Current Affairs - August 28, 2017 Current Affairs

The government restricted imports of gold and silver items from South Korea in a bid to check spurt in inbound shipments of precious metals from that country. The importers will now have to obtain a license from the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) for importing gold and silver from South Korea. Gold imports from South Korea has jumped to USD 338.6 million between July 1 and August 3 this year. The import in 2016-17 stood at USD 70.46 million. India is the world's second biggest gold consumer after China. The imports mainly take care of demand by the jewellery industry.

Saina Nehwal from India has won bronze in the 2017 women's singles World Badminton championships (WBC). In the first women's singles semi-final at Glasgow, Nehwal lost to Nozomi Okuhara of Japan in three games 12-21, 21-17, 21-10. It must be noted that Okuhara is the first shuttler from Japan to reach the finals of World Championship.

The first edition of Rural Games or Grameen Khel Mahotsav will kick-start from Delhi and will take place between 28th August to 3rd September 2017. The purpose of the Rural Games is to popularize the indigenous games like wrestling and athletics and will also have fun games like Matka Race, Tug of War for senior citizens. In the first stage, the games will be held in Alipur, Mehrauli, Nangloi, Najafgarh and Shahadara where ten thousand youngsters will participate. The Union Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports will also launch sports talent search portal.

Indian football team won the South Asian Football Federation (SAFF) Under-15 Championship at the ANFA Complex. India's Vikram Pratap Singh was chosen as the Best player of the tournament.

The Union External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj will inaugurate India's first Videsh Bhavan on August 27, 2017 at the Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) in Mumbai, Maharashtra. As a first pilot project, four offices of MEA - Regional Passport Office (RPO), Protector of Emigrants (PoE) office, Branch Secretariat and Regional Office of ICCR - have been assimilated and brought under one roof at the state-of-art office.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj will participate in the two-day Indian Ocean Conference to be held in Colombo, Srilanka. The theme of the conference is peace, progress, and prosperity. It is the second ICO conference, the first was held in Singapore in 2016.

Arun Jaitley announced the launch of the production of Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) designed 5.8-tonne category Light Combat Helicopter (LCH) in Bengaluru. It was cleared for procurement by the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) few months ago. The basic version of LCH has been cleared by the Centre for Military Airworthiness and Certification, and the DAC has accorded the approval for the procurement of 15 LCH from HAL under Indigenously Designed, Developed and Manufactured category.

The first edition of Miss Transqueen India, a beauty pageant for transgenders, took place in Gurugram. Nitasha, a trans woman who hails from Kolkata, was named the first Miss Transqueen India. Loiloi from Manipur bagged the first runner-up position and Ragasya from Chennai was crowned the second runner-up. The winner will go to Thailand for Miss International Queen, the first runner-up will compete at Miss Transsexual Australia. We are looking for another international pageant so that we can send the second runner-up too.

The Union Government notified the Banking Regulation (Amendment) Act, 2017. The Parliament approved the Banking Regulation (Amendment) Bill, 2017 which replaced an ordinance in this regard. It empowers the Central government to authorize the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to direct banking companies to resolve specific stressed assets.

Barcelona forward Lionel Messi scored a second-half brace against Alaves becoming the first ever player to score 350 goals in La Liga. Messi's best goal tally for a season came in 2011/12 when he netted 50 goals in 37 appearances. Messi has been La Liga's all-time leading scorer for a few years now - the previous record was held by Telmo Zarra, with 251 career goals.

Nandan Nilekani, the Infosys co-founder and the architect of Aadhaar, has been appointed as the new non-executive chairman of the board of directors of Infosys. The sweeping changes have been made to the board in an attempt to restore stability after the resignation of Vishal Sikka as CEO, and a bitter rift between Narayana Murthy and the board came to the fore. Nilekani's appointment will allow Infosys to focus on the strategic changes it needs to make in order to capitalize on the attractive opportunities in the years ahead. Nilekani served as Infosys's CEO from 2002 to 2007.

India and China agreed to withdraw their troops from Doklam after being in a standoff for over two months. According to the Ministry of External Affairs, the expeditious disengagement has been agreed. The standoff started after India objected to China constructing a road in the disputed area.

PV Sindhu grabbed a silver medal at World Badminton Championships at Glasgow. She cruised into the final of the Badminton World Championships with an easy win over Chen Yufei of China. Prime Minister Narendra Modi praised ace shuttler PV Sindhu for her performance.

Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik granted the Biju Patnaik Award for Scientific Excellence for the year 2016 to Prof Digambar Behera. Digambar Behera is senior professor and Head, Department of Pulmonary Medicine, Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) in Chandigarh. The award is given by Odisha Bigyan Academy(OBA).

India and Nepal signed eight memorandums of understanding (MoUs) on the second day of the neighbouring country's visiting Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba in New Delhi.