Current Affairs - August 4, 2019 Current Affairs

Entomology is the study of insects and their relationship to humans, the environment, and other organisms.

Credit rating agency CRISIL lowered Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth forecast for India by 20 basis points to 6.9 percent for this fiscal citing weak monsoon and slowing global growth. The GDP data for the first quarter taken into account for powering India's growth estimates. The development came days after the International Monetary Fund (IMF) cut India's growth by 30 basis points for the calendar years 2019 and 2020 to 7 per cent and 7.2 per cent respectively. The global analytical firm, in its latest report on the outlook for India in the financial year 2019 titled 'Uphill trek', the slowdown would be pronounced in the first half. The agricultural terms of trade are also expected to improve with a pick-up in food inflation, adding that farmers would benefit from income transfer of Rs 6,000 per year announced by the Centre. The sops announced so far might not be enough to pitchfork growth in this fiscal to, or above, the past 14-year average of 7 percent per annum.

The postal department has decided to convert the India Post Payments Bank (IPPB) into a small finance bank (SFB) with the aim to provide micro-credit at the doorsteps to individuals and SME's (Small and medium-sized enterprises). The postal department also sets a target to open one crore accounts for IPPB in 100 days.

Atish Dabholkar(56), an Indian theoretical physicist from Kolhapur, Maharashtra has been appointed as the new director of Italy based International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) for a five year term starting in November 2019 with the rank of Assistant Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). He succeeds Fernando Quevedo, who has led the centre since 2009. He is currently the head of ICTP's high energy, cosmology and astroparticle physics section. He joined ICTP in 2014 on secondment from Sorbonne University and the National Center for Scientific Research, where he has been a research director since 2007. Born in 1963, Dabholkar earned his Masters in Physics from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur in 1985 and his Ph. D. in theoretical physics from Princeton University in 1990 followed by postdoctoral and research positions at Rutgers University, Harvard University, and California Institute of Technology. He was also a professor at Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (Mumbai), is well-known for his research on string theory and quantum black holes.

Dr Vinayak S Hiremath, aged 30,the youngest doctor of Gulbarga (Kalaburagi), Karnataka was felicitated with 'Pride of Nation Award' by the Defence Minister of India, Rajnath Singh at the ceremony held at NCC (National Cadet Corps) auditorium parade grounds in New Delhi on the occasion of Kargil Vijay Diwas (July 26). He is the first South Indian doctor to offer free insulin consultation and treatment to gestational (pregnancy) diabetic mothers and family members of the Indian Army.He is presently working as the Chief Consultant Physician Diabetologist and Intensivist at KMK Hospital, Cochin, Kerala.He is credited to be one among the top 10 achievers in the healthcare industry in India.'Pride of the Nation Award' is given to the people who have made a notable contribution in their fields and in the process made India proud.

According to the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet, Government of India(GoI), E L S N Bala Prasad, a 1986 batch IAS officer of Bihar cadre has been upgraded to the rank of Special Secretary to President Ram Nath Kovind in the rank under Central Staffing Scheme. He was earlier served as Officer on Special Duty(OSD) to the President. As per the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet, Government of India(GoI), Director General (DG)of Civil Aviation Security Rakesh Asthana (1984-batch Gujarat cadre officer) has been given the additional charge of the DG of Narcotics Control Bureau(NCB) for a period of 6 months. He will take additional charge as DG, NCB for a period of 6 months from the assumption of charge till the appointment of a regular incumbent or until further orders.

To mark the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak Dev , the Sikhism founder, a Nagar Kirtan , a Sikh religious procession was taken out for 1st time after Independence from Nankana Sahib district(birthplace of Guru Nanak Dev) of Pakistan's Punjab province to Attari village in Amritsar,Punjab Indian side through the Attari-Wagah land route. The procession which comprising around 500 Sikh devotees will halt will at Sultanpur Lodhi in Kapurthala district of Punjab after passing through various cities and towns. The procession carrying the holy Guru Granth Sahib was organized by Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC), an apex religious body of the Sikhs with the support from both Indian and Pakistani authorities.

Such agreements involve cooperation between at least two countries to reduce trade barriers, import quotas and tariffs, and to increase trade of goods and services with each other.

Elected President of the first session of the General Assembly. Mr. Paul-Henri Spaak, Foreign Minister of Belgium, was elected first President of the General Assembly of the United Nations on January 16, 1946 and held this office for one session.

The Department of Revenue under the Ministry of Finance is conducting India's first national Time Release Study (TRS) between 1st - 7th August to enable faster movement of cargo across borders to benefit traders. The exercise will be institutionalized on an annual basis, during the same period every year hereafter. The TRS is an internationally recognized tool advocated by World Customs Organization (WCO) to measure the efficiency and effectiveness of international trade flows. This initiative will be conducted at the same time across 15 ports including sea, air, land and dry ports which cumulatively account for 81% of total Bills of Entries for import and 67% of Shipping Bills for export filed within India. The national TRS will establish baseline performance measurement and have standardized operations and procedures across all ports. Based on the results of the TRS, government agencies associated with cross border trade will be able to diagnose existing and potential bottlenecks which act as barriers to the free flow of trade, and take remedial actions for reducing the cargo release time. The initiative is on ground lead by the Central Board of Indirect Tax and Customs.

