January - 02 NATIONAL Exchange list of nuclear installations India and Pakistan exchanged through diplomatic channels simultaneously at New Delhi and Islamabad, the list of nuclear installations and facilities under a three-decade old bilateral pact. This is the twenty seventh consecutive exchange of such a list between the two countries. The two sides exchanged the list under the Agreement on the Prohibition of Attack against Nuclear Installations between India and Pakistan. The agreement, which was signed on December 31, 1988, and entered into force on January 27, 1991, provides that the two countries inform each other of nuclear installations and facilities to be covered under the pact on the first of January of every calendar year. The term 'nuclear installation or facility' includes nuclear power reactors, fuel fabrication, uranium enrichment, isotopes separation and reprocessing facilities as well as any other installations with fresh or irradiated nuclear fuel. SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY Parker Solar probe NASA’s Parker Solar Probe is scheduled for launch in 2018 to explore the Sun’s outer atmosphere. The probe will use Venus’ gravity during seven flybys over nearly seven years to gradually bring its orbit closer to the Sun. The Parker Solar Probe will perform its scientific investigations in a hazardous region of intense heat and solar radiation. The primary science goals for the mission are to trace how energy and heat move through the solar corona and to explore what accelerates the solar wind as well as solar energetic particles. PERSONALITIES, AWARDS AND EVENTS New foreign secretary The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has approved the appointment of Vijay Keshav Gokhale, to the post of foreign secretary. Gokhale, a 1981-batch officer of the Indian Foreign Service (IFS), had played a key role in India-China negotiations last year to resolve the 73-day standoff between Indian Army and Chinese People's Liberation Army at Doklam Plateau. Doklam Plateau is a tri-junction between Sino-India and Bhutanese border near Sikkim. ------------- .