2nd June 2017 - Current Affairs Today

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National Current Affairs

Inauguration of MITS Mega Food Park at Rayagada, Odisha.

Mega Food Parks create modern infrastructure facilities for food processing along the value chain from farm to market with strong forward and backward linkages through a cluster based approach.
MITS Mega Food Park has been set up in 50.05 acre of land at the cost of Rs. 80.17 crore.
The food park is having facilities of fully operational industrial sheds for SMEs, developed industrial plots for lease to food processing units, Rice Processing Complex of 12 TPH, Dry Ware-House of 10,000 MT, Cold Store of 2500 MT, Multi Fruit Processing facility and other food processing facilities etc.
MITS Mega Food Park will benefit the farmers, growers, processors and consumers of Odisha and prove to be a big boost to the growth of the food processing sector in the state of Odisha

Stamp on Noted Playwright Balwant Gargi released

Balwant Gargi was the founder-director of the Indian Theatre Department, Punjab University Chandigarh.
The Punjab University, in 2016, had declared the 100th year of his birth as a year-long celebration.
He was awarded the Sahitya Akademi award, the highest Indian literary award, in 1962 for his book Rang Manch.
He had also received Padma Shri in 1972 and the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in Punjabi Playwriting in 1998.

Railways introduces buy now, pay later service

Indian Railways has introduced a facility of Buy Now, Pay Later service for passengers to book tickets online first and make payment for the reservations within a window of 15 days.
It will be available for confirmed, waitlisted, and Reservation against Cancellation berths.
The facility will allow passengers to travel after five days of booking the ticket.

Govt. doctors in UP to retire at 62 years

The Uttar Pradesh Government has extended the retirement age of doctors from 60 to 62 years.
This move has been taken in the view of non-availability of medical practitioners across the state.
The state requires more doctors to open new units at different hospitals, to set up a new hospital, to open a new 100-bed hospital and to run trauma centres and women care centres.
The current decision of raising the retirement age is expected to reduce the shortage of doctors by about 1000.

Telangana government to launch its own ‘T-Wallet’

T Wallet is available as an ‘Any Time, Any Where’ digital payment option for everyone.
Citizens can use T Wallet to make payments for both Government and Private transactions.
T Wallet can be accessed through Online Web Browser, Smart Phone, Feature Phone and even No phone.
Citizens with feature phone or no Phone can use Mee Seva centres to open T Wallet, Load money into wallet and make payments.
T Wallet uses two factor authentication through Aadhaar + Biometric or Aadhaar + OTP to Aadhaar linked mobile number, for feature phone and no phone users.

International Current Affairs

India ranked 137th in the Global Peace Index 2017

India has ranked 137^thout of 163 countries on Global Peace Index 2017 published by The Institute of Economics and Peace.
Top 5 Most Peaceful Countries as per 2017 Global Peace Index:

Rank	Country
1^st	Iceland
2^nd	New Zealand
3^rd	Portugal
4^th	Austria
5^th	Denmark

Business & Economy

India’s GDP in Q4 grows 6.1%, loses fastest growing economy tag

As per Government data released on May 31, 2017, India’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew at 6.1% year-on-year in fourth quarter of financial year 2016-17 i.e. during January 2017 to March 2017.
Owing to this lower number; India lost the fastest growing economy tag to Chinese economy, which grew at 6.9% during January 2017 to March 2017.
Analysts believe that demonetisation drive of Government, weighed down on the Q4 GDP numbers, as it was the first full quarter post demonetisation.

India signs Loan Agreement with the World Bank for USD 36 Million

Indian Government signed USD 36 million loan agreement with World Bank for Himachal Pradesh Public Financial Management Capacity Building Program in New Delhi.
The objective of the project is to improve the efficiency of Public Expenditure Management and Tax Administration in Himachal Pradesh.
The Program is expected to contribute to enhancing efficiency of key departments, improving budget credibility, strengthening systems and procedures to improve fiscal discipline, improving revenue administration to increase fiscal space, and targeted organizational reforms including human resource reforms.
The program has been planned for 5 years duration with a total outlay of $45 million

SEBI bars Cypress Money from acting as Investment Advisor

Markets regulator SEBI has barred Cypress Money from acting as Investment Advisor. SEBI found them guilty of providing unauthorized trading tips to investors.
SEBI found that the entities were acting as investment advisors and research analyst without securing registration from the regulator.
By indulging in such activities, they have violated the regulator’s investment advisors as well as research analyst services norms.
Accordingly, these entities have been ordered “to cease and desist” from acting as investment advisor or research analyst as well as undertaking such activities in the securities market, directly or indirectly.
The firm and its partners asked to immediately withdraw and remove all advertisements, representations and the like in relation to their investment advisory or any unregistered activity in the securities market.

