Current Affairs - May 23, 2018 Current Affairs

Coimbatore racer Bala Prasath won the Formula Junior Racing Series 2018 Championship in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu. Bala, who was trailing in second place after Round 1 with 91 points, was in his element in Round 2 at the Kari Motor Speedway.

Asha Bhosle will be conferred with the highest civilian award of West Bengal, the Banga Bibhushan, by the Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. She has done playback singing for over a thousand Bollywood movies & has sung in over 20 Indian & foreign languages. Bengal government in 2011 instituted Banga Bibhushan award to recognize the services of eminent personalities from their respective fields.

The Union Finance Ministry has tied up with 40 entities including Flipkart, Swiggy, Patanjali, and Amul for extending loans to small entrepreneurs under the Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana (PMMY). In order to identify people who can be given funds under the Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana (PMMY), the ministry organized an event in Mumbai to extend loan under the scheme.

A Chinese based space startup named OneSpace launched its OS-X rocket. This was a 30 feetlong satellite named "Chongqing Liangjiang star" was launched from an undisclosed location form north western part of China. It is the first private Chinese farm to launch a commercial rocket. The company further plans to launch another series called M-seriesof micro satellites that are cheaper to build.

An emergency summit of Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) was held in Istanbul, Turkey. This meeting was headed by the President of Turkey Mr. Recep Tayyip Erdogan to discuss the recent Israeli violence against Palestanian protesters in Gaza Strip. It is the second largest inter-governmental organizationafter the UN. It is an organization of the muslim majority countries but India is not a part of it. It was founded in 1969and is headquartered in Jeddah , Saudi Arabia. It has 57 member states among them 47 Muslim majority nations. It has permanent delegation to United Nations and European Union.

Bank of Baroda has successfully located most of its operational activities at a shared service centre (SSC) at the GIFT City near Ahmedabad. The bank will now offer its services including retail loan processing, deposit account opening, forex and call center from the SSC, which will have a staff strength of 200. The bank will thus become one of the largest employers in the Ahmedabad-Gandhinagar region. The bank had taken 20,000 sq, ft of office space in GIFT City, making it the first Indian bank to move several key operations to the smart city.

Harry Harris has been working as a Naval officer and was earlier selected as ambassador of Australia and later Seoul. He is the first Asian-Americanto achive a rank of admiral in US Navy.

State-run power equipment maker Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL) appointed Pravin L. Agrawal as a part-time official director on its board. An Indian Forest Service officer, Agrawal is presently joint secretary in the Department of Heavy Industry (DHI), Ministry of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises.

Birju Salla, who created a hijack scare onboard a Jet Airways flight in 2017, has become the 1st person to be put on the "National No Fly List". He has been banned from flying under highest level of onboard unruly behaviour that entails grounding from 2 years to lifetime. A person put on the no-fly list can't fly by any flight of that airline, international or domestic, for grounded period.

Air Commodore S R Menon took charge as the Command of Air Force Administrative College(AFAC). He Succeeds V.P.S.Rana.V.P.S Rana has been posted to the headquarters Training Command in Bengaluru.

China launched Queqiao satellite to explore dark side of Moon. The relay satellite Queqiao has been designed to set a communication link between earth and a planned lunar probe that will explore the dark side of the moon. Queqiao was launched on a Long March-4C rocket from Xichang launch center, China. Queqiao is also known as Magpie Bridge. It will settle in an orbit nearly 455,000 km (282,555 miles) from earth. It will be the world's first communication satellite operating there.

United Arab Emirates Cabinet has approved a plan to allow foreign investors to own 100% of UAE-based businesses by end of 2018. At present, foreigners generally cannot own more than 49 percent of any UAE firm unless it is incorporated in a special "free zone". The decision is part of a wider change to the system that would grant residency visas of up to 10 years to investors and specialists.

The 71st World Health Assembly (WHA-2018) has started in Geneva, Switzerland on May 21. In it, Union Health Minister J P Nadda is leading the Indian Delegation. In the plenary meeting of WHA, Mr. Nadda spoke on the theme "Health for All: Commit To Universal Health Coverage". He stated that the Indian government has recently launched the Ayushman Bharat programme, which rests on the twin pillars of health and well-ness centres, and the National Health Protection Mission for 100 million families covering 500 million individuals. The programme will approximately cover 40% of the India's population, who will be provided an insurance cover of Rs 500,000 per year. He further said that in line with India's ambitious plan to end TB by 2025, the Government of India (GoI) has started the implementation of a national strategic plan and allocated 550 million dollars.

Amit Khare is a 1985-batch IAS officer. Currently, he is serving in Jharkhand, his cadre state. He will take charge as secretary to the information and broadcasting ministry from incumbent N K Sinha, who will superannuate on 31st May 2018.

India's Multi Commodity Exchange had launched the country's first copper options contracts. Three contracts with a lot size of 1 tonne were launched. The option contract will provide physical market participants an additional instrument to hedge their risk.

The Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, Shivraj Singh Chouhan launched 'My MP Rojgar Portal' to provide jobs to youths as per their educational qualification, skills, and interest and ensure availability of able candidates to employers as per the need of their business. The portal was launched as a part of the 'Ham Chhu Lenge Asman' Mukhyamantri Career Counselling programme 'Pahal' in Model School of Bhopal. It was prepared by the Madhya Pradesh Skill Development and Employment Generation Board under youth empowerment mission.