Current Affairs Weekly Updates – May Week IV

In Current Affairs 2017
May 31, 2017

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AWARDS AND HONOURS

NAME OF THE AWARD	AWARD WINNER	KEY POINTS TO NOTE
Porter Prize 2017	Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India (EDII)	—
Actor Priyanka Chopra	Dadasaheb Phalke Academy Award	Internationally Acclaimed Actress’ category
“The Square” Movie	Cannes Film Festival 2017 Award	—

APPOINTMENTS

NAME	DEPT/FIELD
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus	World Health Organization Chief
Lenin Moreno	Ecuador President
Amul Thapar	Indo-American US appeals court judge
Rajan Anandan	Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI).
Anurag Tripathy	Secretary of CBSE
Najma Heptulla	Jamia Millia Islamia chancellor

INDIAN AFFAIRS

Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal has launched a pilot project of Guwahati Traffic Police (GTP) a smart police force is of paramount importance to cope with modern day law and order challenges.
Union Minister of State (IC) for Power Piyush Goyal launched the Saral Eindhan Vitaran Application (SEVA), developed in-house by Coal India Limited (CIL) for power sector consumers.
State-owned BSNL has started satellite phone service through INMARSAT which will be initially offered to government agencies and later opened for others citizen in phased manner.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has inaugurated India’s longest bridge, spanning 9.3 km across the Brahmaputra, promising to turn the north-east into a showpiece of infrastructure development.
The Prime Minister has laid the Foundation Stone of the Indian Agricultural Research Institute at Gogamukh in Assam.
The government has renamed the Matritva Sahyog Yojana– a scheme to give Rs 6,000 to pregnant and lactating mothers for the first live birth– as Pradhan Mantri Matritva Vandana Yojana (PMMVY).
Union Minister of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation Sushri Uma Bharti visited Central Inland Fisheries Research Prime Minister Narendra Modi has inaugurated India’s longest bridge, spanning 9.3 km across the Brahmaputra, promising to turn the north-east into a showpiece of infrastructure development.
The Prime Minister has laid the Foundation Stone of the Indian Agricultural Research Institute at Gogamukh in Assam.
The government has renamed the Matritva Sahyog Yojana– a scheme to give Rs 6,000 to pregnant and lactating mothers for the first live birth– as Pradhan Mantri Matritva Vandana Yojana (PMMVY).
Union Minister of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation Sushri Uma Bharti visited Central Inland Fisheries Research.
The Human Resource Development Ministry and the External Affairs Ministry launched an online verification portal to make the document verification process easier for students who planning to study abroad.
Jammu and Kashmir’s first professional football academy was launched at Tourist Reception Centre (TRC) in Srinagar in a bid to boost sports in the state.
The Centre has banned the sale of cattle for slaughter at animal markets across the country. Under a notification, titled the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Regulation of Livestock Markets) Rules, 2017.
Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has given approval to the infrastructure projects, worth Rs 166 crore, for the construction of bridges and roads in the state.
Union road transport Minister Nitin Gadkari along with chief minister of Maharashtra, Devendra Fadnavis flagged off taxi aggregator Ola’s electronic vehicle (EV) services in the city.
Union Defence Minister Arun Jaitley has inaugrated a first-of-its-kind Aeronautical Test Range (ATR) which will be used to test the country’s first unmanned aircraft in the Chitradurga district of Karnataka.
Union Minister Venkaiah Naidu has flagged off the first train of the Delhi Metro’s Heritage line. It will be open for public from 27 May 2017.
The Pune city police have received the Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industries (FICCI) Smart Police Award for the year 2017.
The Manipur government has declared Dailong village of Tamenglong district as a Biodiversity Heritage Site of the state.
Union Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar has launched an Anti-Ragging Mobile App introduced by the University Grants Commission (UGC) here in New Delhi.
Residents of Vadodara, the 10th cleanest city in the country has created a new Guinness world record with maximum number of people sweeping the ‘floor’ (single venue).
The central government has said that India has emerged as the third largest aviation market in the world with a passenger traffic of over 10 crore reported for 2016-17.
Air India’s regional arm Alliance Air will launch a flight on Delhi-Gwalior-Indore-Mumbai route, which will be its second venture under the government’s UDAN scheme to make flying affordable.
World Bank said the country had one of the lowest female participation in the workforce , ranking 120th among 131 countries for which data was available.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi reached Spain on the second leg of his six-day, four-nation tour of Europe. This will be the first Indian prime ministerial visit to Spain in nearly 30 years after the visit of then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1988.

CABINET APPROVALS

The Union Cabinet has approved the signing of a MoU between the National Transplant Organization, Ministry of Health, Social Services and Equality, Spain and the Directorate General of Health Services, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
The Union Cabinet has given its approval for establishment of new AIIMS at Kamrup (North Guwahati Revenue circle). The cost of the project is Rs.1123 crore and it will be set up under the Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana (PMSSY).
The Union Cabinet chaired has given its approval to the phasing out of Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB).

