The Union Ministry of Coal has launched Coal Mitra, a web portal for allowing flexibility in utilization of domestic Coal.

The National Green Tribunal (NGT) imposed a complete ban on burning of waste in open places across the country and announced a fine of Rs. 25,000 on each incident of bulk waste burning.

Recently released Global Wage Report 2016-17 released by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) has found that India suffers from huge gender pay gap.

• December 22: National Mathematics Day
• Union Cabinet approves ordinance to pay salaries by cheques
• Kaisa Matomaki, Maksym Radziwill win 2016 SASTRA Ramanujan award

The Union Cabinet has approved a draft ordinance to empower states and allow industries to pay workers wages digitally, through a direct bank transfer to accounts or by cheque in a bid to encourage cashless transactions.

Kaisa Matomaki and Maksym Radziwill have been jointly won the 2016 SASTRA-Ramanujan award for mathematics for their revolutionary collaborative work on short intervals in number theory. Their mathematical work dwells on properties of numbers in short intervals.

US based researchers for the first time have observed the creation of ice crystals on individual atmospheric particles in the laboratory.

Long range nuclear-capable subsonic cruise missile Nirbhay was testfired from the launch complex 3 of the Integrated Missile Test Range in Balasore, Odisha.

According to report published in Forbes magazine, India has surpassed its colonial masters United Kingdom to become worlds sixth-largest economy in GDP terms for first time after nearly 150 years.

Hong Kong, a China-administered special territory has decided to withdraw visa-free facility for Indians from January 23, 2017.

• PM lays foundation stone of country’s first Indian Institute of Skills in Kanpur
• Huge dead zone discovered in Bay of Bengal
• Union Government revises North East Industrial and Investment Promotion Policy

According to recent World Health Organization (WHO) survey of 33 countries has shown that African nations developing lifestyle diseases.