Current Affairs - July 15, 2018 Current Affairs

Angelique Kerber has won the 2018 women singles' Wimbledon tennis tournament by defeating 7-time winner Serena Williams by 6-3 6-3. With the win, Kerber has become the first German woman to win the title since Steffi Graf in 1996. Serena was bidding a record-equaling 24th major trophy.

Chief Minister Vijay Rupani gave in-principal approval for the project "Seema Darshan", which is also referred as border tourism project at Nadabet near Suigam in Banaskantha district. The approval was given at a review meeting held in Gandhinagar, which entails development of an exhibition hall and a parade ground with an amphitheatre for 5,000 people, under phase-2 of the project. An investment of Rs 22 crore was made into the phase-1 of the project that was launched on December 24, 2016.

A new integrated state-of-the-art integrated Indian Visa Application Centre (IVAC) was jointly inaugurated by Home Minister Rajnath Singh and his Bangladeshi counterpart Asaduzzaman Khan at Dhaka's Jamuna Future Park. Rajnath Singh also inaugurated the Bangladesh-India Friendship building in Bangladesh Police Academy in Sardah.

This is in sync with the recommendations of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai). Earlier, barred telecom operators from offering differential pricing of data, putting an end to Facebook's Free Basics and Airtel Zero. The regulator had recommended a change in the licence conditions to restrict any form of discrimination in Internet access based on content. The DoT will form a committee to identify critical services and come up with a separate regime for them which includes autonomous vehicles and digitized healthcare, certain types of traffic need to be prioritized.

D C Raina was advocate general of Jammu and Kashmir in 2016 also when Governor's rule was imposed in Jammu and Kashmir following the death of then chief minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and clash between the PDP and BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) on formation of government.

US President Donald Trump is the most followed world leader on Twitter, with 52 million followers on his @realDonaldTrump account. Facebook is the second most popular platform among government leaders followed by Instagram.

Goyal felicitated the artists who participated in this initiative by giving them cash awards and appreciation certificates. He also felicitated artists who won the top prize in the national transporter's in-house Station Beautification Contest. They worked for 7 railway stations. This innovative competition was organized among zonal railways in December 2017. More than 62 stations across zonal railways were beautified under this initiative by utilising skills of local artists, mostly using local art form, painting style, local themes or contemporary arts.

Portugal has become the sixth European country to grant the right to self-determination of transgender identitywithout the guardianship of a third party and without a diagnosis of identity disruption following Denmark, Malta, Sweden, Ireland and Norway. The change of gender and name will be independent from any possible sex change operation. A law that was in force since 2011 required transgender citizens to have a medical diagnosis that reported gender dysphoria, when gender does not correspond to biological sex.

The Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) has constituted a 10 Member Committee, headed by the Injeti Srinivas (Secretary of Ministry of Corporate Affairs), for review of the penal provisions in the Companies Act, 2013. The basic aim of the committee is to examine de-criminalisation of certain offences and to suggest ways to replace it with in-house mechanism, where a penalty could be levied in instances of default. The committee will examine the existing compoundable offences in the Companies Act - 2013 viz. The Committee shall submit its report within 30 days to the Central Government for consideration of its recommendations.

SpiNNaker is a custom-built computer. It generated similar results similar to that of the best brain-simulation supercomputer software used at present for neural-signalling research. This system would help to advance our knowledge of neural processing in the brain, to include learning and disorders like epilepsy and Alzheimer's disease. A researcher from the Julich Research Centre in Germany, said that, SpiNNaker can support detailed biological models of the cortex.

The Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) has constituted a 10 Member Committee, headed by the Secretary of Ministry of Corporate Affairs Mr Injeti Srinivas, for review of the penal provisions in the Companies Act, 2013. It has been setup to examine 'de-criminalisation' of certain offences. The Committee shall submit its report within thirty days to the Central Government for consideration of its recommendations.

According to American property consultant CBRE, New Delhi's Connaught Place is the 9th most expensive location globally to set up or rent an office, with an annual rent of INR 10,512 per square feet. Hong Kong (Central) is at the first position with an annual rent of $306.57 per square feet, followed by London (West End), Beijing (Finance Street) in China, Hong Kong (Kowloon) and Beijing (CBD) in China. Mumbai's Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) slipped to 26th position with an annual prime rent of USD 96.51 per sq ft from 16th rank.

The Odisha Government has constituted Heritage Cabinet headed by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik to preserve the history and culture of Odisha. The Heritage Cabinet will maintain coordination between the institutions and departments working to preserve and spread Odia language, culture and literature. It will also prepare policies, and prepare and approve short-term and long-term plans. The Cabinet comprises eight members, including the Chief Minister. While the Chief Secretary will be Secretary of Heritage Cabinet, secretary in the department of Odia Language, Literature and Culture will be its convenor. The secretaries of all the departments concerned will be special invitees.