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National
bill for the Establishment of six new IITs across India
- billproviding for opening six new IITs, Under the Institutes of Technology (Amendment) Bill 2016 on July 26.
- bill enables the setting up of Indian Institute of Technology in Palakkad, Goa, Dharward, Bhilai.,Jammu and Tirupati.
- new bill also seeks to bring the Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad, within the ambit of this Act.
- students from the ST and SC communities, from the Below Poverty Line (BPL) category and physically challenged have full waiver of fees in the IITs and NITs.
- Those whose family income is below `9 lakh per annum also get zero per cent education loan.
Karnataka government sets up a dedicated Start-up Cell
- dedicated Start-up Cell to fuel the implementation of the initiatives under the Start up policy.
- department of Information technology and Bio technology of Karnataka, for the first time, has got all sphere degree solutions for the startup initiatives and more importantly its much required direct intervention to the startups though the open house.
- Department of IT and BT would have special focus on further strengthening the idea of innovation and leveraging to give impetus to the growth of startups through its startup policy 2015-2020.
- idea that the state govt. have envisaged is to ensure that 20,000 startupsare groomed by our startup policy and is going to have a dedicated startup cell booster kit and a dedicated fund to ensure things.
- Bangalore is the second fastest growing startupecosystem in the world and is the only Indian city to be ranked among the best 15 startup ecosystems across the world
‘Feed the future’ program launched
- Indian Agriculture Ministry and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) jointly inaugurated the second phase of the Feed the Future -India triangular training program
- In the second phase of the initiative Specialized agriculture training will be provided to 1,500 agricultural professionals across Africa and Asia.
- The maiden Phase hadtrained 200 professionals from Kenya, Liberia and Malawi.
- program is to share these farming techniques used by India and the US worldwide, helping countries in Africa and Asia to bring innovative solutions to the challenges facing farmers
Rajasthan aims to double farmers’ income in six years
- state also mulling to bring in latest technological innovation and introduce best farming practices to improve yields and on use of drip irrigation to overcome drought-like situations
- global Agri meet aims to safeguard the farmer’s empowerment not compensating the accelerated yet sustainable growth in agriculture and double their income by 2022.
Notification for implementation of 7th Pay Commission
- notification for the implementation of the 7th Pay Commission recommendationsrelated to the hike a month after the union cabinet gave its nod for the same.
- 8 million central government employees and 5.2 million pensioners will get the increased by 2.57 times hike in basic pay payout from their August salaries.
BRICS policy planning dialogue meeting held in Patna
- BRICS Policy Planning Dialogue concluded in Patna, Bihar ahead of the eighth BRICS Summitto be held in Goa.
- there were talks about strategic assessments of international situation and the regional situation and trends therein and others issues discussed.
T V S N Prasad Committee to explore possible alternatives to pellet guns in Kashmir
- seven-member expert committeefor exploring the other possible alternatives to pellet guns can be lethal, when sensitive parts like eyes are hit.
- Committee will be headed by Joint Secretary in the MHA T V S N Prasad.
- remaining six members include members of the committee: Atul Karwal (IG, CRPF), Rajeev Krishna, (IG Operations, BSF), Tushar Tripathy (DDG, Small Arms, Ordnance factory Board) and Naresh Bhatnagar (Professor at IIT, Delhi).
International
India contributed $100, 000 fund for sexual exploitation and abuse victims by peacekeepers
- India has contributed US $100,000 (RS 67,14,945)to a trust fund set up for victims of sexual exploitation and abuse by peacekeepers
- India is the first country to make a contribution to the fund.
- Secretary-General Ban Ki-moonestablished a 17-member High-level Independent Panel on UN Peace Operations to make a comprehensive assessment of the state of UN peace operations today, and the emerging needs of the future.
- very Member State is legally obligated to pay their respective share towards peacekeeping.
- The top 10 contributors for the peace keeping operations are:-
- United States(28.38%)
- Japan(10.83%)
- France(7.22%)
- Germany(7.14%)
- United Kingdom(6.68%)
- China(6.64%)
- Italy(4.45%)
- Russian Federation(3.15%)
- Canada(2.98%)
- Spain(2.97%)
Armenia to have the world’s largest Yazidi temple
- A Yazidi templeis under construction in Armenian village, is set to bet the world largest Yazidi Temple
- temple is being built at a 25m high from Armenian granite and Iranian marble and house a 200 sq. m prayer hall as a symbol of resilience for a persecuted religious tradition
- has seven domes and a central arched roof, crowned with a gold-plated sun.
Business and Economy
SBI launches new card less payment system through phone number in the IMT platform
- will allow the account holders to transfer money using mobile phone number as a key identifier and this system is based on the instant money transfer(IMT) platform.
- Instant Money Transfer is a unique payment system launched by Eempays Payment Systems.
- facility enables a payment to be made to a mobile phone from a bank account without the beneficiary having a bank account.
AXIS bank ties up with TATA AIG for travel insurance for its customers
- Tata AIG General Insurance has launched an integrated travel product, for all Axis Bank customers through the bank’s one stop solution called ‘Happy Holidays Package’
- Happy Holidays Package’ offers multiple travel benefits to globe surfers such as a Multi-Currency Forex Cardand can be utilized up to 16 currencies.
- package allows Axis Bank customers, who are travelling abroad to buy Tata AIG travel insurance policy instantly and in a seamless manner from the bank’s mobile application.
- insurance policy offers several packages including:-
Travel insurance policy,
2.Tailor-made Travel Insurance plans;
3.Trip Assist Services – an emergency assistance service;
4.Free International Calling Cards, and
5.Discounts at restaurants in overseas locations. - digital advancement is a test to TATA AIG’s continuous effort to conceive and to set new benchmarks for the General Insurance Space.
