Kerala Tourism won “Responsible Tourism Global award” at the World Travel Mart

Kerala Tourism won “Responsible Tourism Global award” at the World Travel Mart

• The Kerala Tourism has bagged the prestigious Responsible Tourism Global award at the World Travel Mart held in London. 
• State Tourism Minister PA Mohammed Riyas received the award on behalf of the department at London. 
• The award was given for the STREET project implemented by the Responsible Tourism Mission under the Kerala Government. 
• STREET is an acronym for Sustainable, Tangible, Responsible, Experiential, Ethnic, and Tourism hubs, which was implemented by the Responsible Tourism Mission under the Government of Kerala on March 31, 2022. The STREET Project is an initiative that promotes water conservation and protection with public participation.
• Under the project, the deepening and cleaning of canals and other water bodies take place to promote tourism, as Kerala is famous for its backwaters and also preserve the water bodies to be maintained good condition.

India’s longest river cruise to Sail from Varanasi in January 2023

• The government is set to launch the world’s longest luxury river cruise from Varanasi to Dibrugarh via Bangladesh next year. The world’s longest luxury river cruise aims to give a push to Indian inland waterways development.
• The 50 days cruise will set sail from Varanasi and pass-through Kolkata and Dhaka before reaching Bogibeel in the Dibrugarh district of Assam. The cruise will sail on 10th January 2023 and will cover a distance of 4,000 km.
• The world’s longest luxury river cruise or the Ganga Vilas cruise will sail from Varanasi to Dibrugarh in the longest river journey of 50 days.
• The 50 days long journey will cover 27 river systems and visit over 50 tourist sites including World Heritage Sites.

Atomic energy, hydrogen power India’s net zero plans

• At the United Nations Conference of Parties (COP) in Sharm elSheikh, India on Monday announced its long term strategy to transition to a “low emissions” pathway, which is premised on expanding its nuclear power capacity by at least three fold in the next decade, apart from becoming an international hub for producing green hydrogen and increasing the proportion of ethanol in petrol.
• Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav said these steps were consonant with India’s “five decade journey” to net zero, or being carbon neutral by2070 — a commitment made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Glasgow, where the 26th COP was held last year.

Nobel laureate Venki Rama krishnan honoured UK’s royal Order of Merit

• India-born Nobel laureate Professor Venki Ramakrishnan has been awarded the prestigious Order of Merit by Britain’s King Charles III in recognition of his distinguished service to science. 
• The 70-year-old UK-based molecular biologist is among six appointments made to the historic order by the late Queen Elizabeth II before her death in September and the first to be appointed by Charles. 
• The Order of Merit is an exclusive mark of honour conferred by the British sovereign.
• Professor Venki was born in Chidambaram in Tamil Nadu and studied biology in the US before moving to the UK where he is the Group Leader of the leading research hub MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology at Cambridge University.
• He received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2009 for his work on ribosomal structure and was knighted by the Queen in 2012. He was President of the UK’s Royal Society from November 2015 until November 2020.