Current Affairs - August 5, 2017 Current Affairs

The Indian Railways signed its first EPC (Engineering, Procurement, Construction) contract with Larsen and Turbo (L&T) for electrification of railways. The contract valuing Rs 1,050 crore was awarded by Central Organisation for Railway Electrification (CORE) and Konkan Railways.

The World Breastfeeding Week (WBW) is observed every year from August 1st to 7th to focus attention on the important aspect of promotion and support of breastfeeding. The 2017 theme is "Sustaining Breastfeeding Together". The World Breastfeeding Week (WBW) is observed every year from August 1st to 7th to focus attention on the important aspect of promotion and support of breastfeeding. The 2017 theme is "Sustaining Breastfeeding Together".

Senior bureaucrat Mohammad Mustafa was appointed as Chairman and Manging Director in Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI). The Appointments Committee of the cabinet has approved his appointment to the post for three years.

inance Minister Arun Jaitley announced creation of new Exchange Trade Fund called Bharat 2022, comprising of 22 companies, or investments from central public sector undertakings, public sector banks and some other strategic holdings. It will feature four banking stocks -- SBI, Axis Bank, Bank of Baroda and Indian Bank -- other than CPSEs such as Nalco, ONGC, IOC, BPCL and Coal India.

Bengaluru will become the first city in the country to provide a helicopter taxi service. The service will be operated by Thumby Aviation Private Limited who have partnered with the Bangalore International Airport Limited to start the Heli Taxi service. It will initially be operated between Bengaluru's Kempegowda International Airport and the Electronics City area.

Microsoft is going to help the government of Telangana use artificial intelligence to provide eye care screening for children in the State. Microsoft's cloud based machine learning eye care screening Microsoft Intelligent Network for Eyecare (MINE) will align with the Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram programme under the National Health Mission.

After Grofers and Amazon India, online grocery firm BigBasket on Wednesday received the government's nod for foreign direct investment to undertake retailing of food products, which are manufactured or produced in India.

Shri Prabhat Kumar, (IFS: 1991), presently Ambassador of India to Colombia has been appointed as the next Ambassador of India to the Republic of Kazakhstan. He is expected to take up the assignment shortly.

Union Government launched green airports, two airports in Andhra Pradesh. Airport Authority of India (AAI) commenced installation of the 1MegaWatt solar power plant at Tirupathi and Vijayawada Airports. The basic capacity of installed solar power plants at 29 airports/locations with a total capacity of 12.84 MWp.

The 7th Meeting of BRICS Trade Ministers was held in Shanghai, China from August, 1-2, 2017. The trade ministers of BRICS nations discussed trade facilitation, economic and technological cooperation, capacity building and the multilateral trade system in the meeting. It adopted adopted the following documents at the conclusion of the meeting: 7th BRICS Trade Ministers' Joint Statement, BRICS trade in services cooperation roadmap, BRICS e-commerce cooperation initiative, BRICS IPR cooperation guidelines, etc.

India's first private sector missile sub-systems manufacturing facility, a joint venture between the $2.5 billion Kalyani Group and Israel's Rafael Advanced Defence Systems Ltd., was inaugurated near Hyderabad. It is formed in line with the 'Make in India' initiative of the Centre and the policy to encourage private sector participation in defence production, the 51:49 joint venture will develop a wide range of advanced capabilities.

Harry Potter creator JK Rowling has been named the world's most highly-paid author with earnings of £72.2m ($95m) this year. The Edinburgh-based writer beat Dan Brown, Stephen King and John Grisham to top Forbes' list of the 10 highest earners in the global industry for the first time in almost 10 years.

Former Indian hockey captain Dhanraj Pillay has been honored with the East Bengal football club's highest honour "Bharat Gaurav" on its foundation day on August 1, 2017. He played total 339 matches for India, scoring 170 goals. He led India to Asian Games glory in 1998 and also won the Asia Cup in 2003. Beside him, Gurwinder Singh and Boddupalli Amit have won the Footballer of the Year award and the Cricketer of the Year, respectively. Former India International Subhash Bhowmick, a member of the 1970 Asian Games bronze medal-winning national football team and former national team coach Syed Naeemuddin were honored with lifetime achievement awards.