Current Affairs Update - 06 September 2016

Updated on : 20:55, 10 September 2016

— NATIONAL —

– Assam CM to inaugurate world class library in NIT Silchar

• Minister of Assam Sarbananda Sonowal has inaugurated a new world class library, ‘Bharat Ratn Dr A P J Abdul Kalam Learning Resource Centre in National Institute of Technology (NIT), Silchar.
• The library is established with the help of university of Illinois, USA. The library is one of kind in the entire north-eastern region equipped with modern technology and infrastructure. NIT Silchar has invested around 28 crore rupees, create this world class library.
• ASSAM
  • CM:  Sarbananda Sonowal (BJP)
  • GOVERNOR:  Banwarilal Purohit
  • CAPITAL:   DISPUR

– Haryana govt to develop 340 villages as Horticulture Villages

• Haryana Government has decided to develop 340 villages as Horticulture Villages at a cost of 93 crore rupees during the Golden Jubilee year of the State.
• It has also decided to establish 140 clusters in these villages.
• An MoU has signed with the Apio Inc. for processing and packaging of horticultural products in New Delhi.
• Under this project, producers in Haryana will supply fruits, flowers, vegetables and dairy products to these areas.
• About HARYANA
  • CM – Manohar Lal Khattar
  • GOVERNOR –Kaptan Singh Solanki
  • CAPITAL – CHANDIGARH

– Hyderabad-Karnataka regions First bird conservation reserve at Ankasamudra

• The Karnataka State Wildlife Board, chaired by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, has decided to declare Ankasamudra tank in Hagari Bommanahalli taluk as a bird conservation reserve.
• This is the first bird conservation reserve declared in the entire Hyderabad-Karnataka region.
• About KARNATAKA
  • CM – Siddaramaiah (INC)
  • GOVERNOR – Vajubhai ValA
  • CAPITAL – Bangalore

– Goa to host three-day bird festival

• Goa Minister for Environment and Forest Rajendra Arlekar targeting audiences from both within the country as also internationally. Goa’s state bird “Bulbul” has been chosen as the logo for the festival.
• The Western Ghats constitute one of the 25 mega bio-diversity hot spots in the world and by virtue of its location, the State represents a unique confluence of two diverse eco-systems, one influenced by marine environment and the other by terrestrial forest resulting in an astonishing diversity of species with high endemism, habitats and diversity.
• About GOA
  • CM : Laxmikant Parsekar (BJP)
  • GOVERNOR : Mridula Sinha
  • CAPITAL: Panaji

– Bihar 1^st state to  link Aadhaar with examination forms

• To clean up the examination system after the toppers scam, the Bihar School Examination Board has decided to link Aadhaar card number of the students with their examination forms to avoid duplication.
• This initiative is the first by any state board in the country. This would add greater transparency and facilitate easier access to the documents
• About BIHAR
  • CM : Nitish Kumar
  • GOVERNOR :Ram Nath Kovind
  • CAPITAL : Patna

– Rajasthan partners with Cisco for connected learning solution

• Rajasthan’s education department has partnered with US-based technology firm Cisco to promote digital learning across the state using virtual digital room solutions.
• It aims to enhance the quality of education through digital learning for academia to connect, collaborate, create, and share content across 12 centers of State Institute for Education Management and Training (SIEMAT) in the state.
• Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje announced this initiative on the occasion of Teachers’ Day and interacted with educators and students across all 12 SIEMAT facilities live – via the Connected Learning setup.
• About RAJASTHAN
  • CM : Vasundhra Raje
  • GOVERNOR : Kalyan Singh
  • CAPITAL : Jaipur

– NESAC technology to monitor progress of 700 NEC projects

• North Eastern Space Application Centre (NESAC). Around 700 government projects, which are facing delay and over-expenditure in Northeast India, will soon be monitored by a satellite system developed by a regional space Centre in Meghalaya.
• The 1.44-crore system, which was initiated in 2011 as a pilot project, will also provide geospatial inputs for projects in 36 districts across the region, officials have said

– India to be 50 years late in achieving education goals: UNESCO

• UNESCO’s new report has claimed that India will achieve universal education in 2085, over 50 years late than the the organisation’s education commitment set for 2030.
• Further, India will achieve universal lower primary education in 2050, universal lower secondary education in 2060, going by current trends. The report also urged the government to start taking inequalities in education seriously.

