Current Affairs - December 13, 2017 Current Affairs

President Ramnath Kovind would be the chief guest at the valedictory function of the World Telugu Conference (WTC), which will be organized at Lal Bahadur Shastri Stadium in Hyderabad by the Telangana government from December 15 to 19, 2017. According to official release, Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu will be the chief guest for the inaugural session of the Conference and the Telangana Sahitya Akademi will be the nodal agency for the conference. The conference will focus on how the Telugu language is preserved, protected, enriched in the Telangana region. It will provide the data related to Telugu Conferences (Telugu Maha Sabhalu) and eminent Telugu Personalities across the Globe.

Bollywood actor Priyanka Chopra has been honoured with Mother Teresa Memorial award for social justice 2017. Priyanka Chopra received the award for her contribution towards lending her support to social causes, such as her recent visit to Syria, where she met and interacted with refugee children. She is also UNICEF's Goodwill Ambassador and is known for supporting various philanthropic activities. Her mother Madhu Chopra, received the award on her behalf.

Bihar State Government approved a "Safe City Surveillance" scheme for curbing eve-teasing, harassment and other crimes against women at public places. The scheme envisages installation of CCTV cameras at public places across the state. "Safe City Surveillance" scheme will be implemented in a phase-wise manner and Home Department of Bihar will be the nodal agency for implementing this scheme.

19th International Workshop on Physics of Semiconductor Devices (IWPSD 2017) was inaugurated at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi on December 12, 2017. This four-day workshop was inaugurated by Chairman of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), Dr. AS Kiran Kumar. The workshop has been jointly organised by Solid State Physics Laboratory (SSPL) and Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi in association with Semiconductor Society (India), Society for Semiconductor Devices and Society for Information Display. At this workshop, Indian researchers will get an opportunity to interact with internationally acclaimed experts.

The 54th meeting of South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) programming committee has started at the Kathmandu-based SAARC Secretariat in Nepal on December 11, 2017. The 2-day meeting will discuss about budget issues of the Secretariat, SAARC five regional centers and four specialized bodies. The representatives of all 8 member countries are participating in it. The SAARC is the regional intergovernmental organization and geopolitical union of nations in South Asia. Its member states include Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, the Maldives, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

Jammu and Kashmir government launched SAUBHAGYA (Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojna) with an aim to provide free electricity connections to poor people in the state. SAUBHAGYA, an initiative taken by the prime minister, seeks to provide electricity to 4 crore families across India by December 2018. Jammu & Kashmir's Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh launched the scheme.

JP Nadda, the Union Health Minister, has launched new initiatives including "LaQshya-A Labour Room Quality Improvement Initiative" and "m-health: Safe delivery application" at a function in New Delhi to observe Universal Health Coverage Day (UHCD-2017) on December 11, 2017. The Laqshya initiative is expected to improve the quality of care that is being provided to the pregnant mother in the Labour Room and Maternity Operation Theatres, thereby preventing the undesirable adverse outcomes associated with childbirth. The goal of this initiative is to reduce preventable maternal and newborn mortality, morbidity and stillbirths associated with the care around delivery in Labour room. The Safe Delivery Application is an m-Health tool that can be used for health workers who manage normal and complicated deliveries in the peripheral areas. It can play a pivotal role in training, post-training reinforcement, mentoring and demonstration.

In order to strengthen the ecosystem for government services, Karnataka State government will be launching a digital platform to address the issues of the common citizen. The state cabinet ratified the proposal of "Seva Sindhu", a common citizen platform to fine tune the delivery system of government services. He also noted that the interactive platform would provide all useful information about local events, employment opportunities, and others. The portal will provide services like income, domicile, caste, birth, death certificates, ration card, approval of social welfare schemes and other administrative work.

Rajasthan becomes the first state in the country to launch free email addresses in Hindi (in Devanagari script) for its residents, as per the state IT department Principal Secretary Akhil Arora. The initiative aims to ensure maximum participation of people towards e-governance and that maximum facilities are available in the vernacular language. The first e-mail ID was created for CM Vasundhara Raje.

West Bengal State Government has announced that pilgrims coming to upcoming Gangasagar fair will be provided life insurance cover amounting to Rs 5 lakh each. The premium for this insurance cover of Rs. 5 lakh will be borne by West Bengal State Government.

India will host the 3rd Annual Meeting of the Board of Governors of Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) at Mumbai in June 2018. The Theme of the Annual Meeting, 2018 will be "Mobilizing Finance for Infrastructure: Innovation and Collaboration". The Government of India and AIIB Secretariat signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to delineate the duties and responsibilities of major stakeholders who would be involved in organizing the aforesaid Annual Meeting.

The Australian hockey team has defeated Rio Olympics champions Argentina 2-1 in the final of the Hockey World League Final to win gold at Kalinga Stadium in Bhubaneswar, Odisha on December 11, 2017. Goals from Blake Govers and Jeremy Hayward helped the defending champions to beat Argentina hockey team. Earlier in the day, India reclaimed the bronze medal in the tournament. In the third-fourth place classification match, they defeated Germany 2-1. Indian took the lead in the 21st minute through SV Sunil. Germany equalised through its reserve custodian Mark Appel in the 36th minute. A penalty corner conversion by Harmanpreet Singh in the 54th minute sealed the win and the third place for the Indians. India had also won the bronze in the last edition of the tournament in Raipur in 2015.

The Universal Health Coverage Day (UHCD) is observed annually on December 12 to promote the human right to health. The day is the anniversary of the first unanimous United Nations resolution calling for all nations to provide for their citizens affordable, quality health care and is promoted by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Second UNWTO/UNESCO World Conference on Tourism and Culture: Fostering Sustainable Development, was held in Muscat, Oman from 11th - 12th December, 2017. This conference was hosted by the Government of the Sultanate of Oman. It was conducted within the framework of International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development. It is to be noted that United Nations has declared 2017 as the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development, to highlight tourism's potential in transforming the world.

21-year-old Indian Golfer Shubhankar Sharma claimed European Tour victory in the Joburg Open, in South Africa. He has defeated South Africa's Erik Van Rooyen. This was a maiden European Tour win for Shubhankar Sharma. He has five victories on the professional tour of India and he now has a European Tour title to add to his list of achievements. England's Marcus Armitage was the top British finisher in Joburg.

Telangana Prisons Department has started a drive to turn Hyderabad into "Beggar Free" city. This drive was first launched ahead of the Global Entrepreneurship Summit that was held in Hyderabad from 28th - 30th November, 2017. Delegates from across the world, including United States President, Donald Trump's daughter Ivanka Trump attended this summit. The Beggar Homes have all kinds of facilities including cot, mattress, TV and pillows. Several programmes to give education and boost morale of beggars are also being conducted at these Beggar Homes.