17 MARCH 2015: Nancie Atwell won $1million global teaching prize

Ø  The Taj Mahal has emerged as the most popular destination in Asia for global “virtual travellers”, Google says.

Ø  U.S.-based teacher Nancie Atwell has been awarded the world’s first $1 million global teacher prize, for which Ahmedabad-based Kiran Bir Sethi was also a finalist. Nancie Atwell, a teacher at The Centre for Teaching and Learning in Edgecomb, Maine, United States, has been named as the first winner of the one million dollar Varkey Foundation Global Teacher Prize, widely referred to as the Nobel Prize for teaching. Kiran Bir Sethi, a top ten finalist from India who teaches at Riverside School in Ahmedabad, lost out to Ms. Atwell. The $1 million Varkey Foundation Global Teacher Prize was set up to recognise one exceptional teacher who has made an outstanding contribution to the profession.

Ø  China has eased ahead of Germany and France to become the world’s number three arms exporter after the United States and Russia, a Stockholm-based think-tank said. The volume of the multi-billion dollar world arms trade rose 16 per cent during the period 2010 to 2014 over the previous five years, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute added in its annual report. The figures show that “the United States has taken a firm lead” with 31 per cent of global exports of conventional weapons, SIPRI said, with Russia in second place at 27 per cent.The next three arms exporters are far behind with about five per cent each, and China is only slightly ahead of fourth-ranked Germany and fifth-ranked France.