Current Affairs - June 22, 2019 Current Affairs

The National Health Authority (NHA) and ICICI Foundation for Inclusive Growth signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to train 15,000 state and district personnel and Pradhan Mantri Arogya Mitras to provide the delivery of health services under Ayushman Bharat Scheme over a period of one year. It is aimed at capacity building of health personnel at state. The state personnel is assigned the responsibility to implement the scheme in their respective states and Arogya Mitras, the health service professionals, are present at each empanelled hospital. ICICI Academy for Skills will conduct the training programme at its 20 centres and after the completion of training, the trained personnel will help beneficiaries understand the scheme better.

World Archery appointed Abhinav Bindra as an independent person to sort out the ongoing mess in the Archery Association of India (AAI). AAI violated the constitution by unanimously electing two parallel bodies in Chandigarh and New Delhi.

IndusInd Bank recently announced that 4 July will be the effective date of its merger with the Bharat Financial Inclusion Ltd (BFIL). Post the merger, M R Rao, the current CEO of BFIL will become the CEO of IndusInd Financial Inclusion Ltd (IFIL).

G20 (Group of 20) Ministerial Meeting on Energy Transitions and Global Environment for Sustainable Growth for the year 2019 was held at Karuizawa Prince Hotel (Karuizawa Town, Nagano), Japan on June 15-16, 2019. The Indian delegation at the G20 Ministerial Meeting on Energy Transitions and Global Environment for Sustainable Growth was represented by Shri RK Singh, Minister of State for Power and New & Renewable Energy and Skill Development & Entrepreneurship. Ministers and Representatives exchanged views on the key themes of "Accelerating the Virtuous Cycle of Environmental Protection and Economic Growth by Innovation", "Resource Efficiency Marine Plastic Litter" and "Adaptation and Resilient Infrastructure including Ecosystem-based approaches.

Microsoft owned GitHub announced that it has acquired US (United States)-based start-up Pull Panda, a firm that creates code review tools for the platform for an undisclosed sum. Pull Panda previously offered its products include Pull Reminders, Pull Analytics, and Pull Assigner as a subscription model. With this acquisition, all these products are now available for free at GitHub Marketplace.Microsoft acquired GitHub in June 2018 for $7.5 billion, one of its largest acquisitions till date.

India's PU Chitra has won gold in women's 1500m at Folksam Grand Prix 2019 held in Sollentuna, Sweden. Beside her, Asian Games gold medallist Jinson Johnson won the silver in the men's 1500m clocking 3:39.69s as he finished behind Sweden's Andreas Almgren (3:39.68s).

NSE Clearing Ltd. will head the panel set up by SEBI to review margins on derivatives. The panel will submit its recommendations to the Secondary Market Advisory Committee. These margins on the derivatives segment are pushing up the cost of trading while not managing risk in the most efficient manner.

Riva Ganguly Das, High Commissioner of India to Bangladesh visited the construction of the India-Bangladesh Friendship Bridge 1 (Feni Bridge/ Maitree Setu) and land port in Ramgarh Upazila of Khagrachhari, Bangladesh. The construction of the bridge over Feni River had begun in 2017 and is expected to be completed by April 2020. It will connect Tripura with Chittagong port of Bangladesh.Its foundation for construction was laid down jointly by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in 2015.

Sri Lanka successfully launched its first satellite 'Ravana-1' into orbit from the International Space Station (ISS) along with two other BIRDS 3 satellites from Japan and Nepal. It was deployed to the 400-km of orbit at an inclination of 51.6 degrees using the JAXA (Japanese Aerospace and Exploration Agency) owned Kibo experiment module. The satellite was designed and developed by 2 Sri Lankan engineers - Tharindu Dayaratne and Dulani Chamika who are studying space engineering at Japan's Kyushu Institute of Technology.

