ZikaVac vaccines

Indian biotechnology company Bharat Biotech claimed that it has achieved a breakthrough in developing a vaccine to fight the mosquito-borne Zika virus. Bharat Biotech developed world’s first, two promising candidates ZikaVac vaccines for Zika infection.

The company is probably the first in the world to file for global patent for the two vaccines.

NASA’s New Horizons mission spotted the nitrogen ice glaciers on Pluto appeared to carry numerous isolated hills which are likely to be the fragments of water ice, as per the press release of NASA.

The first machine harvestable chickpea variety, NBeG 47 was released in Andhra Pradesh. It was released by International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid-Tropics (ICRISAT).

The US space agency NASA announced that the first flight of its new rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS), carrying 13 CubeSats and an uncrewed Orion Spacecraft will be launched in 2018.

The Union Cabinet gave in-principal approval to the Laser Interferometer Gravitationalwave Observatory (LIGO) - India project to study gravitational waves.

LIGO-India is a part of the IndIGO (Indian Initiative in Gravitational-wave Observations) initiative and seeks to move one Advanced LIGO detector from Hanford to India.

World Health Organisation (WHO)

India and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) entered into a partnership to explore the environment of Ladakh under NASA’s Spaceward Bound programme.

 World Health Organisation (WHO) declared Public Health Emergency of International Concern over the explosive spread of the mosquito-borne Zika virus, which is linked to birth defects in the Americas.

The Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority (HFEA) of United Kingdom granted license to the Francis Crick Institute to use new gene editing techniques on human embryos.

Dr Harsh Vardhan, the Union Minister for Science, Technology and Earth Sciences inaugurated the construction work of Borehole Geophysics Research Laboratory (BGRL) at Hazarmachi, Karad of Maharashtra.

Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) launched the BGR-34, the country's first anti-diabetic ayurvedic drug for Diabetes. BGR is acronym for blood glucose regulator.

United Nations Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF)

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the United Nations Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) jointly launched the Global Programme to Accelerate Action to End Child Marriage.

The Board of Governors of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) approved a 2.3 million euro initiative to help Latin American and the Caribbean countries fight against Zika virus

US and South Korean troops began their largest ever military exercises off the coast of the Korean peninsula. The bilateral exercises come just days after the UN passed new sanctions against Pyongyang, North Korea following its recent nuclear test and rocket launch.

UNHCR, UNICEF launched a Twenty Child and Family Support Hubs, known as Blue Dots. These support centers will acts as a special support centers for children and families along the most frequently used migration routes in Europe.

World's most expensive train station, the World Trade Centre Transportation Hub, opened in New York, the United States of America.