Current Affairs - August 31, 2019 Current Affairs

Global Credit Rating Agency, Moody has downgraded Yes Bank's credit worthiness to 'junk' status, citing concern over lower than expected capital raising.

Indian Air Force's Wing Commander S Dhami has become the first female officer in the country to become the Flight Commander of a flying unit.

Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era

Every year on August 29, India celebrates National sports day. This year PM Modi has launched the Fit India Movement. Every year on August 29, India celebrates its National sports day. The day is celebrated to honor the legendary hockey player Major Dhyan Chand Singh.

The theme of this edition of summit was "Towards New National Cyber Security Strategy". During the summit, many issues were discussed such as protection of critical national infrastructure, emerging cyber threats: incidents, challenges and response.

Aparna Kumar is the first IPS officer to be honoured with the prestigious Tenzing Norgay National Adventure Award 2018. The Tenzing Norgay National Adventure Awards are the highest national awards for adventure sports in India, at par with the Arjuna award.

1,000 Foreign Tribunals have been set up to assist foreigners in Assam with the help of the Central Government.

As part of a capital alliance agreement, Toyota will acquire 2.4 crore shares of common stock in Suzuki (4.94 per cent stake) for 96 billion yen (over Rs 6,510 crore), while Suzuki plans to acquire shares in Toyota equivalent to 48 billion yen (around Rs 3,255 crore).

The application aims to enable people to search Janaushadhi generic medicines and the stores at the tip of their fingers. It will also help analyse product comparison of Generic vs Branded medicine in form of MRP & overall Savings.

The Union government appointed nine private sector specialists in various fields as joint secretaries in various ministries under its lateral recruitment policy. The appointments were cleared by the Appointment Committee of the Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.The nine joint secretaries from among the private sector experts appointed for a period of three years or till further orders.

The UGC has set up a five-member committee to look into the allegations of sale of fake degrees by certain universities. The committee was set up on the orders of the Union HRD Ministry.

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has announced a big consolidation of public sector banks. Under the scheme of amalgamation, 10 public sector banks are to be merged into four banks. After the amalgamation, the total number of Public Sector Banks in the country will come down to 12 from 27 banks in 2017. Indian Bank will be merged with Allahabad Bank to become the 7th largest public sector bank with business of Rs 8.08 lakh crore.

The Union Minister for Human Resource Development(MHRD) Shri Ramesh Pokhriyal 'Nishank' launched "Shagun" which is one of the world's largest Integrated Online Junction for school education to improve the school education system. It was launched in New Delhi where a booklet about Shagun was also released in the presence of Minister of State for HRD, Shri Sanjay Shamrao Dhotre. The portal for shagun is htpp://shagun.govt.in.

The Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs has recently launched a campaign for change management "Angikaar" for social behaviour change. The campaign focusesing on issues such as water & energy conservation, waste management, health, tree plantation, sanitation and hygiene for beneficiaries of completed houses under PMAY (U), through community mobilisation and IEC activities. For this purpose, the campaign will converge with schemes and Missions of other Ministries dealing with these subjects. The convergence would especially focus on Ujjwala for gas connection and Ayushman Bharat for health insurance to the beneficiaries of PMAY (U). Apart from this, the Ministry also launched e-Course on Vulnerability Atlas of India.

The Union Environment Ministry has transferred Rs 47,436 crore to 27 States for afforestation. The amount has been released from the Compensatory Afforestation Fund. The corpus will be utilised for compensatory afforestation, wildlife management, forest fire prevention, work related to soil and moisture conservation in forests, voluntary relocation of villages from protected areas etc.

The 22nd National Conference on e-Governance (NCeG) 2019 successfully concluded at Shillong, capital of Meghalaya with the adoption of 'Shillong Declaration'.

The iconic Taj Mahal monument has introduced a baby-feeding facility. It is the first baby feeding room to open at any Indian monument. It's a 12-by-12 feet room within the Taj Mahal campus. The nursing room at Taj Mahal could be the first of a series of such centres at other monuments.

Indian Bank has opened MSME CPC (centralised processing centre) in Chennai. The centralised processing centre will give a boost to the bank's MSME portfolio and will lead to speedy disposal of micro, small and medium enterprises' loans. The bank has also deployed skilled manpower in the CPC to improve credit quality and shorten transaction processing time.

Since 1992 Belgrade has been the capital of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, consisting of the Republic of Serbia and the Republic of Montenegro.

Rich Dad Poor Dad is a 1997 book written by Robert Kiyosaki and Sharon Lechter. It advocates the importance of financial literacy (financial education), financial independence and building wealth through investing in assets, real estate investing, starting and owning businesses, as well as increasing one's financial intelligence (financial IQ) to improve one's business and financial aptitude.

Mumbai ranked as the 45th safest city on the Safe Cities Index (SCI). Delhi got at the 52nd position. The report was released by the Economist Intelligence Unit The cities in the Asia-Pacific (Apac) region made up six of the top-10 safest cities with Tokyo taking the top spot.Tokyo, Apac cities dominated the SCI 2019. Singapore and Osaka got second and third while Sydney and Melbourne made it to the top-10 cities list. Hong Kong dropped out of this group since 2017.