Vodafone M-Pesa ties up with PSPCL for Online Electricity Bill Payments
- Vodafone M-Pesa, a digital wallet service from Vodafone that offers Money Transfer, Bill and Utility Pay, has announced its partnership with Punjab State Power Corporation Limited(PSPCL) to offer easy-to-use digital option to pay electricity bills
- initiative that bridges the need for a simple, timely and cashless electricity bill payment solution through the mobile phone.
- To access M-Pesa, a Vodafone customer should either download an Android app from Google Play Store or dial a USSD short-code (*400#)
- Vodafone has more than 3,000 outlets in Punjaband it can easily provide ease to customers to convert cash into digital money facilitating digital payment of bills and e-commerce /m-Commerce and 31 touch points are set up across throughout the state to ease the customer service.
Flipkart’s Myntra acquires Jabong for $70 million
- Myntra, a Flipkart Group company, acquired Jabong from Global Fashion Group (GFG) for $70 million.
- Myntra and parent Flipkart together held 60 per cent share of the online fashion and lifestyle market in the country.
- With the acquisition of Jabong, the Share per cent will be increased to75%.
- Jabong offers more than 1,500 international high-street brands, sports labels, Indian ethnic and designer labels and over 150,000 styles from more than 1,000 sellers.
Awards
Dakshayani, 86 years old Elephant to be part of Guiness World Record as the Oldest Elephant Alive
- Dakshayani, 86 years old female Elephant from Kerala is all set to enter the Guinness World Records as the oldest living elephant.
- a special postal coverof Dakshayani from the Kerala Circle Postal Service would be issued.
- As of now the oldest living elephant, which was 85 years old, died in 2003 in Taiwan.
People in News
Ghanshyam Singh takes over as General Manager of Eastern Railway
- Singh has also served in various other important positions including, his stint as General Manager, RITES, Executive Director (Efficiency & Research), Railway Board, New Delhi
- He has executed several innovative projects towards infrastructural development in Indian Railways .
National Museum gets it New Director General – Dr. Buddha Rashmi Mani
- Dr Buddha Rashmi Mani, former Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) official was appointed Director General of the National Museum by the government.
- Dr Buddha Rashmi Mani chaired a team had found remains of what seemed like a temple while excavating the disputed Ayodhya site; Ramjanmabhoomi-Babri Masjid site in 2003.
- retired as the ASI additional director general last year and Dr Mani is appointment as the National Museum head for three years or till he attains the age of 70.
Science and Technology
Solar Impulse 2 completes historic round-the-world trip
- Solar Impulse 2, the first plane powered by renewable energy has completed the first round world trip.
- solar-powered plane finally arrived atAl-Bateen Executive Airport located in Abu Dhabi, where it had started its journey 505 days ago.
- plane is extra sensitive to weather patterns and it depends on the sun for power and also its tiny weight makes it difficult to fly through heavy cloud cover or rain.
- flight covered a remarkable 42,000-kilometrejourney across four continents, two oceans and three seas.
Culex mosquito strain that carries ZIKA Virus is found by Brazil Researchers
- Researchers in Brazil announced that the “presence of the Zika virus”in Culex mosquito, a common house mosquito and its strain capable of carrying the virus is threatening the population.
- Researchers haven’t proven that it can also transmit the virus to humans.
- The process to determine whether a mosquito is a vector of a disease is difficult.
- Reuters notes the same group of scientists was able to artificially transmit Zika to this breed of mosquito in laboratory tests, but now seeks to confirm Culex can carry the virus
- The World Health Organizationwelcomed the addition to the existing body of Zika research but also cautioned that more study is needed to confirm whether Culex mosquitoes can transmit the Zika virus
Digital Attic – a new masterpiece in the field of Data Storage revealed by a Scientist in Washington’
- Scientist named Karin Strausshas created a digital attic — a place which stores the old data like when she published her math paper wrote in high school, and computer science schoolwork from college.
- For long-term storage it’s typically disks or a specialized kind of tape, wound up in cartridges about three inches on a side and less than an inch thick. A single cartridge containing about half a mile of tape can hold the equivalent of about 46 million books of 200 pages.
- Digital devices, on the other hand, store information in a two-letter code that produces strings of ones and zeroes.
- Converting digital information to DNA involves translating between the two codes
- Once scientists have converted the digital code into the 4-letter DNA code, they have to custom-make DNA. For some recent research Strauss and Ceze worked on, that involved creating about 10 million short strings of DNA.
- Research is aimed at helping companies and institutions archive huge amounts of data for decades or centuries, at a time when the world is generating digital data faster than it can store it.
Sports
Rio bound shot putter Inderjeet Singh fails dope test
- Shot putter Inderjit Singh, the second Rio Olympics-bound athlete to fail a dope test afterwrestler Narsingh Yadav.
- 28-year-old Singh’s ‘A’ sample returned positive for a banned substance
- Inderjeet Singh had won a bronze medal in the 2014 Asian Games and won the gold medal at the Asian Athletics Championships in 2015.
Ashwin regains top spot in ICC bowler rankings
- Ravichandran Ashwin has moved to the top spot of the MRF Tyres ICC Rankingsfor Test Bowlers.
- He produced a match-winning spell of 7/83 in the second innings of the Antigua Test against West Indies on behalf that he gained five points.
- The off spinner who was top-ranked in the 2015 also gained in the batsmen’s rankings with a knock of 113 that will help him in gaining top spot in the all-rounder category.