• The report revealed that global average connection speed increased 8.6% to 5.6 Mbps from the third quarter, a 23% increase year-over-year.
• South Korea had the top average connection speed at 26.7 Mbps, while India was the slowest in the Asia Pacific region with average speeds of 2 Mbps.
• The peak speed in India was also lower than South Korea’s average — at 21.2 Mbps.
• Also, in the fourth quarter of 2015, 32% of unique IP addresses across the world connected to Akamai at average speeds above 10 Mbps, an increase of 15% over the previous quarter. Year-over-year, this was a 34% increase.
• When it comes to mobile connectivity, the report places United Kingdom on top with the fastest average mobile connection speed at 26.8Mbps, and Spain in second place at 14.0 Mbps.
• Iran had the lowest average connection speed, at 1.3 Mbps, followed by Vietnam with an average connection speed of 1.8 Mbps.

Bengaluru based Indian Institute of Science (IISc) has bagged a United States military contract for research and development (R&D) on solar powered micro-grid.

About Indian Institute of Science (IISc) 

• Indian Institute of Science (IISc) is a public university for scientific research and higher education located in Bangalore, India. Established in 1909 with active support from Jamsetji Tata it is also locally known as the “Tata Institute”.
• IISc has been ranked number 1 and 4 in the BRICS and Asian region respectively while considering the criteria of Papers per Faculty in 2015.
• IISc has also been ranked 6th in the criteria of research by the Times Higher Education Rankings for the BRICS & Emerging Economies Rankings 2016.

China’s Tianhe-2 supercomputer has emerged as the world’s most powerful supercomputer system. It was unveiled in 46th edition of Top500 list of supercomputers.

• The Chinese Supercomputer is capable of performing calculations with processing speed of 33.86 petaflops per second (Pflop/s).
• Supercomputer Titan of the US Department of Energy has been placed at second position. It has a performance of 17.59 Pflop/s.
• Supercomputer Sequoia of Tech giant IBM was placed at third position. It has processing speed of 17.17 Pflop/s.
• K computer of Fujitsu was placed at fourth position. It has processing speed of 10.51 Pflop/s.
• Supercomputer Mira of IBM placed at fifth position. It has processing speed of 8.58 Pflop/s.

About Tianhe-2

• Supercomputer Tianhe-2 or Milky Way 2 has been developed by China’s National University of Defense Technology.
• It has processing speeds of 33.86 petaflops (1000 trillion calculations) per second.
• Presently, it is deployed at the National Supercomputer Center in Guangzhou and is playing important role in boosting China’s capabilities in both scientific and defence fields.

• India seeks to develop a road map for research to solve major engineering and technology challenges in 10 technology domains relevant for the country.
• These 10 domains are: Health Care, Computer Science and ICT, Advance Materials, Water Resources and River systems, Sustainable Urban Design, Defence, Nano-technology Hardware, Environmental Science and Climate Change and Energy Security.
• These domains are distributed among IIT Kharagpur, IIT Kanpur, IIT Bomaby, IIT Rookree, IIT Madras and IISC, Bengaluru.
• Objectives of this initiative: (i) identify areas of immediate relevance that requires innovation in the society. (ii) Direct scientific research in the identified areas.
• (iii) Ensure support and higher funding for research for identified areas (iv) Measure the outcomes of innovation and research efforts and its impact on the standard of living in the urban and rural areas.

China’s first lunar rover, Yutu, has set the new record for the longest stay by a rover on the lunar surface.

• In 1970, China by successfully launching its first satellite Dongfanghong-1 became the 5th country after USSR, US, France and Japan to launch a domestic satellite using a domestic rocket.
• In the 1990s, China launched its manned space programme and in 2003 successfully sent country’s first astronaut Yang Liwei into orbit on the Shenzhou-5 spacecraft.
• Presently, China is also planning to land a lunar probe on the dark side of the moon which is never visible to Earth to become the first country. The mission will be carried out by Chang’e-4 lunar probe, a backup probe for Chang’e-3.

US Senate has passed Cyber Security Legislation to facilitating sharing of cyber-attack threats. It was passed by 74 votes in favour of it and 21 votes against it.

• The bill reconciles with the earlier-passed House Cyber Security Bill.
• Seeks to help in preventing future cyber-attacks by facilitating a common awareness in the cyber realm.
• Encourages private companies to voluntarily share information related to cyber threat with the government and one another.
• Provides private companies immunity for sharing the information from lawsuits by consumers and shareholders.

• United States Government was under pressure to act in the wake of recent high-profile cyber-attacks against multiples private companies including Sony Pictures and others.
• The passage of legislation comes just after US Congress had voted to rein in the powers of the National Security Agency (NSA) following revelations of vast surveillance programmes in leaked documents by former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden.

The Eighth edition of National Seed Congress (NSC) has begun in Hyderabad to deliberate on advanced seed development technologies and regulatory measures.

About National Seed Congress

• It is an annual event organised by Union Agriculture Minister organised in different states.
• Aim: To address farmers issues for accessing quality seeds of new varieties through an innovative seed supply system.
• This system seeks to facilitate the development of new plant varieties and the delivery of high quality seed varieties to farmers to further increase crop productivity, food Security and economic development.