The Union Cabinet approved the Establishment of an International Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI) along with its supporting Secretariat Office in New Delhi. The proposal was approved by the Prime Minister on 13th August 2019. The CDRI is proposed to be launched at the UN Climate Action Summit in New York, USA on 23rd September 2019.

US President Donald Trump launched the US Space Command on August 29, 2019. Trump announced the establishment of the space command as the newest US military combatant command in a ceremony at the Rose Garden, White House.

Shri Prahlad Singh Patel, the Minister of State for Culture & Tourism (Independent Charge)has launched an integrated NOC -No Objection Certificate online Application Processing System (NOAPS )for National Monuments Authority (NMA) in New Delhi.

Aswatha Narayana bagged a gold medal in the World Skills competition 2019 in Kazan, Russia. The event was held from 23-27 August. He won by beating 9 other competitors in the event. Along with him Lufeng Zeng from China also won Gold. He set a record by winning the title as this is the first time that an Indian contingent was participating in the tournament.

Bihar Government has imposed a ban on wearing of T-shirts and jeans by the employees in the state secretariat. The government has ordered the employees to wear decent, simple, sober and comfortable clothes in the office.

The Central TB Division of the Health Ministry has signed a pact with Wadhwani Institute for Artificial Intelligence (WIAI) to explore the application of cutting-edge Artificial Intelligence technology in its fight against TB. As per pact, Wadhwani AI would support the National TB programme in vulnerability and hot-spot mapping, modelling novel methods of screening and diagnostics and enabling decision support for care-givers apart from supporting the Revised National TB Programme (RNTCP) in adoption of other AI technologies. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates, India has close to 27 lakh TB cases every year and 4.23 lakh cases die. India is committed to ending TB by 2025, 5 years ahead of the Global Sustainable Development targets.

Momentum for Change is an initiative spearheaded by the UN Climate Change secretariat to shine a light on the enormous groundswell of activities underway across the globe that are moving the world toward a highly resilient, low-carbon future.

Union Minister Prakash Javadekar on Thursday announced the approval for the new Gorewada International Zoo to be inaugurated in Nagpur district of Maharashtra.

Air India has banned the usage of single-use plastic on the flight of its subsidiaries from October 2, 2019. The subsidiaries of Air India are Air India Express and Alliance Air. Also, Air India has announced that in its second phase, the single-use plastic will be banned in all Air India flights. Replacements: From October 2, the banana chips and sandwiches on Alliance Air flights and Air India Express flights will be packed in butter paper pouches instead of plastic pouches.

Maitri Mobile app clinched the bronze medal at the Technovation Challenge. It is the world's largest technology and entrepreneurship programme for girls, held in San Francisco, US. A team of 5 girls students nicknamed "Tech Witches" have developed a mobile app named Maitri. The aim of the app is to bring together individuals suffering from loneliness and depression and those lacking nurturing love of elderly role models.

The National Sports Day in India is celebrated on 29 August, on the birth anniversary of hockey legend Major Dhyan Chand . This day marks the birthday of Major Dhyan Chand Singh, the hockey player who won gold medals in Olympics for India in the years 1928, 1932 and 1936.

On August 26, the central board of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) decided to transfer a surplus of Rs 1.76 lakh crore to the government-its highest transfer ever-sparking a fierce debate.

Government e Marketplace has signed an MoU with Small Industries Development Bank of India. The MoU aims to benefit MSMEs, women entrepreneurs, Self Help Groups, Women Self Help Groups and various loan beneficiaries under MUDRA and Stand-up India scheme. GeM and SIDBI will take steps to ensure payments within a guaranteed timeframe to sellers, enhance working capital availability through bill discounting.

The Delhi Cabinet has approved free rides for women on Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) buses as well as its cluster buses from October 29. The proposal was approved by the cabinet at the Delhi Secretariat. On August 26, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Manish Sisodia presented a sum of Rs.290 crore in the Legislative Assembly for the free ride scheme for women in metro and DTC buses.

The index captures the performance of each state and union territory on a composite child well-being score. Among states, Kerala (0.76), Tamil Nadu (0.67) and Himachal Pradesh (0.67) bagged the top three slots in the index

The Steel Users Federation of India has signed a MoU with the Bombay Stock Exchange to launch trading in steel futures. BSE and SUFI will work towards enlisting steel futures in both long and flat segments, which will bring stability, risk-aversion besides creating a level-playing field for all players. BSE offers trading in commodities like gold, silver, crude oil, guar, cotton and turmeric.

Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana-National Urban Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NULM), has been conferred the prestigious SKOCH Governance Gold Award. It has been conferred the award for its initiative "Portal for Affordable Credit and Interest Subvention Access (PAiSA)". DAY-NULM is a flagship mission under the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs. PAiSA is a centralized IT platform which simplifies and streamlines release of interest subvention under the Mission. It offers end to end online solution for processing, payment, monitoring and tracking of interest subvention claims from banks on a monthly basis.