Current Affairs - October 26, 2017 Current Affairs

The Madras high court banned the use of pictures of living persons on banners and hoardings in Tamil Nadu. The order states that, pictures of the chief minister, ministers or politicians cannot be used in posters or hoardings. It has also banned the use of photos of people sponsoring the pictures.

Odisha will be the 'Focus State' in the mega international food event "World Food India (WFI) 2017", which is scheduled to be held at New Delhi on November 3-5. In the WFI 2017, Japan, Denmark and Germany are partner countries, and Italy & Netherlands are 'Focus Countries'. More than 200 global companies and 41 global CEOs from 30 countries will participate and will also see 21 ministerial and business delegations. Besides, 450 domestic companies and leading Research and Development (R&D) institutes along with 95 Indian industry captains are likely to participate in WFI.

India's passport has been ranked 75th out of 94 countries with a visa-free score of 51, according to the 'Global Passport Power Rank 2017' by global financial advisory firm Arton Capital. The list is topped by Singapore, followed by Germany, Sweden and South Korea. As per report, Singapore's passport is the most powerful ranking with a visa-free score of 159. Afghanistan was on bottom most position (94th) with the score of 22, while Pakistan was at 93rd Position with Iraq with the score of 26. The index ranks national passports by the cross-border access they bring, assigning a "visa-free score" according to the number of countries a passport holder can visit visa-free or with visa on arrival.

Singapore's passport has become the most powerful in the world with a Visa-Free Score of 159, according to the Passport Index developed by advisory firm Arton Capital. This is the first time an Asian country has been announced as having the most powerful passport. India secured the 75th rank in the index with a Visa-Free Score of 51.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has formed a 10-member task force on Public Credit Registry (PCR) for India to improve market efficiency. The task force will be headed by M Deosthalee, former chairman of L&T Finance Holdings. The terms of reference of the task force include, reviewing the current availability of information on credit in the country, assessing gaps in India that could be filled by a comprehensive public credit registry and suggesting a "roadmap including the priority areas, for developing a transparent, comprehensive and near-real-time" public credit registry for India.

The Union Ministry of AYUSH hosted the first-ever meeting of BIMSTEC Task Force on Traditional Medicine (BITFM) on October 24-25, 2017 at Parvasi Bhartiya Kendra in New Delhi. India being a major stake holder in the field of Traditional Medicine plays an important role in influencing the policies and strategies related to the Traditional Medicine in the BIMSTEC Forum. The Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) is an International Organisation involving a group of countries in the South Asia and South East Asia namely, Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Bhutan and Nepal.

L&T Technology Services (LTTS) has been honored with the CII Industrial Innovation Award, 2017 in New Delhi. This award is referred as one of the most innovative Indian companies in the services category at the CII Industrial Innovation Awards ceremony in New Delhi. CII also praised LTTS' breakthrough research being conducted across 30 laboratories that seek to address the future needs of its global customers. Its innovation culture has led to the creation of 223 customer owned patents and 65 filed exclusively by LTTS engineers.

The global conference on consumer protection has inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi on October 26, 2017 with theme "Empowering Consumers in New Markets". This is the first time that an international conference on consumer protection is being organised by India for countries of the region which account for a majority of the global consumers and share common challenges and experiences. The 2-day conference will deliberate upon steps taken by Asian countries to implement the United Nations guidelines on consumer protection as well as challenges faced by consumers of financial services and e-commerce. Experts from different countries and India will present their papers and views. Twenty two countries from East, South and South-East Asia are participating in the conference.

American technology conglomerate, Cisco Systems has finalised a deal to acquire American communication software and service provider BroadSoft for $1.9 billion. The acquisition deal will be completed during the first quarter of 2018. CISCO will pay $55 per share in cash. This will enable CISCO to migrate away from its stagnating switches and routers business and will help to foray in selling unified communications software to big telecommunications firms.

SAATHI: Sustainable and Accelerated Adoption of efficient Textile technologies to Help small Industries, Ministries of Power and Textiles have jointly launched a new scheme SAATHI under which Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL) will provide energy efficient power loom equipment to small and medium units at no upfront cost. The use of the efficient equipment would result in energy and cost savings to the unit owner and he will repay in instalments to EESL over a 4 to 5 year period. The SAATHI initiative of the government will be jointly implemented by EESL and the office of the Textile Commissioner on a pan-India basis. The EESL will procure energy efficient powerlooms, motors and rapier kits in bulk and provide them to the small and medium power loom units.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated a global conference on consumer protection in New Delhi. This is the first time that an international conference on consumer protection is being organized by India for countries of the region. The conference is deliberated upon steps taken by Asian countries to implement the UN guidelines on consumer protection as well as challenges faced by consumers of financial services and e-commerce.

Netherlands opened the world's first 3D-printed concrete bridge, mainly for the use of cyclists. The bridge is 26 feet long and less than 12 feet wide. The bridge is made of reinforced, pre-stressed concrete. Printing the bridge took around 3 months. It consists of nearly 800 layers. The bridge was commissioned by the province of North-Brabant and led by the company BAM Infra. The bridge's elements were printed locally at the Eindhoven University of Technology.

Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje launched an e-book titled 'India 2017 Yearbook', compiled by the present Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) Rajiv Mehrishi. The e-book includes a plethora of information on important dignitaries, state policy, public schemes and important data about demographics, trade, economy and many other topics. Mc Graw Hill is Education is the publisher of the e-book.