Siddhartha Upadhyay, the sports entrepreneur and philanthropist, has been appointed the new member in the governing body of Sports Authority of India (SAI). He is the founder and secretary general of the Society for Transformation, Inclusion, and Recognition through Sports (STAIRS). The STAIRS is a not-for-profit organization work towards sports, education, health and skill development of children across India. The new SAI governing body also includes prominent sporting names such as badminton ace Jwala Gutta, shooter Gagan Narang, athletes Ashwani Nachappa and Shiny Wilson.

Arun Sarma (86), the renowned Assamese playwright and Sahitya Akademi Award-winning novelist, has recently passed away in New Delhi. He also won a number of awards, including Padma Shri, Sahitya Academi award and Assam Valley Literary award.

Sitaram Swain, the Odisha-based installation artist, has been chosen for the 6th edition of the Glenfiddich’s Emerging Artist of the Year 2017. Swain will represent India at the Glenfiddich Artists in Residence (AiR) programme where he will spend 3 months at the Glenfiddich Distillery in Scotland with seven artists from around the world. He will be also awarded Rs 10 lakh, which includes an international allowance of Rs 1,20,000 per month and a work allowance of Rs 500,000.

The Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting, M Venkaiah Naidu has recently launched the Online Film Certification System “e-Cinepramaan” of the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) to promote transparency & Ease of Doing Business. The objective is to eliminate the need for human interface to the extent possible. Under the new process, the status of each application (filed by film producers) would be visible online in the dashboard of the producer/concerned CBFC official. Additionally, the new process will eliminate middle men and would mitigate chances of any corruption. The new online certification system would be an important step in making the CBFC Office paper less and would enable effective monitoring & real time progress tracking for both CBFC Officials and the applicant (Producers).

Ravichandran Ashwin has recently won the Sir Garfield Sobers Trophy for the ICC Cricketer of the Year 2016 as well as the ICC Test Cricketer of the Year 2016 from former India captains Kapil Dev and Sunil Gavaskar. With this, he became the 3rd Indian to win the Sir Garfield Sobers Trophy for the ICC Cricketer of the Year after Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar and also the second cricketer ever after Dravid to win the two awards in the same year. The Sir Garfield Sobers Trophy is a cricket trophy awarded annually by the International Cricket Council to its chosen world player of the year. It was first awarded in 2004 to Rahul Dravid.