– NGO opens school that teaches kids who beg at signals in mumbai

• Samarth Bharat Vyaspith, a Pune-based NGO, has started India’s first registered Signal School in Mumbai, that teaches children who beg or sell items at traffic signals.
• Mumbai is now home to India’s first Signal School – a colorful classroom created out of a shipping container that sits under a traffic signal flyover in Thane.
• It currently has 22 children, mostly between the ages of 3-8, who attend classes for about four hours each day.

 

— INTERNATIONAL —

– Indian embassy sets up solar plant at Vietnam (Hanoi)

• The Indian embassy in Hanoi at Vitanam has set up a grid connected solar generation plants in its office building. The plant was set up as per the wishes of PM Modi to make Indian missions abroad green.
• The Indian embassy in Hanoi is the first to start mission green in abroad. The energy not used would be automatically added in the power grid
• About VIETNAM
  • CURRENCY: Vietnamese dong
  • CAPITAL: Hanoi

– Russia, Saudi pledge oil cooperation without freeze

• The world’s top two oil producers, Russia and Saudi Arabia have pledged cooperation to stabilize global oil markets, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said on Monday.
• However, the countries did not issue any immediate action to counter the falling oil prices. Earlier, a proposal to freeze oil output was derailed in April after Saudi insisted Iran’s participation in the accord.
• About RUSSIA
  • President   : Vladimir Putin
  • Prime Minister: Dmitry Medvedev
  • Capital:  Moscow
  • Currency: Russian ruble
• About SAUDI
  • King: Salman of Saudi Arabia
  • Capital:  Riyadh
  • Currency: Saudi riyal

– Russia most unequal country in world

• According to a wealth research firm report, Russia is the most “unequal” country in the world in terms of wealth distribution among masses, with about 62% of its wealth held by US dollar millionaires. Also, about 26% of its wealth is held by billionaires, the report added. Japan is the most “equal” economy with only 22% of wealth among millionaires.

– World’s largest LEGO ship sets Guinness record

• A new Guinness world record for the largest LEGO ship has been set in Denmark, where employees of a shipping company successfully constructed the incredible 2,860 kg boat using over one million interlocking plastic bricks. The blue and white LEGO boat measures 12.035 metres in length.
• The new Guinness World Records title was confirmed at an event organized to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the shipping and transport services company DFDS A/S in Copenhagen.

– WHO declares Sri Lanka malaria-free

• Sri Lanka was declared malaria-free by the World Health Organization which called it a “remarkable public health achievement”.
•  “Sri Lanka’s achievement is truly remarkable. In the mid-20th century it was among the most malaria affected countries,” WHO Regional Director Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh said.
• Sri Lanka is the second country in the WHO South-East Asia Region to eliminate malaria after Maldives. The decision to declare Sri Lanka malaria-free was taken after WHO’s East Asia region’s annual committee meeting.
• NOTE: WHO South-East Asia Region’s annual committee meeting .Sixty-ninth session of the WHO Regional Committee for South-East Asia Colombo, Sri Lanka
• About SRI LANKA
  • Capitals: Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte, Colombo
  • Currency: Sri Lankan rupee
  • President: Maithripala Sirisena
  • Prime minister: Ranil Wickremesinghe

