1 Neeraj Chopra wins gold with 84.52m throw at Potchefstroom Invitational Tournament in South Africa
Double Olympic medallist Neeraj Chopra kicked off his 2025 season with an impressive throw of 84.52m at the Potchefstroom Invitational in South Africa on Wednesday . His performance ensured a gold medal as he topped the six-men field in a crucial year for world athletics. Chopra finished well ahead of 25-year-old South African javelin thrower Dou Smit , who recorded a best throw of 82.44m . The Indian star had some strong throws in the early season, with only he and Smit crossing the 80m mark. The third-best throw was by local athlete Duncan Robertson, who managed 71.22m. Though Neeraj’s throw was short of his personal best of 89.94m, it was a solid start, while Smit came close to his own mark of 83.29m.
2 Tamil Nadu constitutes Kurien Joseph Committee to review Centre-State relations
The Tamil Nadu government has announced the formation of a three-member committee headed by former Supreme Court judge Justice Kurian Joseph to review Centre-State relations . Chief Minister MK Stalin announced the decision in the state assembly on 15 April 2025. The MK Stalin -led DMK government in Tamil Nadu does not have good relations with the BJP-led NDA (National Democratic Alliance) government at the Centre. It has always opposed the Centre’s National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) for medical admissions and the New Education Policy 2020. The DMK government believes that the Centre is encroaching upon the rights of the state through these policies. In 1969, MK Stalin’s father and former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi had set up a similar committee headed by former Chief Justice of Madras High Court PV Rajamannar . The ruling DMK party has a history of supporting greater state autonomy under the Indian Constitution and has always opposed a strong Centre.
India’s GDP growth is estimated to be 6.4% amid 3 global uncertainties, Fitch
Credit rating agency Fitch released its new estimates for the Indian economy on Thursday . The agency has said that India’s GDP growth can be 6.4 percent in the financial year 2025-26 (FY26), while this estimate has been maintained at 6.3 percent for the next financial year 2026-27 (FY27) . Fitch has reduced its earlier estimate of India’s GDP growth by 0.1% in view of global economic uncertainties, especially the fears of trade tensions between the US and China. Earlier the estimate for FY25 was 6.3%, which has now been reduced to 6.2%. Similarly, the estimate for FY26 has also been reduced from 6.5% to 6.4%.
4 Mansukh Mandaviya inaugurated new unit to prevent doping
Union Sports Minister Dr. Mansukh Mandaviya on Thursday inaugurated the Athlete Passport Management Unit (APMU) at the National Dope Testing Laboratory in New Delhi . The aim of this unit is to make sports free from unethical activities like doping and to monitor athletes so that they participate in the competition in a clean and honest manner. Under this new technology, the physical profile of the players will be monitored for a long time through the Athlete Biological Passport (ABP) system. This will reveal whether a player is doping or not. This unit has been built according to the rules of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and it is the 17th such unit in the world . Through this, the blood and steroid levels of the players will be monitored so that any unethical method can be caught before it is adopted.
5 Maharashtra became the first state to implement three language policy
The Maharashtra government has decided that it will be compulsory for students of classes 1 to 5 in Marathi and English medium schools across the state to study Hindi as a third language . This is different from the practice of studying two languages. At the same time, the state political party Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) has condemned this decision of the government. The three-language formula for classes 1 to 5 is a part of the new curriculum implementation under the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. The state school education department has announced a plan for the phased implementation of the new curriculum framework prepared as per the recommendations of NEP 2020 for school education. According to the Government Resolution (GR), Hindi will be compulsory as a third language from classes 1 to 5 from the next academic year.
6 All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi has been ranked 97th best hospital globally
The All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi has been ranked 97th best hospital globally in the World’s Best Hospitals 2024 rankings by Newsweek and Statista . This honor shows AIIMS’ excellence in providing high quality healthcare, medical research and affordable treatment. This ranking has been given after evaluating more than 2,400 hospitals in 30 countries . Apart from this, the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh has been ranked 228th in the list. A private hospital in Gurugram has been ranked 146th. This honor shows AIIMS’ excellence in providing high quality healthcare, medical research and affordable treatment. This ranking has been given after evaluating more than 2,400 hospitals in 30 countries.