India named a 23-member squad to represent the country at the Asian Junior Badminton Championship. The tournament will be held in Suzhou, China. Boys' singles challenge by Manipur's Maisnam Meiraba Luwang. An impressive total of 1000 points by virtue of a fine run in the domestic circuit. The girls' team led by Malvika Bansod of the Airport Authority of India. She topped the list with 1000 points.

International retail giant Walmart on June 20, 2019 agreed to pay over 282 US Dollar to various US bodies to settle charges of violating anti-corruption regulations while conducting its business in India, China, Brazil and Mexico.

Indian Railways signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with RailTel Enterprises Limited (REL), a wholly-owned subsidiary company of RailTel Corporation of India Ltd, to upgrade its signalling system on 4 busiest sections. It includes Automatic Train Protection System with Long Term Evolution (LTE) based Mobile Train Radio Communication System (MTRC) along with the provision of Electronic Interlocking (indoor) wherever required. It was signed by the Executive Director of Signal Development (Railway Board), Pradeep M Sikdar, Member (Signal & Telecom) of Railway Board, Kashinath, and CMD (Chief Managing Director) of Railtel, Puneet Chawla.

Punjab Health Minister Balbir Singh Sidhu announced that the State Government is set to launch its flagship universal health insurance scheme named "Sarbat Sehat Bima Yojana (SSBY)" with effect from July 1, 2019. This Health scheme will be the first of its kind in the state and provide annual health cover of Rs. 5 lakh per family to 43.18 lakh families of Punjab. 14.86 lakh families of Punjab will be covered under the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PM JAY) in the state and the cost of the premium for the families covered under the PM JAY would be borne by the Centre and the state government in the 60:40 ratio while for the rest of the beneficiaries, it would be borne by the state government.

The Union Government has entered into agreements with Bangladesh and South Korea to broadcast DD (Doordarshan) India channel in these countries. In return, the state channels of these two countries will be shown on DD Free Dish in India.

The National Institution for Transforming India (NITI) Aayog, think tank of the government, has proposed that only Electric Vehicles (EVs) should be sold after 2030. This is proposed in order to expand the scope of the clean fuel technology beyond two and three-wheelers. The panel headed by NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant had suggested earlier that only EV (three-wheelers and two-wheelers) with an engine capacity of up to 150 cc should be sold from 2025 onwards. According to the joint study by NITI Aayog and Rocky Mountain Institute, USA, India can save 64% of anticipated road-based mobility-related energy demand and 37% of carbon emissions in 2030 by pursuing a shared, electric, and connected mobility future.

Telangana CM K. Chandrashekhar Rao inaugurated the Rs. 80,190 crore Kaleshwaram irrigation project on June 21, 2019 at its starting point in Medigadda (Jayshankar Bhupalapally) district. This project is designed to sort out issues of drinking water in the state and also irrigation to the dried up areas of Telangana. About 225 thousand million cubic feet (TMC) of water will be drawn through this project through Godavari river basin.

World Music Day is observed every year on June 21. Each year there are events in over 120 countries and 700 cities around the world, not including France where there were too many events to count. The event is also known as Fete de la Musique (or World Music Day) and originated in France in 1982.

Shefali Juneja, a 1992 batch officer of Indian Revenue Service (Income Tax cadre), has been appointed to the post of Representative of India in the council of International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) in Montreal, Canada for a period of 3 years. She will replace senior IAS officer Alok Shekhar.

IT firm Tech Mahindra has signed a multi-year contract with Airbus for cabin and cargo design engineering. The contract aims to capitalise on the specialised skills and competencies in the growing cabin engineering business over the next few years.

The 33rd Federation Cup Basketball Championship for Men and Women for the year 2019 was held at the Gautam Buddha University, Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh. The Punjab Police (Men) and Eastern Railway (Women) won the prestigious gold medals in the tournament. The tournament was held from June 12-16, 2019 and was organised by the Basketball Federation of India (BFI) and the Uttar Pradesh Basketball Association (UPBA).