Current Affairs - August 6, 2018 Current Affairs

The Ministry of Defence(MoD) Nirmala Sitharaman agreed to hand over land for works on ten infrastructure development projects in Bengaluru. In exchange, the State government will have to sanction land of equal value in other parts of the State. The State cabinet is yet to make its decision this issue. Meantime, MoD has been instructed to begin the construction works. The list of the projects is yet to be announced.

Ajay Data has got a two-year term and will take up the position during ICANN 63 Meet in Spain in October 2018. Ajay Data is the first Indian to have been selected as a member of ccNSO and will be representing India at a global level. He will be the custodian of Asia, Australia and Pacific Islands as a member of ccNSO. ccNSO of the ICANN is the policy-development body for global issues.

The President of India, Ram Nath Kovind presented the Outstanding Parliamentarian Award (OPA) for the years 2013-2017 in New Delhi on August 1, 2018. Dr Najma Heptullah, the Manipur's governor and 5-times Rajya Sabha member, won the award for 2013. Meanwhile, BJP's Lok Sabha member Hukum Dev Narayan was the recipient of OPA for 2014, Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad for 2015, Trinamool Congress' Dinesh Trivedi for 2016 and Bhartruhari Mahtab of the Lok Biju Janata Dal (BJD) for 2017. The OPA is an award given by the Indian Parliamentary Group (IPG) to an outstanding sitting Member of Parliament (MP) for overall contribution in the Parliament.

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar launched 'Mukhyamantri Kanya Utthan Yojana', a scheme for the girl child. The scheme will provide Rs.54,100 for a girl child from her birth until she graduates. This is to express the State government's resolve for the empowerment of women. The 'scheme will be run by three departments namely education, health and social welfare. The Chief Minister also said that the amount under the 'Bicycle Yojna' will be increased from Rs.2500 to Rs.3000.

Karman Kaur Thandi, 20-year-old Delhi girl, jumped 32 places and now ranked 200th in the WTA (Women's Tennis Association) list. In April, India's top singles player Ankita had broken into the top-200 and is now ranked 195 (-4). Earlier, Sania Mirza, Nirupama Vaidyanathan, Shikha Uberoi and Sunitha Rao had made it to the top-200. In the men's singles, Yuki Bhambri was unchanged at 86 while Ramkumar Ramanathan climbed four places to a career-best 111.

Vijay Mallya (promoter of defunct Kingfisher Airlines) allegedly defrauded banks of about Rs 7,500 crore, according to the list the Finance Ministry submitted in the Lok Sabha. Mehul Choksi, promoter of Gitanjali Jewels (₹7,080 crore) and his nephew Nirav Modi (₹6,498 crore) took the second and third spots. The list also includes Sterling Biotech promoters Chetan Sandesara, Nitin Sandesara and Diptiben Sandesara, who allegedly defrauded banks of ₹5,383 crore.

Indian-origin U.S. astronaut Sunita Williams is among the 9 astronauts selected by NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) to fly the first missions into space on commercial spacecraft, starting in 2019. These nine astronauts will launch on the first crewed test flights and missions of new commercial spacecraft built and operated by the Boeing Company and SpaceX. The astronauts will launch on Boeing CST-100 Starliner and SpaceX Dragon capsules to the International Space Station starting in 2019. These missions will be the first crewed launches from United States soil after the end of the space shuttle programme in 2011.

The Mughalsarai station got a new name after Uttar Pradesh Governor Ram Naik. Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) National President Amit Shah inaugurated the renamed station. It is located on the main Howrah-Delhi Grand Chord line.

India captain Virat Kohli topped the ICC Player Rankings for Test batsmen. Kohli thus became the seventh India batsman, and first since Sachin Tendulkar (in June 2011) to be ranked the number one Test batsman in the latest ICC rankings. At 934 points,Kohli has become India's highest-ranked batsman, 14th overall, on the all-time tally of points.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj met Kyrgyzstan Foreign Minister Erlan Abdyldaev discussed possible areas of collaboration and the areas discussed during the bilateral meeting includes political and parliamentary exchanges, defense and security, science and technology, economic, health and tourism.

Six Israeli startups working on healthcare, agriculture and water management sectors have been selected under the "Israel-India Bridge to Innovation" program to interact with various Indian businesses. The 6 startups that have been selected include: Amaizz, Biofeed, Zebra Medical, MobileODT, etc. The innovation week was started by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu along with Israel Innovation Authority (IIA) and Invest India in 2017. India-Israel Innovation Bridge was developed to help Israeli companies use their technologies, develop, adapt and commercialize their innovation in India.

The Manipur government has constituted two committees - state and district level - to deal with a possible influx of illegal immigrants. The State Level Monitoring Committee will monitor the entry or presence of illegal immigrants in the state and take steps for creating adequate public awareness to counter the situation. It will be headed by Special Secretary (Home) while the Deputy Commissioners and Superintendents of Police as its members. The district level committee will be headed by the concerned deputy commissioners while Superintendent of Police, SDOs, SDPO, SDCs, OCs will be the members. The committee with local bodies would likely to conduct headcounts if needed.

The Telangana government will setup a state of the art "B-Hub" for biotech and biopharma sector in Genome Valley, Hyderabad. It's a first-of-its-kind initiative in the country, aimed at providing much-needed support to the biopharma research and development activities, featuring a scale-up manufacturing facility along with a turnkey incubator, lab space module at GLP grade spreading over a built-up area of 40,000 sq.ft. This end-to-end biopharma scale-up manufacturing facility will give domestic companies the required impetus here on par with Korea, China and France who have taken lead in biopharma innovation.

Spanish badminton ace Carolina Marin won gold in Badminton World Federation (BWF) World Championships 2018, in Nanjing. She created history by becoming the first woman to win three badminton World titles with an emphatic victory. She beat P.V.Sindhu of India by 21-19, 21-10 in Nanjing. P.V. Sindhu won Silver.

International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Catchment Area Development Authority of Telangana Irrigation Department at the State Secretariat. Upon this, Telangana government has asked the ICRISAT to conduct a research on the impact of Mission Kakatiya programme. The research would be conducted for 2 two years covering various aspects like the impact of de-siltation on water availability for irrigation, changes in cropping pattern and recharge of groundwater. It would also incorporate economic valuation in terms of nutrients applied.