7 India tops developing countries in getting investments for agrifood tech sector in 2024: Report
India topped the list of developing countries in getting investments for the agrifood tech sector in 2024. Funding for this sector grew by 215 per cent last year . At the same time, the number of deals increased by 27 per cent. According to the report prepared by Omnivore in collaboration with global investment platform, AgFunder, investment has increased in five of the top 10 countries in 2024. The report said that last year, investment in India’s agrifood tech startups has increased more than 3 times to $2.5 billion. Investment in Singapore grew by 3 per cent to $172 million, investment in Mexico grew by 250 per cent to $97 million and investment in Vietnam grew by 350 per cent to $87 million and investment in Chile grew by 33 per cent to $58 million. According to the report, this increase in investment is due to the funds raised by quick commerce company Zepto . Zepto was the most funded agrifoodtech company globally in 2024, raising nearly $1.4 billion across three late-stage deals. Agrifood tech investments in developing markets grew 63 percent year-on-year to $3.7 billion in 2024, representing 23 percent of total investments globally.
8 India will remain the fastest growing major economy with a growth rate of six and a half percent in 2025
According to the latest report of the United Nations Trade and Development Organization , India will remain the fastest growing major economy with a growth rate of six and a half percent in 2025. On the other hand, the world seems to be heading towards recession. In the ‘Trade and Development Forecast Report-2025’, India has been included among those countries which are accelerating growth with high government spending and monetary policy stimulus. The report estimates China’s growth rate to be 4.4 percent. The growth rate of the US economy and the European Union is estimated to be one percent, while the growth rate of France, Germany and Italy is expected to be less than one percent. Similarly, Japan’s economic growth rate may fall to only 0.5 percent.
9 C-DOT and Sterlite Technologies Limited achieve India’s first Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) over Multi-core Fiber
In a landmark achievement, C-DOT in collaboration with Sterlite Technologies Limited (STL) has successfully tested India’s first QKD transmission over a 4-core Multi-Core Fiber (MCF) . This is a significant milestone for the country towards a quantum-secure communication network. Multi-Core Fiber (MCF) technology offers powerful solutions by enabling data transmission across multiple cores within a single fiber. This saves a lot of physical space and infrastructure costs. QKD usually requires a dedicated dark fiber for the quantum channel. In this context – MCF offers a significant advantage: it enables physical separation of quantum and conventional signals in different cores within a single fiber. This allows simultaneous transmission of QKD and high-capacity data traffic over the same fiber without compromising quantum signal communication, thereby saving fiber costs.
10 Indian telescopes shed light on elusive ‘middleweight’ black holes
Detecting an intermedia black hole (IMBH) located in a faint galaxy about 4.3 million light-years away using India’s largest optical telescope, astronomers have found that clouds of gas orbit the black hole at a distance of 125 light-minutes (about 2.25 billion kilometres) with a velocity dispersion of 545 km per second . Detecting an intermedia black hole (IMBH) located in a faint galaxy about 4.3 million light-years away using India’s largest optical telescope , astronomers have found that clouds of gas orbit the black hole at a distance of 125 light-minutes (about 2.25 billion kilometres) with a velocity dispersion of 545 km per second. This discovery further enhances our understanding of how black holes, especially those weighing between 100 and 100,000 Suns, grow and interact with their surroundings. For decades, astronomers have searched for a missing link in the cosmic black hole family: the elusive intermediate-mass black hole (IMBH). Bridging the gap between small stellar black holes (which have masses a few dozen times the mass of the Sun) and giant supermassive black holes (which have masses ranging from millions to billions of solar masses), IMBHs remain elusive.
11 Bose Institute scientists receive Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics
The Experimental High Energy Physics Group of the Bose Institute has been awarded the Breakthrough Prize 2025 in Fundamental Physics under ALICE at the European Organization for Nuclear Research . The group currently comprises Faculty Members – Prof. Supriya Das, Dr. Siddhartha Kumar Prasad and Dr. Saikat Biswas , Postdoctoral Fellow – Dr. Sanchari Thakur and Senior Research Fellow – Mr. Mintu Haldar . The $3 million Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics for the year 2025 has been awarded to thousands of researchers from over 70 countries representing four experimental collaborations at the European Organization for Nuclear Research ‘s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) – ATLAS, CMS, ALICE and Large Hadron Collider Beauty (LHCb). Bose Institute, Kolkata, the only autonomous institute under the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, is working on a Large Ion Collider Experiment (ALICE) at CERN in collaboration with several other collaborators in India . Ellis studies quark-gluon plasma (QGP) , a state of extremely hot and dense matter that existed in the first microseconds after the Big Bang.