Current Affairs - June 28, 2018 Current Affairs

26th edition of two month long exercise Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) begun off Hawaii in the Western Pacific Ocean. Navies of 26 countries including India is participating in this exercise, which is scheduled off Hawaii from June 27 to August 27. INS Sahyadri, Commanded by Captain Shantanu Jha, has reached the Pearl Harbour, Hawaii, to participate in RIMPAC 2018. Subsequently, the 25th edition of the exercise was attended by INS Satpura in 2016.

The "Statistics Day" is celebrated every year on June 29 The objective of celebration of this Day is to create public awareness about the importance of statistics in socio-economic planning and policy formulation, to acknowledge the contribution of Prof. Mahalanobis. The 2018 theme is "Quality Assurance in Official Statistics", which is chosen to underscore the importance of compliance with essential parameters of quality in statistical systems and products.

Officials of Airports Authority of India (AAI) have begun discussions with a few Indian companies to buy humanoid robots in a few months. Chennai airport will get 3 humanoid robots - one on each for domestic arrival, domestic departure and international departure. These robots will guide passengers and offer assistance with the queries.

According to the language data of Census 2011, Hindi is the mother tongue of 43.63% Indians, making it the country's most spoken language, followed by Bengali. Further, Marathi has replaced Telugu as the third most spoken language in the nation. While Sanskrit is least spoken, Urdu became the seventh most spoken language in India.

A two-day training workshop on cybercrime targeting children started in New Delhi on 26th June 2018. The workshop is organized by National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) along with Police Bureau of Research and Development (PBR&D) and UNESCO. It aims to offer professional training to the investigators who handle crime against children.

Anant Barua, who is at present executive director in the market regulator, has been appointed as a Whole-time Member (WTM) of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). The post of WTM fell vacant after S Raman retired. Barua has been appointed to the post for 3 years on the pay as admissible to additional secretary to the central government or a consolidated salary of Rs 4 lakh per month. Currently, the SEBI board consists of Ajay Tyagi (Chairman); G Mahalingam and Madhabi Puri Buch (both Whole-time members); besides Subhash Chandra Garg, Injeti Srinivas, NS Vishwanathan and Arun P Sathe as part-time members.

The Ministry of Shipping's flagship programme for port-led-prosperity 'Sagarmala' received the 'Gold Award' in infrastructure sector in the recently concluded 52nd Skoch Summit 2018 in New Delhi. The Sagarmala Programme also received the 'Order of Merit' at the Summit. The Skoch Awards recognize leadership and excellence in accelerating socio-economic changes.

Ministry of Health and Family Welfare signed a MoU with Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) to expand the short term healthcare courses through its available robust platform. As per this MoU, curriculum for 10 courses particularly designed for the health sector, will offer over 14 lakh trained manpower by 2025. Aim of this MoU is to expand the health programs to develop trained personnel in the healthcare sector and to set up a dedicated cell for developing, implementing and certifying the skill based programs at IGNOU. Ministry of Health and Family Welfare will offer financial assistance to IGNOU to implement the structure and initiating the programs. The courses will be initiated in phases by IGNOU throughout India.

Bajaj Finance overtook Axis Bank in market capitalization ranking according to BSE. It was a surge of 3%. The m-cap of Bajaj Finance was of Rs 1,345.85 billion. Bajaj Finance stood at number 18 position in overall market-cap ranking climbing 11 places in 2018.

HCL Technologies has acquired German IT and engineering services provider H&D International Group. Through this deal, HCL Tech will attain significant in-country front office and delivery capabilities, which will further enhance its domain expertise in the global automotive sector. The H&D Group, one of the largest IT service providers in the German automotive industry, has extensive expertise in SAP, computer-aided technologies (CAx), engineering services and customer-specific product development.

French state-run power utility EDF and American conglomerate General Electric (GE) have signed to build 6 EPR (European Pressurized Reactors) nuclear reactors with capacity 1,650 megawatts (MW) at Jaitapur nuclear plant in Ratnagiri district, Maharashtra. This agreement would make Jaitapur power plant the world's largest nuclear power generating station by net electrical power rating. It will also help the Union Government to achieve its ambitious target of 22,480 MW nuclear power generation capacity by 2031.

The tourism department of the state of Goa announced that it will launch app-based taxi services in the state called : 'GOAMILES' in July 2018. It would help in curbing fleecing by the taxi drivers and easy facilitation for the passangers. It has more than 2,800 licensed taxi drivers partnering with the app. It aims to boost the digital economy, enable ease of travel for tourists and give taxi drivers better income.

Minister for Commerce & Industry and Civil Aviation of India, Suresh Prabhu co-chaired the 15th Session of the India-Australia Joint Ministerial Commission with the Australian Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment, Steven Ciobo was held in Canberra, Australia. Discussions on India's reform journey, including GST implementation, competition policy, insolvency and bankruptcy acts, and ease of doing business initiatives were held and India's contribution to Australia's economy. The critical role of the private sector andthe importance of Australian and Indian businesses engaging directly for practical solutions.

A Japanese Probe, Hayabusa2, was sent on a mission to explore asteroids in deep space. It has reached an asteroid named 'Ryugu' meaning 'Dragon Palace" to collect information about the birth of the solar system and origin of life. The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) said that the probe was successfully settled into an observatory position into a 20 km above the asteroid.

Yousaf Saleem, 25-year-old, a visually impaired lawyer, became the first blind judge in the history of Pakistan. His sister is reportedly Pakistan's first visually impaired civil servant.