India is world’s third largest Aviation Market

India becomes the world’s third largest aviation market with passenger traffic of over 10 crore travelers reported for 2016-17
Scheduled domestic flight movements rose from 7 lakh in 2014 to 8.2 lakh in 2016, an 8.2 percent compounded annual growth rate.

Awards

Prestigious APQN Quality Award to NAAC for International Co-operation in Quality Assurance

National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) of India received prestigious International Award of Asia Pacific Quality Network (APQN) titled “APQN Quality Award 2017 for International Co-operation in Quality Assurance”
APQN Quality Awards are among the most prestigious International Awards in quality assurance of higher education.
In the past, reputed organizations like QAA, UK, European Network – ENQA, HKCAVQ from Hong Kong, etc have received this award.

People in News

UN General Assembly elects Slovakia’s Miroslav Lajcak as next president

Slovak foreign minister Miroslav Lajcak was elected as the President of 72nd session of the UN General Assembly.
Lajcak, will succeed Fijian diplomat Peter Thomson.
In May 2016, the Slovak government had formally nominated Lajcak as a candidate for the position of UN Secretary-General.
Ramachandra Guha steps down as BCCI Administrator
According to the reports, Guha has reportedly mentioned some personal reasons for his resignation
Ramachandra Guha was appointed by the Supreme Court as one of the four administrators of BCCI.

Jet Airways appoints Vinay Dube as CEO

Vinay Dube is currently Senior Vice President-Asia Pacific with Delta Air Lines, will also head the airline’s executive management team.
Dube’s selection might be an indication of Jet’s growing relations with Delta. Jet Airways has extensive codeshare partnership with Air France-KLM and Delta.
In 2009, Vinay played a key role in establishing Delta’s industry-leading joint venture with Air France, KLM and Alitalia – a $10 billion enterprise and the first of its kind across the Atlantic.

Nirupama Rao appointed Public Policy Fellow to US Think-Tank

Nirupama Rao has been appointed as the public policy fellow to a top American think-tank based in Washington.
Nirupama was the former Indian Ambassador to the United States.
Under this program, she would be spending three months in residence at the Wilson Centre, which is a key non-partisan policy forum for tackling global issues, beginning in June 2017.
Rao will also be working on a book project on Sino-Indian ties and will be contributing to the Wilson Centre’s activities on India, including its India in Asia Initiative.

Science & Technology

‘SPARROW-ITS’ launched to fill ‘Annual Performance Appraisal Report’ in online

The purpose of this service is to enable the Indian Trade Service (ITS) officers to fill their Annual Performance Appraisal Report (APAR) online for the year 2016-17 onwards.
The SPARROW-ITS launched by Rita Teotia, Commerce Secretary in accordance with the Government of India’s policy to introduce online APAR for Group ‘A’ services.
The APARs would be produced and transmitted online to the concerned officers for filling up of the self-examination.
Then officer present self-examination in online through Digitally Signed Signature (DSC) or through E-sign.The detailed procedures would be done online by the Reporting and Reviewing Officer by utilizing DSC or E-sign.

Japan launches new satellite to improve GPS

It will be complement the US operated Global Positioning System (GPS).
Japan aims to build its version with four satellites focusing on the country and wider region.
It plans to launch two more satellites by March 2018, after which at least one satellite will be flying over Japan for eight hours per day.
The satellite geolocation system that was initially designed for the US military power countless applications including car navigation and internet browsing on mobile phones.

Maharashtra govt launches Mahaswayam portal for job seekers

Previously, the state government ran three different portals-
Maharashtra State Skill Development Society (MSSDS) portal for Skill Development,
’Maharojgar’ for employment and ‘Mahaswayamrojgar’ for entrepreneurship.
These three have now been merged into ‘Mahaswayam’, for all beneficiaries as well as the state to keep a track of the demand and supply of workforce.
At ‘Mahaswayam’, job seekers will be able to register themselves, search as well as apply for jobs, inquire for training, get information on self-employment and get details of job fairs.
The state government also benefited to keep a count of total registered candidates, entrepreneurs, training institutes, number of skilled candidates, total of job getters and self-employed users.

Solar Probe Mission renamed to Honor Pioneering Physicist Eugene Parker

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)will launch Solar Probe mission in year 2018, which will be humanity’s first mission to Sun.
In 1958, Parker published an article in the Astrophysical Journal called “Dynamics of the interplanetary gas and magnetic fields”in which he stated that there was high speed matter and magnetism constantly escaping the sun, and that it affected the planets and space throughout our solar system.
This phenomenon, now known as the solar wind,has been proven to exist repeatedly through direct observation.
Parker’s work broadened the understanding about how stars interact with the worlds that orbit them.