– China agrees on steps to reduce steel exports

• World’s leading steel producer, China agreed to reduce its steel exports without any binding limitation to its output. Earlier, the US and Europe had accused Chinese steel industry of overproduction that led to global overcapacity of steel.
• Also, the US had reportedly hiked import duties by 500% on Chinese steel to protect its domestic steel industry from competition.
• About CHINA
  • Capital: Beijing
  • Currency: yuan
  • President: Xi Jinping

– 170 mn-year-old marine reptile fossil uncovered

• A fossilised skeleton of a dolphin-like predator which inhabited the oceans around 170 million years ago, has been uncovered in a Scotland museum where it laid buried for 50 years.
• A type of ichthyosaur, the marine reptile is estimated to be four meters long with hundreds of cone-shaped teeth. Scientists believe these ‘sea dragons’ became extinct shortly before the dinosaurs.

– Driverless Bus Services Start In France

• The world’s 1^st driverless service began carrying passengers in the French city Lyon. Two electric minibuses with a capacity of 15 passengers each are now operating a 10 min route.
• These two electric vehicles are fitted with high tech equipment including Laser Sensors, Stereo Vision and GPS. The Vehicles have been tested without passengers in the French city.

 

— BANKING —

– RBI opens door for Islamic finance

• The RBI has proposed working with the government to introduce interest free banking to tackle financial for religious reasons. It will potentially open Islamic finance to the Muslim minority population in the India.
• An estimated open Islamic finance to the Muslim minority population in the India have been unable to access Islamic banking because of laws that require banking to be based  on interest, which is the forbidden in Islam

– Canada’s British Columbia becomes first foreign government to issue masala bonds

• Canada’s British Columbia province has become the first foreign government to issue of masala bonds, a rupee-denominated bond.
• It had issued Rs 500 crore rupee denominated overseas bonds (masala bond) on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and successfully raised $75 million (about Rs 500 crore).

– SofBank completes $31 billion acquisition of ARM

• SoftBank surprised the technology world with a plan to acquire British chip designer ARM Holdings for £23.4 billion ($31.4 billion) back in July, the biggest ever purchase of a European technology company. After less than two months, Softbank is announcing today that the transaction is complete. The total acquisition price is approximately £24 billion ($31 billion),
• ARM, which shipped 15 billion microchips last year, specializes in designing microprocessors and graphics processing units (GPUs) for laptops, phones and tablets.

 

— BUSINESS AND ECONOMY —

– MobiKwik launches one step offline payments with ‘Bubble Pin’

• India’s largest digital payment company, MobiKwik has launched a one-step offline payments mode, called Bubble Pin. This pin is generated on the MobiKwik app when a user clicks on the ‘Pay at store’, and it is valid for 60 seconds. The pin is a combination of alphabets and numbers. To make a payment, the user needs to share this pin with the retailer.
• The company claims that Bubble pin is designed to make the transaction more secure, considering that no phone number needs to be shared. Users can soon use this functionality in over 25,000 offline stores across India.

– Sun Pharma inks pact to market medicines in Japan

• India’s largest drugmaker Sun Pharmaceuticals announced a distribution agreement with Japan-based Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma to market 14 prescription brands ,it acquired in Japan.
• Sun Pharma will aim to expand its sales channels in Japan while ensuring a steady supply of healthcare information, it stated. Notably, Japan is the world’s second-largest pharmaceuticals market after the US.
• Out of the 14 prescription brands, 11 will be re-launched by Sun Pharma-Mitsubishi in the Japanese market by the end of December, while the remaining three will hit the market next year.

– New Google website to help Indians save money

• Technology giant Google is reportedly working on a website called ‘Bharat Saves’ to provide information about financial planning to Indians to help save money.
• The report claims that Google wants ‘Bharat Saves’ to be a part of government’s financial inclusion scheme ‘Jan Dhan Yojana’ launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014

 

— APPOINTMENTS AND RESIGN—

– Ricky Ponting appointed brand ambassador for Tasmania

• Former Australian cricket captain Ricky Ponting has been appointed brand ambassador of his home state Tasmania and will join a government-led trade mission to the subcontinent that will explore export opportunities.

