Current Affairs - December 8, 2017 Current Affairs

Nagpur's Kanchanmala Pande created history as she became the first Indian to secure pole position at the World Para-Swimming Championship in Mexico. The 26-year-old Reserve Bank of India employee won gold in the 200-metre medley event in the S-11 category and was also the only Indian to qualify for the women's category.

The waste management system being implemented in Kerala's coastal town of Alappuzha recognized by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) as one of the five models across the world for fighting the pollution menace. Alappuzha, often called "the Venice of East", has been listed in the UNEP environment report entitled, 'Solid approach to waste: how five cities are beating pollution' alongside cities like Osaka in Japan, Ljubljana in Slovenia, Penang in Malaysia and Cajica in Colombia.

To allow the same-sex marriage, the Australian Parliament voted for same-sex marriage bill with majority, following a bitter and divisive debate settled by the government polling voters in a much-criticised ballot survey that strongly endorsed the change. The same-sex marriage bill will protect freedoms of speech and religion for gay-marriage opponents were all rejected, though those issues may be considered later.

The 46th Congress of the International Hockey Federation (FIH-2018) will be held in New Delhi from October 30 to November 3. The biennial event will run for four days and will comprise meetings, social events, networking opportunities and presentations. The Congress, which will have representations from the National Associations, will also chart out the future roadmap of the game, including the ongoing Hockey Revolution, FIH's 10-year strategy to drive hockey's status as a global sport. Beside this, India will also host the men's Hockey World Cup to be held in Bhubaneswar from November 28 to December 16, 2018.

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan named noted Indian businessman, Deepak Parekh, as 'International Ambassador' who will be tasked with championing the UK capital across the globe. Parekh, is one of the first of a network of international ambassadors, that would include high-level business and cultural figures based in London or overseas. Parekh is the chairman of India's premier housing finance company HDFC Limited.

Time magazine has named 'The silence breakers' its Person of the Year for 2017 referring to those individuals, mostly women, who came forward this year to publicly expose patterns of sexual harassment and assault by powerful public figures in America. Those recognized by Time range from famous actresses who took on disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein to ordinary women who shared their stories of abuse using the hashtag #MeToo and its foreign language equivalents. One of the figures singled out by Time, Ashley Judd was the first actress to come forward on the record to make accusations against the 65-year-old Weinstein.

Axis Securities, a subsidiary of Axis Bank become the first-ever broking arm of a bank to take membership of a commodity exchange by registering itself with NCDEX. In September, Reserve Bank of India allowed banks wishing to undertake commodities derivatives clearing to set up a separate subsidiary for the purpose and adhere to the membership norms laid by market regulator Securities Exchange Board of India.

Wassenaar Arrangement (WA) decided to admit India as its new member. India's entry into the export control regime would enhance its credentials in the field of non-proliferation despite not being a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The decision was taken at the two-day plenary meeting of the grouping in Vienna. The grouping statement that the Wassenaar Arrangement participating states reviewed the progress of a number of current membership applications and agreed at the plenary meeting to admit India. India will become the Arrangement's 42nd participating state as soon as the necessary procedural arrangements for joining the WA are completed.

Shri Azar A.H.Khan, presently Consul General in the Consulate General of India, Istanbul has been appointed as the next Ambassador of India to Turkmenistan.

Union Home Minister affairs Rajnath Singh asked five eastern states sharing boundaries with Bangladesh to be extra vigilant against the influx of Rohingyas and illegal immigrants through the porous Indo-Bangla border. At a meeting of Chief Ministers and Home Ministers of West Bengal, Assam, Mizoram, Meghalaya and Tripura in Kolkata yesterday, A border protection grid on the lines of Unified Command set up in insurgency-hit states will soon come up in these states to check illegal infiltration.

The Kumbh Mela has been inscribed on the UNESCO's Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity' at its 12th session in Jeju, South Korea on December 7, 2017. This inscription is the third in two years for India following the inscriptions of yoga and Nouroz. The inscription of elements on the list helps countries which are a part of UNESCO's convention for safeguarding cultural heritage to mobilize international cooperation and assistance for ensuring that communities continue to practice and transmit such aspects of their heritage. According to UNESCO, Kumbh Mela (the festival of the sacred Pitcher) is the largest peaceful congregation of pilgrims on earth, during which participants bathe or take a dip in a sacred river. The festival is held at Allahabad, Haridwar, Ujjain and Nasik every four years by rotation and is attended by millions of people irrespective of caste, creed or gender.

he First International Conference on Sports Medicine and Sports Sciences SAICON 2017 was inaugurated in New Delhi by the Minister of State (I/C) Youth Affairs and Sports Col. Rajyavardhan Rathore. The SAICON 2017 will promote scientific temperament in the country and inspire students, researchers and educationists alike to take up sports science and research to the next level. It was Organized by Sports Authority of India, the 3-day conference is being attended by about 1000 national and international delegates.

The Kerala government lead by the Left Democratic Front (LDF) has decided to raise the legal drinking age from 21 to 23 years. The State Cabinet in a meeting decided to introduce a new ordinance raising the minimum age for liquor consumption from 21 to 23. The Ordinance will amend the Abkari Act. The previous UDF regime had adopted a policy in favour of prohibition by shutting down bars and closing doors on state-run liquor vending outlets.