· India signed an agreement to import natural gas from Turkmenistan through an ADB-funded $7.6-billion gas pipeline passing through Pakistan and Afghanistan. Oil Minister Murli Deora signed the Inter-Governmental Agreement (IGA) and the Gas Pipeline Framework Agreement for the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline.
· Sri Lanka has scrapped the Tamil version of its national anthem at official and state functions, a move likely to further alienate the ethnic Tamils in the country. Now the national anthem can only be rendered in the majority Sinhala language at official functions.
· Kaziranga in Assam has highest tiger density in the world.
· Iconic Indian batsman Sachin Tendulkar's record-breaking ODI double century has found a place in the Time magazine's top 10 sports moments of the year.
· In order to prove its commitment to expand press freedom and the free flow of information in this digital age, US will host UNESCO's 'World Press Freedom Day' event in May 2011. UNESCO is the only UN agency with the mandate to promote freedom of expression and its corollary, freedom of the press. The theme for next year's commemoration will be "21st Century Media: New Frontiers, New Barriers”.
· Former Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Anil Kakodkar will be conferred with the prestigious Homi Bhabha Lifetime Achievement Award at the 21st Annual Conference of the Indian Nuclear Society.
· The Philippines has become the call centre capital of the world, overtaking India as the number one player in the global business outsourcing market, according to industry data and the government.
· China which spent about 580. 21 billion yuan (USD 87.25 billion) in 2009 for research and development is ranked fourth in the world after the U.S, Japan and Germany.
· Automaker Tata Motors Limited, Lucknow unit, has bagged the Rajiv Gandhi National Quality Award for 2009 in the "Best of All" category. The award is instituted by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS).
· Despite the country's robust economic growth, the number of people living in slums is likely to cross 93 million by 2011, marking an increase of around 23 per cent since 2001. A committee set up by Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation has projected this figure.
· Russia has successfully completed the creation of the world's first international nuclear fuel bank under an agreement with the IAEA.
· A leading NRI entrepreneur, John Athwal has been chosen for the Asian of the Year 2010 Award for his outstanding success in making a Christmas decorations business into a multi-million pounds industry.
· India and Taiwan are expected to double bilateral trade to USD 10 billion by 2015 through food processing, information and communication technology and electrical engineering tie-ups.
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