Current Affairs - July 13, 2019 Current Affairs

Kailasavadivoo Sivan is an Indian space scientist and the chairperson of the Indian Space Research Organization. He is the former Director of Vikram Sarabhai Space Center and Liquid Propulsion centre. The Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation is the highest-ranked official of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), the space agency of the India.

Manav, a new human atlas initiative has been launched by the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) and Persistent Systems, a biotechnology company towards improving knowledge on human biology.Aim: The initiative aims to create a database of a molecular network of all the tissues in the human body and to derive a holistic picture of working of the human body.Under it, students will be trained and imparted with skills to perform annotation and curation of information that will ultimately form the online network.

South Korean multinational conglomerate, Samsung partners with Paisabazaar.com, India's largest online marketplace to offer financial products. Paisabazaar.com will now support Samsung Pay users by providing a one-stop solution to their financial requirements. Samsung Pay users can apply for credit cards and personal loans from the platform by using this facility. The loan approval feature in Paisabazaar will be extremely fast and seamless for the benefit of customers.

The Odisha state Government has implemented the Centre's Witness Protection Scheme, 2018 to protect witnesses and their family members from threats against their lives and reputation. The objective of this Scheme is to ensure that the investigation, prosecution, and trial of criminal offenses is not prejudiced because witnesses are intimidated or frightened to give evidence without protection from violent or other criminal recrimination. It comprises 3 categories of witnesses as per the threat perception. It consists of the cases where the threat extends to the life of witness or his family members during an investigation, trial or thereafter.

Fitness brand Reebok appointed Bollywood actress Katrina Kaif as its new brand ambassador in India. This will enhance Reebok's commitment to be the best fitness brand in India.

Anshula Kant, an MD at the State Bank of India and formerly CFO of SBI, was appointed MD and CFO of the World Bank Group

In Table Tennis, Indian pair G. Sathiyan and Anthony Amalraj won the bronze at the World Tour Platinum Australian Open. They defeat Korean pair of Jeoung Youngsik and Lee Sangsu.

Agri-Business Incubation Centre has started in Chhattisgarh. The centre is set up by the Union Agriculture Ministry in the Indira Gandhi Agriculture University of Raipur. Incubation Centre is set up under the National Agriculture Development Scheme Remunerative Approaches for Agriculture and Allied sector Rejuvenation(RAFTAAR). This Incubation centre is focused on innovations, skill-building and entrepreneurs development in agriculture and allied sectors.

The ICC 2019 cricket world cup final will be played between New Zealand and England.

NAVIO has recently been felicitated at the prestigious 'The Economic Times Best Healthcare Brands 2019'. NAVIO is a robotics-assisted surgery system from Smith & Nephew, a Global medical technology provider. This coveted and one of the most prestigious awards in India honors brands which have shown robust growth by high customer satisfaction in the healthcare sector.

N. Ganapathy Subramaniam, Chief Operating Officer & Executive Director - Tata Consultancy Services.

The Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways Shri Nitin J Gadkari in a written reply in Rajya Sabha mentioned that the Phase-I of Bharatmala Pariyojana received the approval with the financial outlay of Rs 5,35,000 crore to develop 24,800 km Highways along with 10,000 km residual National Highways Development Project (NHDP) stretches over a period of 5 years. Outlay of Rs 25,000 crore is approved for the development of Border & International Connectivity roads for a length of 2000 km. Along Indo-Nepal Border, the balance work of Piprakothi-Motihari-Raxaul on NH-28A of about 69 km length with civil cost of approximately Rs 334 crore was awarded in December, 2018. Commenced in February, 2019 it is expected to complete in 12 months.

India's first elephant rehabilitation centre will be set up by the Kerala State Government in its ecotourism village of Kottoor. Rs.105 crore has been allotted to this project which was launched by Chief Minister of Kerala, Pinarayi Vijayan. At present, the center has only 15 elephants and it will be increased once work has been completed.The centre will have an elephant museum, mahout training centre, super-specialty hospital, a retirement home and crematorium for the animals, will house orphaned, injured and older elephants.Now the state has 507 captive elephants & forest department plans to admit more captive elephants.The centre has set up with 65 hectares of natural forests area will have elephant safari and other activities to attract tourists.

NABARD celebrated its 37th Foundation Day on 12 July 2018 with pomp and flair. A commemoration Foundation Day seminar on "Collectivisation and Market Linkages: Farmer Producer Organisations" was held at its Head Office in Mumbai to mark the day.