Badminton World Federation released women's singles ranking recently, The ranking is topped by Japan's Akane Yamaguchi. Chinese Taipei's Tai Tzu Ying was overtaken by Akane Yamaguchi to become the new world no.1 champion. Japan's Nozomi Okuhara is ranked second and Tai Tzu Ying is ranked third in the BWF rankings. India's star players PV Sindhu and Saina Nehwal have retained 5th spot and 8th spot respectively.

Union home minister & BJP( Bharatiya Janata Party ) President, Amit Shah will now head a 4-member panel of ministers, which was created in 2018 to propose action against mob lynching. The panel was headed by then Home minister Rajnath Singh when it was formed. The Group of Ministers (GoM) will have the members including S. Jaishankar(External Affairs Minister), Nitin Gadkari(union minister of road transport and highways), Ravi Shankar Prasad(Union Minister of Law and Justice) and Thawar Chand Gehlot(Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment). The Supreme Court(SC) had directed the Central Government, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) and the State governments to respond to the plea seeking implementation of its directions issued in July 2018 to tackle mob violence and lynching.

NITI Aayog and Facebook-owned WhatsApp, under the aegis of its Women Entrepreneurship Platform (WEP), have announced a partnership to support the growth of a robust ecosystem to promote women entrepreneurs in India.

India's central bank, RBI's (Reserve Bank of India) Money Museum, which was opened on March 11, 2019, aims at improving people's knowledge of the banking system with the help of interactive displays at Council House Street in Central Kolkata, West Bengal has been drawing a lot of attention for its special initiative. The museum has a big tree made using unusable coins and demonetized notes attached with a computer model outlining how money gets transferred to the account digitally. It also has three divided sections. 1st section(History of Money): This section depicts the evolution of the barrier system and the grains used as currency in medieval ages. 2nd section(History of Gold): It talks about gold and focuses on gold reserves in India. 3rd section(History of RBI): This is all about the history of RBI.

Mindtree appoints Cognizant's Debashis  Chatterjee  as  new  CEO. Chatterjee  will  be  the  first  individual  outside  Mindtree's  founding team  to  be appointed as chief executive.

The Union Cabinet approved the Introduction of Chit Funds (Amendment) Bill, 2019 in Parliament. It is aimed at reducing the regulatory or compliance burden of the registered Chit Funds Industry and protect the interests of the Chit subscribers. It will amend the Chit Fund Act 1982. The new bill will be incorporating the recommendations of the Parliamentary Standing Committee. The changes may be similar to the bill of 2018. The committee recommended that bill should incorporate insurance coverage for the chit fund subscribers where the cost must be borne by the chit fund company. It may allow a chit fund company to mention under their name as 'A ROSCA Institution' (Rotating Savings & Credit Association). This will help in distinguishing their business from other unconnected business. The old Bill had a provision for incorporating the name 'fraternity fund' instead of the commonly known 'chit fund.' Hereafter, words 'A ROSCA Institution' will be added to the nomenclature 'fraternity fund'.

Indian billionaire and a founder of the largest coffee chain in India, Cafe Coffee Day(CCD), V. G. Siddhartha Hegde has been found dead on the banks of the Netravati river near Mangaluru. Siddhartha was the son-in-law of former Karnataka chief minister SM Krishna.Hailing from the Chikmagalur district of Karnataka, he established Cafe Coffee Day in 1996, which is an Indian cafe chain owned by Coffee Day Global Limited serves 1.8 billion cups of coffee, annually, in six countries like Malaysia, Egypt, the Czech Republic, and Austria.

Max Verstappen wins German Grand Prix as Lewis Hamilton crashes. Red Bull's Max Verstappen took his second win of the year in a chaotic and incident-strewn German Grand Prix held in intermittent rain.

The rating agency's cut to 6.9 percent from 7.1 percent comes amidst slowing global growth and weak monsoon recorded in the country in June.

Girraj Prasad Gupta(a 1983-batch Indian Civil Accounts Service (ICAS) Officer) took over as the Controller General of Accounts (CGA) in New Delhi. He succeeds Anthony Lianzuala as the new CGA, Department of Expenditure, Ministry of Finance. He held higher positions in the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), Ministry of Rural Development and served as the Director of National Institute of Financial Management (NIFM), Faridabad.Gupta, as an Additional Controller General of Accounts, got credit for the work in development and implementation of Public Financial Management System (PFMS), a backbone IT (Information Technology) infrastructure for Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) in Government of India.

Actor-filmmaker Andy Serkis has won the IBC 2019 International Honour for Excellence and will be given the honour at the International Broadcasting Convention (IBC) awards ceremony on September 15 in Amsterdam. Serkis is best known for his mastery in motion capture techniques courtesy films like "The Lord of the Rings" and "Planet of the Apes" trilogy.

Senior Indian journalist Ravish Kumar on Friday was awarded this year's Ramon Magsaysay Award, regarded as the Asian version of the Nobel Prize.

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