BANKING AND FINANCE

State Bank of India (SBI) has said it has launched a national hackathon for developers, start-ups and students to come up with innovative ideas and solutions for the banking sector.
HDFC Life has announced the launch of an artificial intelligence-based application that can automatically read, understand, categorise, prioritise and respond to customer emails sent to the private insurer.
The Reserve Bank is expected to come out by June-July with guidelines to regulate the Indian peer-to-peer (P2P) lending market.
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) will provide a $616 million loan to Bangladesh to help the south Asian nation meet its goal of providing 100 percent access to electricity to its citizens by 2021.
New one rupee notes, with predominantly pink-green on the obverse and reverse in combination with other colours, will be soon put into circulation.

BUSINESS NEWS

India’s telecom regulator slapped a combined penalty of Rs.3,050 crore on Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular for violating licence norms.
Amul and ISRO, have announced a tie up for the benefit of dairy farmers by signing a memorandum of understanding, envisaging fodder acreage assessment using satellite observation and space technology.
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has proposed to tighten rules on offshore derivative instruments (ODI) by imposing “regulatory fees” and prohibiting the sales of such product.

ECONOMY AFFAIRS

The world’s most used crypto currency, bitcoin, has seen a sustained rise since April’17, but over the last few days, it went wild.

INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

State-owned Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) had closed another major deal worth $630 million with India to supply advanced long range air and missile defence systems for four ships of the Indian Navy.
Nepal Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ has resigned after a brief stint of nine months, honouring a power sharing understanding reached between his party and the ruling partner Nepali Congress.
Iran has built its third underground ballistic missile production factory and will keep developing its missile program. Iran’s third underground factory has been built by the Guards in recent years.
India has announced a $500 million line of credit to Mauritius as the two countries resolved to deepen ties in a range of areas including the maritime domain.
Island nation Mauritius elbowed out Singapore to emerge as the top source of foreign direct investment (FDI) into India in 2016-17.
The Minister of Defence of Fiji accompanied by his delegation met the Minister of Defence Arun Jaitley in New Delhi. An MoU on defence cooperation envisaging several areas of cooperation including in defence industry, military training and humanitarian assistance & disaster management was signed.
Prime Narendra Modi launched the country’s longest bridge linking Assam with the state claimed by Beijing. China’s position on the eastern section of the Sino-Indian border areas is consistent and clear.
India and Germany have inked twelve memoranda of understanding and agreements following bilateral delegation-level talks presided over by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Flipkart’s chief operating officer Nitin Seth, one of the top ranking executives at the firm, has put in his papers, according to two sources familiar with the development.
The 43rd G7 Summit was held on 26-27 May, 2017 in Taormina, Sicily, Italy. The 43rd G7 summit was the first summit for British Prime Minister Theresa May.

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

An indigenous rocket as heavy as 200 full-grown Asian elephants could well be the one taking “Indians into space from Indian soil” as the country inches closer to joining the big boy’s space club.
An indigenous rocket as heavy as 200 full-grown Asian elephants could well be the one taking “Indians into space from Indian soil” as the country inches closer to joining the big boy’s space club.
China has launched national satellite navigation and positioning system which will provide positioning service to transportation, emergency medical rescue and city planning and management.
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is planning to launch a communication satellite GSAT-19 using its heaviest rocket GSLV Mark-III on June 5.
India will be launching, on June 5, communication satellite GSAT-19 using its heaviest rocket which has a capacity to lift a four ton satellites to geosynchronous transfer orbit (GTO), the Indian space agency.
The US military has successfully carried out its first-ever missile defense test involving a simulated attack by an intercontinental ballistic missile, in a major milestone for a program meant to defend against a mounting North Korean threat.

SPORTS

WINNER	TITLE	SPORT/ VENUE
R Vaishali	Asian Blitz Chess Women’s Championship	—
CA Bhavani Devi	1st ever gold in an int’l fencing event	Reykjavik in Iceland.
Abhishek Verma	Indian Men’s compound archery World cup	Shanghai, China
Heena Sidhu	Grand Prix of Liberation Plezn 2017	Won bronze at Shooting championship
Lionel Messi	European Golden Shoe	Barcelona striker

Olympic silver medallist P V Sindhu became one of the members of the BWF Athletes’ Commission.
India off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin has won the coveted International Cricketer of the Year award at the CEAT Cricket Rating (CCR) International awards 2017.
Arjun Maini, driving for Jenzer Motorsports, created history by becoming the first Indian driver to win a GP3 race.

OBITUARY

NAME OF THE PERSON	FIELD
Roger Moore	British Actor
Kunwar Pal Singh Gill	Former Punjab DGP
Gregg Allman	Musician; keyboard player
Dasari Narayana Rao	Telugu Filmmaker and former minister
Constantine Mitsotakis	Former Greek Prime Minister
Manuel Noriega	Former Panama dictator

OBSERVED DAYS IN FEBRUARY

DATE OBSERVED	DAY OBSERVED	Theme / Purpose
May 24	Commonwealth Day	A Peace-building Commonwealth
May 25	Worlds Thyroid Day	The day to promote awareness and understanding of thyroid health
May 28	Menstrual Hygiene Day	Education about Menstruation Changes Everything
May 29	International Day of United Nations Peace Keepers	Investing in Peace Around the World
May 30	Goa statehood day	Goa was a union territory of India from 19 December 1961 to 30 May 1987.
May 31	World No Tobacco Day	Tobacco – a threat to development