West Bengal govt observes "Save Water Day". Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and eminent persons of different fields, School students took part in a Padayatra in Kolkata to spread the message of water conservation. She announced that the Day will be observed in the state each year from now to create awareness among people to check misuse of water.

Vihaan Networks Ltd (VNL) has inked a pact with Vietnam to develop digital villages. Vihaan Networks Ltd will offer solutions for advancing rural connectivity by developing digital villages in Vietnam's underserved areas through solar-based cellular and broadband solution.

YouTube will be introducing 'Learning Playlists' feature for educational videos on varied topics such as science, math, music and language.

Northeast Frontier Railway's (NFR) 'Plan Bee', a strategy of using an amplified version of honey bees sound to keep wild elephants away from train tracks won the " Best innovation award" of Indian Railways for the 2018-19 fiscal. The prize comprised of citation & cash award of Rs.3 lakh. Plan bee: It was launched in 2017 under which 46 devices were installed at several level crossings in Assam to play the sound of buzzing honey bees to drive away elephants from the rail tracks. This device is designed to generate the sound of honey bees from a distance of about 700-800 m.Installation: The first instrument installed at level crossing gate between Azara and Kamakhya stations under Rangiya division and then installed in several level crossing gates in the vicinity of forest areas. Background: Since 2013, a total of 67 elephants died in train hits in Assam while they were crossing the rail tracks and the population of elephant in Assam coming down to 5620.

Rajya Sabha is a permanent House and is not subject to dissolution. However, one-third Members of Rajya Sabha retire after every second year. A member who is elected for a full term serves for a period of six years.

Ranveer Singh and Alia Bhatt starrer 'Gully Boy', directed by Zoya Akthar was honoured with the Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema (NETPAC) Award for Best Asian Film at the 23rd edition of Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (BIFAN) for the year 2019 held at Bucheon City, South Korea. 'Gully Boy' is inspired by the lives of Mumbai street rappers Vivian Fernandes aka Divine and Naved Shaikh aka Naezy. It was released on February 14, 2019.

India and Russia bilateral co-operation to the next level in the field of space, including assistance in India's maiden human space flight mission 'Gaganyaan'. National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and Dmitry Rogozin, Director General of Russia's space agency (ROSCOSMOS) led the two sides in the meeting. Co-operation in futuristic technologies including new space systems, rocket engines, propellants and propulsion systems, spacecrafts and launch vehicle technology.

The 2nd India-Russia Strategic Economic Dialogue (IRSED) 2019 was held in New Delhi. It aims at bilateral cooperation between two countries in various fields. It was chaired by Rajiv Kumar, Vice-Chairman of India's think tank, National Institution for Transforming India (NITI) Aayog, and Russia's Deputy Minister of Economic Development, Timur Maksimov. The 2nd dialogue saw participation of government officials, business leaders and experts & it included parallel roundtables which discussed areas of cooperation and concrete roadmaps for future negotiations across outlined six-core areas.

The newly discovered Android malware Agent Smith infected 1.5 crore android devices in the country while about 2.5 crore devices have been affected with this virus. The malware has been nicknamed, 'Agent Smith', owing to the methods it uses to attack an Android device without getting noticed.

Elephant Fall is located in Meghalaya.

CavinKare announced Bollywood star Sonakshi Sinha as the brand ambassador for its largest shampoo Brand, CHIK. Venkatesh Vijayaraghavan is the Group Director & CEO - Personal Care & Alliances. FanMojo has appointed cricketer Prithvi Shaw as its brand ambassador. Fanmojo is a fantasy platform where users play skill-based games to earn money.

Gujarat Government has decided to develop Centers of Excellence for skill development in the Aviation industry. This was announced by Captain Ajay Chauhan, Director of Civil Aviation- Government of Gujarat at 2nd Gujarat Aviation Conclave Conference on Business Opportunities in the aviation sector held in Ahmedabad.

State Bank of India recently announced to do away with charges on NEFT and RTGS transactions through internet and mobile banking from July 1. The move came after the RBI decided announced the same decision to boost digital payments.

Mr. Natarajan Chandrasekaran is Chairman of the Board of Tata Sons, the holding company and promoter of more than 100 Tata operating companies with aggregate annual revenues of more than US $100 billion. He joined the Board of Tata Sons in October 2016 and was appointed Chairman in January 2017.