Current-Affairs-from-25-July-2015-to-19-July-2015-Exam-Oriented

26 Jul 2015

Current-Affairs-from-25-July-2015-to-19-July-2015-Exam-Oriented

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19 July 2015 Current Affairs

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Varanasi Chosen as ‘City of Music’ by UNESCO
Indian Town Varanasi was chosen as the global bandwagon of UNESCO “Cities of Music” under the Creative Cities Network by UNESCO. It was chosen in the music category under UNESCO’s “field of excellence” plan. The fields of excellence are classified into categories of literature, film, music, craft and folk art, design, media arts and gastronomy. Nine cities – Glasgow in the UK, Hanover and Mannheim in Germany, Ghent in Belgium, Hamamatsu in Japan, Brazzaville in the Republic of Congo, Bogota in Columbia, Seville in Spain and Bologna in Italy – are already part of UNESCO “Cities of Music”.

Neeraj Kumar Appointed Chief Security Advisor For ICC World T20 2016
Former Delhi Police Commissioner Neeraj Kumar was appointed as the Chief Advisor of Security and anti corruption unit (ACSU) of BCCI for next year’s T20 World Cup to be hosted by India.

Over 5500 Farmers Committed Suicide In 2014
According to the “Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India 2014″, a report released by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), a total of 5,650 farmers committed suicide in the year 2014, with the maximum deaths being reported from Maharashtra, Telangana and Chhattisgarh. The highest incidents of suicides were in Maharashtra (45.5 per cent -  2,568 farmers), followed by Telangana (15.9 per cent – 898) and Madhya Pradesh (14.6 per cent – 826).

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20 July 2015 Current Affairs

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PM Narendra Modi Launched National Career Counselling Portal
Prime Minister Narendra Modi unveiled the government’s job board called National Career Service (NCS) portal on 20 July. The web portal will be a one-stop platform for both job providers and job seekers where registration can be done online. It will provide basic platform for searching and applying for jobs on the portal.

Bhanu Pratap Sharma Appointed as Chairperson of FSSAI
Health and Family Welfare Secretary Bhanu Pratap Sharma was on 20 July given additional charge of Food Safety and Standards Authority of India ( FSSAI), Chairperson, for three months. Sharma is an IAS officer of 1981 batch from Bihar cadre. FSSAI is a nodal statutory agency responsible for protecting and promoting public health in India through the regulation and supervision of food safety. FSSAI was established under the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 and operates under aegis of Union Ministry of Health & Family Welfare.

Swati Maliwal Takes Charge as DCW chief
Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Swati Maliwal on 20 July took over as the new Chairperson of Delhi Commission for Women (DCW). She succeeds Barkha Shukla, who held the post since 2007 February.

UN Security Council Approves Iran Nuclear Deal
The UN Security Council on 20 July unanimously adopted a resolution endorsing the Iran nuclear deal and paving the way to lifting longstanding sanctions on the Islamic Republic.

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21 July 2015 Current Affairs

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BRICS New Development Bank Starts Operations In Shanghai
The New Development Bank (NDB) of BRICS has started its operations on 21 July in Shanghai, China.The BRICS countries consist of world’s major developing economies such as Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Chinese Finance Minister Lou Jiwei, Shanghai Mayor Yang Xiong and the bank’s first President K V Kamath from India attended the opening ceremony.

Maurice Obstfeld Appointed as Chief Economist of IMF
White House economic adviser Maurice Obstfeld was appointed as Chief Economist of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Obstfeld succeeds Olivier Blanchard whose retirement was announced previously. He is expected to begin his work at the Fund on September 8, 2015.

China Builds World’s Largest Amphibious Aircraft
China has begun building the world’s largest amphibious aircraft. The AG AG-600’s maximum takeoff weight and flight range are better than other amphibious planes in the world. The amphibious aircraft, developed for sea rescue and firefighting missions, can takeoff from land or water and has a maximum takeoff weight of over 50 tons. With a maximum flight range over more than 5,000 kilometers, and an effective rescue radius of nearly 3,000 kilometers, the aircraft is also believed to have strategic value in the South China Sea, where China is embroiled in several territorial disputes. Russia and Japan are the only other countries in the world to have developed large-sized amphibious aircraft, though the AG600 is the largest of the three and has only taken six years to reach this stage since the project was initiated in 2009.

