Current Affairs - August 21, 2019 Current Affairs

Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) handed over the design of Mobile Metallic Ramp (MMR) to the Indian Army at a ceremony held at DRDO Bhawan, New Delhi. (MMR) load-bearing capacity of 70 metric ton. The MMR has been designed and developed by DRDO's premier research laboratory Centre for Fire, Explosive and Environment Safety (CFEES) on the requirements projected by Army for reducing the Strategic Mobility time of mobilizing Armoured Fighting Vehicles. The ramp will provide the strategic mobility for Armoured and Mechanized units and formations of the Army.

IIT-Delhi, Ankita Gulati was awarded the NCPEDP-Mphasis Universal Design Award 2019 for developing a multisensory kit named TouchVision. IIT-Delhi-incubated start-up working on the design and development of inclusive learning resources for visually impaired people. TouchVision aims at digital inclusion for 253 million persons with visual impairment globally.

Wipro announced a strategic partnership with the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) to conduct advanced applied research in autonomous systems, robotics and 5G. Wipro IISc Research and Innovation Network (WIRIN), a hybrid industry-academia collaboration unit, which will drive idea discovery, research and innovation in technology and product design.

Former Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, Babulal Gaur passed away. He served as the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh from August 2004 to November 2005 and represented Govindpura Assembly seat for 10 times.

The Indian junior cyclists stunned many by clinching their first-ever track gold in the men's team sprint on Wednesday. The trio of Esow Esow, Ronaldo and Rojit Singh Yanglem landed the historic gold medal for India

In the 300m races held at the Athleticky Mitink Reiter Event 2019 in the Czech Republic, Indian sprinters Hima Das and Mohammad Anas won gold in the women's and men's category respectively. It was the sixth gold in European races by Hima Das since July 2, 2019.

The prime ministers of India & Bhutan jointly inaugurated the Ground Earth Station and SATCOM network, developed with assistance from Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) for utilization of South Asia Satellite in Bhutan.

Recently, Russia stated that that the United States was escalating military tensions by testing a medium-range cruise missile weeks after tearing up a pact with Russia. The tested missile was not nuclear equipped.

In a bid to promote research in cutting edge areas of science, the Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB) plans to launch a new scheme called "Supra" (Scientific and Useful Profound Research Advancement) to fund scientists. The scheme has designed as a part of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 100-day transformative ideas. The aim of this scheme is to fund new scientific and engineering breakthroughs with global impact. This will promote new areas of study, novel scientific concepts, new products, and technologies. It will also attract high-quality research proposals consisting of new hypotheses or challenge present ones and provide innovative solutions.

Indian Coast Guard held a High-Level Meeting (HLM) with the Sri Lanka Coast Guard at Coast Guard Headquarters.Indian side led by Director General, Coast Guard K Natarajan. Sri Lankan delegation headed by Rear Admiral Samantha Wimalathunge. The meeting took place under the provisions of the MoU signed between the two sides for the establishment of a collaborative relationship to combat transnational illegal activities at sea and develop regional cooperation.

A 20-year-old Chinmay Prabhu from Mumbai has created a world record for the 2nd time under his name of solving 176 pyraminx (pyramid-shaped Rubik's cube) puzzles while riding a bicycle in 1 hour and 7 minutes. He broke the record of solving 111 pyraminx puzzles. On December 2018, He had set the Guinness Book of World Records of solving 9 rubik's cubes underwater in 1 minute and 48 seconds. Prabhu also made an entry into the Limca Book of Records for solving mirror cube blindfolded. He has been solving Rubik's cube puzzles since the year 2015.

Every planet in our solar system except for Venus and Uranus rotates counter-clockwise as seen from above the North Pole; that is to say, from west to east.

K2 is known as the Savage Mountain due to the extreme difficulty of ascent.

Indian Para Swimmer Satendra Singh Lohia has become the first Asian swimmer to cross the Catalina Channel of America. Satendra holds the Asian record of crossing both the English and Catalina channels.Satendra led the Indian Para Relay team along with 5 teammates and crossed the Catalina Channel and covered the distance of 42km in 11 hours 34 minutes.

Parsis residing in India celebrated their new year 'Navroz or Jamshedi Navroz' on August 17. It marks the Iranian and Persian New year. The day is dedicated to the beginning of spring. Navroz means a "snew day" and the Parsi New Year is popularly referred as Pateti. Zoroastrians across the globe celebrated the New Year on March 21, 2019, by following Fasli/Bastnai calendar.

The Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment Shri Thaawarchand Gehlot met 5 member-Australian Delegation in New Delhi. The Australian Delegation was headed by Mr.Duncan Maskell, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Melbourne. The discussion included the issues relating to the implementation of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed between the two countries and for the cooperation in the Disability Sector.

President of India, Shri Ram Nath Kovind planted a sapling of Maulsari in the Rashtrapati Bhavan Estate. They launched a plantation drive as part of Van Mahotsav celebrations. The President met students and urged them to encourage fellow citizens to plant more trees and reaffirm our commitment to a greener and sustainable planet. As part of Van Mahotsav celebrations, the President's Secretariat, over the next few weeks, will be planting 3,252 trees and 2,962 shrubs in the President'ss Estate.

In recognition of his stellar work in promotion of science and technology, Indian Space Research Organisation Chairman K Sivan was on Thursday awarded the Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Award by the Tamil Nadu government.

The 38th parallel north formed the border between North and South Korea prior to the Korean War.

Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh got elected unopposed to Rajya Sabha from Rajasthan after the opposition BJP failed to field a candidate against him. The bypoll was necessitated by the death of BJP parliamentarian Madan Lal Saini.

The researchers from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Guwahati, Assam invented two distinct and special membranes that can separate oil and water, even under harsh conditions. This development is expected to be used in applications of oil spill management. The work is published in ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering journal. The membranes are super-water repellent in air and super oil-repellent in water. The research was led byUttam Manna, Assistant prof. at Department of Chemistry, IIT Guwahati along with his research team Avijit Das, Dibyangana Parbat and Arpita Shome.

National Ice Cream Pie Day is observed annually on 18th August.

Former Australian player Mitchell Johnson elected as an Honorary Life Member of the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC).The club made the announcement, during the second Ashes Test between Australia and England which ended in a draw. Johnson played 73 international Test matches for Australia claiming 313 wickets at an average of 28.40. Johnson made his debut for Australia in 2005 and hung up his boots a decade later in 2015.

Indian largest digital wallet company, Paytm has promoted its CFO (chief financial officer) Madhur Deora as President of the company. He joined the paytm in October 2016 and prior to this, he has served as Managing Director (MD)in Citigroup's investment banking business in New York, London, and Mumbai. He will now be tasked with several businesses in the consumer services segment to oversee their growth and financials.

Father of the Green Revolution in India and renowned farm scientist M S Swaminathan has given the call for 'evergreen revolution', "which implies productivity improvement in perpetuity without ecological and social harm.

The 2019 World Youth chess championship is to be held in Mumbai from October 1-13, at the Renaissance Hotel in Powai, Mumbai under the aegis of All-India Chess Federation and organized by the All-Marathi chess Association. World's second youngest GrandMaster(GM) R.Pragganandhaa(1D) from Chennai and Nagpur's Divya Deshmukh will take part in the event. India's challenge in the girls' category will be led by Divya Deshmukh. Players from 62 countries including Russia, America, France, Italy, and Azerbaijan have confirmed their participation.

Pakistan accused India of waging "fifth-generation warfare" by using water as a weapon on August 19. Pakistan claimed that India failed to inform it about the release of excess water from a dam over River Satluj, which could cause flooding in the nation.