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– Indian ecologist awarded by union for conservation of nature

• Assam based ecologist BIBHUTI LAHKAR has become the first Asian to be awarded the prestigious Heritage heroes award. The award is facilitated by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
• The award aims to recognize the outstanding efforts of a few brave people who relentlessly invest efforts to make a difference in the way natural world heritage sites are conserved

 

— AWARDS AND HONOURS —

– IISc retains top Indian university spot

• Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore remained India’s top ranked university according to the QS World University Rankings 2016-17.
• Its global ranking, however, dropped five notches to 152 as compared to last year. Other Indian universities in the top 400 hundred are IITs – Delhi (185), Bombay (219), Madras (249), Kanpur (302), Kharagpur (313) and Roorkee (399).

– Indo Japanese Priyanka Yoshikawa named Miss Japan

• Priyanka Yoshikawa, who is half-Indian, has been crowned Miss Japan 2016.
• Her victory follows that of Miss Japan 2015 Ariana Miyamoto, who became the first black woman to represent Japan.

– RISHI KAPPOR HONORED AT BRICS FESTIVAL

• VETERAN ACTOR RISHI KAPOOR was felicitated at the 1^st BRICS Film festival. He was honored by union ministerof state for I&B Rajyavardhan and union minster of state external affairs V.K. Singh

– Jellyfish photo wins wildlife photography award

• A photograph of a Lion’s mane jellyfish with several small fish taking shelter in its tentacles was declared the overall winner at this year’s annual British Wildlife Photography Awards.
• Titled ‘HITCHHIKERS’, the photo was clicked by British photographer George Stoyle in the North Atlantic Ocean near Scotland. Pictures were also awarded based on categories like animal behavior and urban wildlife.

– Miss India’ contest for Blind and low-vision girls at Odisha

• The first ever ‘Miss India’ contest for visually impaired and low-vision girls was held in Vocational Rehabilitation Centre for Handicapped (VRCH), Bhubaneswar  in Odisha
• The four girls, who were shortlisted from the fifty-six participants will be sent to Mumbai.
• They will be competing against thirty other contestants from different states for the finale which will be held in January 2017.

 

— SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY —

– First time, carbon nanotube transistors outperform silicon

• In a first, American engineers have created carbon nanotube transistors claimed to perform five times faster than the most advanced silicon transistors. The new transistors achieve 1.9 times higher current levels while using five times less energy, as compared to silicon.
• For this, researchers isolated ultra-pure semiconducting carbon nanotubes with less than 0.01% metallic nanotube impurities. The UW–Madison engineers use a solution process to deposit aligned arrays of carbon nanotubes onto 1 inch by 1 inch substrates.

– Asteroid named after Queen singer Freddie Mercury

• An asteroid was named after Freddie Mercury, the vocalist of the English rock band ‘Queen’, to mark the late singer’s 70th birth anniversary on Monday.
• The International Astronomical Union confirmed asteroid 17473, a 3.5km-wide ball of black rubble on the other side of Mars, shall be known as ‘Freddiemercury’. Notably, the asteroid was discovered in 1991, the year Freddie died.

– First Solar-Powered Bags That Charge Phones in US

• US-based startup BirkSun has made solar-powered backpacks which can be used to charge smartphones or tablets. The startup claims the bag can generate 1% smartphone battery power for every 3 minutes that the solar panels are in sunlight.
• Priced at $249, the solar-powered backpacks are waterproof.

– GRSE hands over fast attack craft ‘Tihayu’ to Indian Navy

• The Water Jet Fast Attack Craft (WJFAC), ‘Tihayu’ built by Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers Limited (GRSE), Kolkata was handed over to the Indian Navy.
• The warship was handed over by Rear Admiral (Retd) A.K. Verma, Chairman and Managing Director, GRSE to the Commanding Officer of the ship Cdr. Ajay Kashov, at a ceremony held in GRSE.
• Rear Admiral S.R. Sarma, Chief Staff Officer (Technical) of Eastern Naval Command carried out final inspection of the ship prior to acceptance by the Navy. GRSE had earlier built and delivered ten WJFACs to the Indian Navy during 2009 to 2011, which are proving well in service.