 

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22 July 2015 Current Affairs

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Hockey Legend Dhyan Chand To Be Honoured In British Parliament
Indian hockey legend Major Dhyan Chand will be conferred with the ‘Bharat Gaurav’ Lifetime Achivement Award by NRI orgainsation Sanskriti Yuva Sangstha at the House of Commons inside the British Parliament of July 25. On behalf of Dhyan Chand, his son and former Indian hockey player Ashok Kumar will receive the award. Dhyan Chand had helped India win three successive gold medals in Olympics. To his credit, he had scored over 400 goals in his international career.

CCEA extends CCTNS deadline to March 2017
The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) has approved a Home Ministry proposal to extend the deadline for implementation of Crime and Criminals Tracking network and Systems (CCTNS) project till March 2017. CCEA also approved additional five years phase for operation and maintenance of the CCTNS up to March 2022.

Union Government Launched ‘Surakshit Khadya Abhiyan’
Union Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Ram Vilas Paswan has launched the a countrywide campaign “Surakshit Khadya Abhiyan”, a countrywide campaign, to create mass awareness and capacity building for safe and hygienic food. The objective of this Initiative is to Create countrywide awareness on the subject of ‘Food, Safety and Quality for All’.

UD Ministry Received Puducherry as First Smart City Nomination
The Union Territory of Puducherry has emerged as the first nomination to be received by the Urban Development Ministry for a Smart City Mission. In this regard, Government of Union Territory of Puducherry has nominated its capital city for inclusion in the Union Government’s flagship 100 Smart Cities Mission. It also has forwarded the nomination along with all the forms and documents as required in the Stage-1 of ‘City Challenge’ competition. The nominations also include the details of evaluation of all the five urban local bodies (ULBs) viz. Puducherry, Kariakal, Oulgaret, Mahe and Yanam.

‘Archie’ Comics Cartoonist Tom Moore Died
Tom Moore, an illustrious cartoonist who was known for his work on the beloved Archie comics, has died in Texas at the age of 86. Moore drew Archie Andrews and his friends on and off from 1953 until he retired in the late 1980s. The freckled-face, red-haired character of Archie was created by Bob Montana in 1941. Moore signed up with Archie Comics in 1953 and was associated with the character till his retirement. He had expressed his unhappiness when the comic book company decided to kill off the character.

 

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23 July 2015 Current Affairs

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National Broadcasting Day Observed On 23 July
National Broadcasting Day was observed on 23 July 2015 across the country. On this day in 1927, Indian Broadcasting Company (IBC) began organized radio broadcasting from Bombay station.Radio Broadcasting in India began during the British rule in 1923 under the imitative of the Radio Club of Bombay. Later in 1927, IBC which was a private entity was granted permission by British Government to operate two radio stations in Mumbai and Kolkata. Since then it has gained immense popularity and had changed the socio-economic life of people. In 1930, British Government took over radio broadcasting and started the Indian State Broadcasting Service (ISBS). Later it was changed to All India Radio (AIR) in 1936 and Akashwani in 1957.

Prof Peter Higgs Won Royal Society’s Copley Medal
Professor Higgs has won the world’s oldest scientific prize – the Royal society’s Copley Media – for his work on the theory of the Higgs boson. In 1964, while at Edinburgh University, Higgs worked with others on what would come to be termed the ‘Higgs Boson’ and it was for this work that he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2013 and now the Copely Medal. Higgs theorised that particles acquire mass by interacting with a filed spread throughout the universe. The Copley medal was first awarded by the Royal Society in 1731, 170 years before the first Nobel Prize. It is awarded for outstanding achievements in scientific research and has most recently been awarded to eminent scientists such as theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, DNA fingerprinting pioneer Alec Jeffreys and Andre Geim, for his discovery of graphene.

Seven Indian Companies Among World’s 500 Largest Companies
Seven Indian companies, including Reliance Industries and Tata Motors, are among the world’s 500 largest companies, according to a list compiled by Fortune. The Indian companies on the 2015 Fortune Global 500 list are Indian Oil ranked 119 on the list, with revenues of about USD 74 billion, Reliance Industries (158) with revenues of USD 62 billion, Tata Motors with revenues of USD 42 billion (254), State Bank of India with revenues of USD 42 billion (260), Bharat Petroleum with revenues of USD 40 billion (280), Hindustan Petroleum with revenues of USD 35 billion (327) and Oil and Natural Gas with revenues of USD 26 billion (449). The list has been topped by retail giant Walmart and is followed by petroleum refining giants Exxon Mobil and Chevron at 2nd and 3rd place.

