Community leadership
Established in 1957, the Ramon Magsaysay Award is Asia’s highest honour, and is named in the honour of the third Philippine President. Kulandei Francis, who has been chosen for the Ramon Magsaysay Award for the year 2012, for economic empowerment of thousands of women and their families in rural India.

Narcopolis
His debut novel Narcopolis is built around the opium and heroin dens of Mumbai.

Narendra Modi

Near Threatened
The Himalayan Tahr (Hemitragus jemlahicus) is one of three species of Tahr found in Asia; the other two being the Nilgiri Tahr and the Arabian Tahr. It is a type of mountain goat that is found in mountain pastures in the upper reaches of the Himalayas. Uttarakhand used to sustain a good population of Tahrs in the past.

Persistent Organic Pollutant (POP)
Despite the morbid affects of the use of pesticide Endosulfan in Kerala and Karnataka, the Centre has recommended the Supreme Court to allow the remaining quantity of the pesticide to be used by other States. At present, the apex court has banned use of Endosulfan across the country by its order dated May 13, 2011.With consensus emerging on phasing out of endosulfan the Centre informed the Court that the Stockholm Convention that governed use of such chemicals permitted endosulfan to be phased out across five years. During such period, imports are stopped and the existing stock was either exported or used domestically. At present, there was a total of 18 metric ton (MT) of Endosulfan formulation lying in the country, besides 2658 MT raw material HCCP and 128 MT of endosulfan dust.

Tiger Reserves

Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO)

Puducherry
Punjab has replaced Kerala as the best in the composite educational development index (EDI), to be among the top three States. It is now ranked third, with Puducherry and Lakshadweep occupying the first two slots. The study, conducted in the 35 States and Union Territories by the National University of Educational Planning and Administration

Both 1 and 2
Home Minister P. Chidambaram has said over 500 new border out posts (BOPs) would be constructed along international borders with Pakistan and Bangladesh to check infiltration and cross border movement of terrorists. Border Area Development Programme (BADP) covers 358 blocks of 96 border districts of 17 States located along the international land border. The programme is a 100 per cent Centrally-sponsored scheme. Funds are provided to the States as a non-lapsable special Central assistance for execution of projects relating to infrastructure, livelihood, education, health, agriculture and allied sector.

Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (IICT)
As the search for alternative energy sources continues world over due to depleting fossil fuel reserves, scientists from the Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (IICT) in Hyderabad have a developed a knowhow to produce bio-hydrogen, a renewable energy, through wastewater and industrial effluents. By adopting a process called ‘dark fermentation’, the scientists have produced bio-hydrogen (hydrogen gas) using the carbon source available in the wastewater. Hydrogen gas has the potential for conversion to usable power with high efficiency without any pollution. It could be produced by different methods –thermo-chemical (pyrolysis), electro-chemical (electrolysis) and biological. The process basically involved conversion of the pollution load (COD-chemical oxygen demand) to produce bio-hydrogen. If 60 per cent of COD is removed, 40 per cent of that could be converted into bio-hydrogen.

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