 

— SPORTS —

– India win 9 medals at the Asian Wushu Championships

• The Indian contingent won a total of nine medals, including four silver and five bronze medals at the 9th Asian Wushu Championships held Taoyuan, Taiwan. The competition was attended by Wushu artists from 38 nations.
• Wherein China finished as the medals tally leader. Wushu is a form of martial art practice which originated and developed in China.
• List of medals winners:
• Silver: L Budha Chandra Singh (56Kg), Praveen Kumar (48Kg), Rajinder Singh (90Kg), K Arunpama Devi (60Kg).
• Bronze: Y Santhoi Devi (52Kg), Pooja Kadian (65Kg), Vishakha Malik (70Kg), Uchit Sharma, Rajani Deori (75Kg).

– Serena Williams sets women’s record of 307 victories in grand slams

• World number one Tennis player Serena Williams has created history by setting a record of most number of Grand Slam matches wins by a woman in the Open era.
• In the US Open, after defeated Johanna Larsson of Sweden, entered in to the pre-quarterfinals and surpass Martina Navratilova’s record of 306 wins.
• Serena is now tied with Roger Federer who holds the record for men. The Serena Williams is currently equal with Steffi Graf with 22 major Singles titles.

– Sikki & Pranaav clinch Brazil Open Grand Prix title

• The top-seeded Indian mixed doubles pair of Sikki Reddy and Pranaav Jerry Chopra clinched their maiden Grand Prix title in the Brazil Open Grand Prix.
• They defeated Canadian combo of Toby Ng and Rachel Honderich 21-15, 21-16 in straight games at Costa Cavalcante.
• Pranaav was part of the Indian team that stunned mighty China 3-2 to win a bronze in the Asia Badminton Team Championships.

– Nico Rosberg won the Italian Grand Prix

• Mercedes’ German Formula One racer Nico Rosberg won the Italian Grand Prix ahead of teammate Lewis Hamilton, and Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel in Monza.
• With the win, Rosberg closed the difference between him and Hamilton to two points in the drivers’ tally. This was Rosberg’s maiden victory at the Italian Grand Prix.

– First Indian to win the Asian Karting Championship

• Shahan Ali Mohsin created history by becoming the first Indian racer to win the Asian Karting Champion Championship.
• The 12-year-old displayed a valiant performance during the final weekend after missingtwo days of track time due to a bout of food poisoning and staved off a strong challenge from his main Hayden Haikal to clinch the title.
• The Agra lad will be now hoping for a repeat closer home in the JK Tyre National Rotax Max Karting Championship as well, with the final round scheduled on September 25.

 

— OBITUARY —

– Czech gymnast vera caslavska dies

• Czech gymnast vera caslavska, her country’s gymnast Olympian and power full voice in its struggle against soviet occupation has died. She took seven gold’s in all the 1964 Olympic in Tokyo and the 1968 games in Mexico City.
• She also led Czech Olympic committee from 1990 to 1996. She won the pierre de Coubertin prize for promoting fair play and was also awarded the Olympic order by the IOC .

– World’s oldest cricketer Lindsay Tuckett passes away

• World’s oldest cricketer, Lindsay Tuckett, passed away in Bloemfontein at the age of 97. Tuckett represented South Africa in 9 Test matches against England between 1947 and 1949.
• Tuckett was the backbone of the South African pace attack in the years immediately following World War II. Record books show that Tuckett made his debut in the first Test at Trent Bridge, Nottingham in 1947, taking 5/68 in the first innings in 37 overs. In his full international career he took 19 wickets, including two five-wicket hauls.