UNESCO names Conakry as World Book Capital for 2017
Conakry, the capital of the Republic of Guinea, was named as the World Book Capital for 2017 by United Nations Organization for Education, Science and Culture (UNESCO). This makes Conakry the 17th city in the World to be designated as World Book Capital. In the year 2003 New Delhi was selected as the World Book Capital. At present, Incheon city of South Korea is World Book Capital for year 2015.

 

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24 July 2015 Current Affairs

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Ajay Mathur is new Director-General of TERI
Ajay Mathur, director-general of the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE), has been appointed as the new Director-General (DG) of The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI). He will succeed Nobel laureate RK Pachauri who was removed from the top most position over sexual harassment charges.

World’s First Malaria Vaccine Approved By EMA
The world’s first malaria vaccine called “Mosquirix” on 24 July got approval from European Medicines Agency (EMA).The vaccine has been developed by British drug-maker GlaxoSmithKline in partnership with PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative. According to EMA’s regulations, this vaccine is licenced for use in 6-week-old to 17-month-old babies.

Maharashtra Cabinet Approves Shyamaprasad Mukherjee Jan Van Vikas Scheme
Maharashtra Cabinet has approved the Shyamaprasad Mukherjee Jan Van Vikas Scheme, which aims at comprehensive development of villages around tiger reserves. It will be launched on project basis from 2015-16 to 2019-20.

Shubham Jaglan Won IJGA World Stars of Junior Golf Event 2015
Ten-year old Shubham Jaglan won the IJGA World Stars of Junior Golf event in Las Vegas. He shot a three round score of 106 winning by a five-stroke margin, ahead of two Americans Justin Dang and Sihan Sandhu and Thailand’s Pongsapak Laopakdee for the Boys 9-10 years category title.

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25 July 2015 Current Affairs

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PM Narendra Modi Inaugurates IIT-Patna Campus
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 25 July inaugurated the new IIT campus at Patna, Bihar. He launched Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhayay Rashtriya Gramin Joyti Yojna aimed at power sector reforms in the rural areas. He also inaugurated Daniyawan-Biharsharief new rail line and construction work of phase-1 of Jagdishpur-Haldia Natural Gas Pipeline. Besides, Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone for an incubation centre for medical electronics at IIT-Patna.

New Earth-Like Planet Discovered by NASA’s Kepler Space
Earth-like exoplanet Kepler 452b was discovered by Kepler Mission. It resides in a year-long orbit in the habitable zone of a Sun-like star in the constellation of Cygnus some 1400 light-years away.The planet is a near-twin of Earth orbiting Sunlike Star and is estimated to 1.6 times (60 percent) larger than Earth.

India’s Longest Road Tunnel To Come Up By July 2016
Jammu and Kashmir India’s longest road tunnel is ready to open in Udhampur, Jammu and Kashmir. The tunnel will cut the distance between Jammu and Srinagar by 30 kilometers. The tunnel is 9.2- kilometer-long and is part of the ambitious 286 km-long four-laning of the Jammu-Srinagar national highway. The road is likely to be opened to traffic in July 2016.

T K Chand Appointed as new CMD of NALCO
T K Chand has been appointed as the new Chairman-cum-Managing Director (CMD) of National Aluminium Company (NALCO). Before that he was a Director (Commercial) of Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited (RINL).

Four-Legged Snake Fossil Found In Brazil
The first known fossil of a four-legged snake dating back 110 million years has been discovered in Brazil, which shows that the serpents evolved from burrowing lizards and not from marine creatures. The snake, named Tetrapodophis amplectus by the team, is a juvenile and very small, measuring just 20 cm from head to toe, although it may have grown much larger. The head is the size of an adult fingernail, and the smallest tail bone is only a quarter of a millimetre long. The front legs are very small, about 1cm long, but have little elbows and wrists and hands that are just 5 mm in length. The back legs are slightly longer and the feet are larger than the hands and could have been used to grasp its prey.

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