encourage a lot of Kashmiri youths to come to the mainstream and work for the development of the nation. Bilal hails from remote border district of Handwara in North Kashmir.

Last year Athar Aamir ul Shafi Khan of Jammu & Kashmir  bagged the 2nd position in Civil Services Examination 2015.