Current Affairs - May 25, 2018 Current Affairs

Prime Minister Narendra Modi to UAE, ISPRL and ADNOC signed an Agreement for storing 5.68 million barrels of crude oil. This is to be stored in the Mangaluru facility of India SPR for emergency and distribution purposes. Apart from this the minister of oil Dharmendra Pradhan flagged off 2 million barrels of oil for India. The centre has built crude oil storage facilities with total capacity of 5.33 Million Tonnes (MT) at three locations under phase I of the 'SPR programme' including 1.33MT at Vishakhapatnam, 1.5 MW at Mangalore and 2.5 MT at Padur.

Airtel Payments Bank has appointed Anubrata Biswas as its Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer. Biswas fills the position, which was lying vacant since end-December, after Shashi Arora quit the post.

The Union Cabinet, chaired by PM Narendra Modi, has approved an ordinance to set up the India's first national sports university in Imphal, Manipur. The ordinance is on the lines of the bill introduced in Lok Sabha in August, 2017, which is already pending in Parliament. The proposed university will be spread over 325 acres and cost Rs 524 crore. It will promote sports education in the areas of sports sciences, sports technology, sports management, and sports coaching. It will function as a national training centre for select sports disciplines. It may also establish campuses and study centres in other parts of the country. The University will be empowered to grant degrees, diplomas and certificates.

Portuguese footballer Cristiano Ronaldo was named the most popular athlete in the world as he topped the ESPN World Fame 100 list for a third straight year. Three-time NBA champion Lebron James retained his second spot on the list, while Messi came third. 11 Indian athletes including Virat Kohli, Saina Nehwal and Saina Mirza have made it to the list of ESPN World Fame 100 of 2018.

India has been ranked 145th among 195 countries with score of 41.2 in terms of Healthcare Access and Quality (HAQ) index of 2016, as per Lancet's latest study "Global Burden Of Disease". According to the study, India performed poorly in tackling cases of tuberculosis, rheumatic heart diseases, Ischaemic heart diseases, stroke, testicular cancer, colon cancer and chronic kidney disease among others. The five countries with the highest levels of healthcare access and quality in 2016 were Iceland (97.1 points), Norway (96.6), the Netherlands (96.1), Luxembourg (96.0), and Finland and Australia (each with 95.9).

Kerala tourism will soon inaugurate the world's largest bird sculpture, Jatayu Earth's Centre, in Thiruvananthapuram. The replica of bird 'Jatayu', a character in the Ramayana is 65 feet tall & is positioned right at the top of a rock situated 1,000 feet above sea level. The rock, 'Jatayupara', where the structure is based, is the place where Jatayu fell after its wings were slain by Ravana.

BSE Ltd became first Indian exchange to be designated as Designated Offshore Securities Market (DOSM) by United States Securities and Exchange Commission (US-SEC). DOSM status will allow the sale of securities to US investors through the trading venue of BSE without registration of such securities with US SEC. This will ease trades by US investors in India and also enhance the attractiveness of Indian Depository Receipts (IDRs) amongst US investors.

The Ministry of Commerce & Industry of India, along with Ministry of Commerce of Cambodia organized the 5th India-CLMV Business Conclave in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. After four rounds of the Business Conclave in India, this initiative was brought by Department of Commerce of Government of India to Cambodia, for greater participation from the region. The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) was the institutional partner of the event. The inaugural session of the Conclave was attended by Suresh Prabhu, Minister of Commerce and Industry.

Former World Shooting Champion Tejaswini Sawant had bagged the gold in the Grand Prix in Munich, Germany. Tejaswini had won the World Championship gold in prone in 2010 in Munich. She had recently won gold in the Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast.

The Netherlands has become the 64th signatory member of the International Solar Alliance. PM Modi noted that the first Indo-Dutch Centre of Excellence CoE in Vegetables had started in Baramati, Maharashtra. India also welcomed the Netherlands as the Partner Country for the TechSummit in 2019. According to data from 2016-17, the Netherlands was the fifth largest foreign investor in India. Globally, the Netherlands is India's 28th largest trading partner. Within the European Union, the Netherlands is India's sixth largest trading partner.

Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar launched 'Samagra Shiksha scheme' for school education. The scheme focuses on improving quality of education, enhancing the Learning outcomes and using technology to empower children and teachers. Samagra Shiksha is a program that unifies learning from the pre-school to class 12 levels and encapsulates elements of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, Rashtriya Madhyamk Shiksha Abhiyan and teacher education. The scheme will be focused on digital education.

The World Health Organization (WHO) declared Nepal as free from Trachoma, the world's leading infectious cause of blindness. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared Nepal as free from Trachoma, the world's leading infectious cause of blindness.

In New Delhi, Prime Minister of Netherlands Mark Rutte inaugurated the Indo-Dutch Ganga Forum to take forward an MoU signed between the Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation, and the Ministry of Infrastructure & Environment of the Netherlands in June 2017.

The two-day conference named SCO-Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure Legal Experts (RATS) of legal experts took place in Islamabad under the framework of Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which comprises China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, India, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Pakistan. Pakistan hosted the meeting for the first time since it became a full member of the organization together with India nearly a year ago.

NITI Aayog and ABB India have signed a pact to help the country derive the benefits of latest technologies including robotics and artificial intelligence. NITI Aayog and ABB will work with government ministries, solicit feedback for areas critical to them and discuss solutions using industrial automation, and digitalization technologies. The initiative also covers the fast-growing segment of electric mobility.

C K Prasad, the retired judge of the Supreme Court of India (SCI), has been appointed the chairman of the Press Council of India (PCI) for a second term. Prasad headed the media watchdog for three years from November 2014. He had succeeded Justice Markanday Katju. The Press Council of India is a statutory body with a mandate to act as a watchdog to oversee the conduct of the print media. It was reconstituted for three years in October, 2014 and the term ended in October 2017.