Current Affairs JUNE 2019 (Set 02)

National News

• The 17th Lok Sabha includes 24 cabinet ministers, 9 ministers of state with independent charge and 24 ministers of state. Seventy-eight seats have been won by women candidates in the 17th Lok Sabha elections, the highest since the first Lok Sabha in 1952. Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal are sending the highest number of women to the house, 11 each

• In an attempt to combat human trafficking, the West Bengal government has rolled out a scheme, Swayangsiddha, in different districts of the State.

The scheme aims to empower young boys and girls to make informed choices so that they are less vulnerable to trafficking and child marriage.

As the per the NCRB data West Bengal has highest recorded case of trafficking among the States.

• The Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) in Mumbai's Deonar has become the first campus in the country to have a gender-neutral hostel.
• Karnataka government has issued a circular according to which school bags cannot weigh more than 10% of the average body weight of students. The bags of students of Class I and II can only weigh around 1.5kg to 2kg while those of Class III, IV and V can weigh 2kg to 3kg. Students from Class VI-VIII can have their bags weighing only up to 3kg-4kg and those of Class IX and X can weigh up to 5kg. This direction is binding on schools across the state from this academic year.
• World Environment Day (WED) is celebrated on 5th June every year. Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change (MoEFCC) celebrates WED focussing on the theme declared by UNEP and organizes several events.  This year’s theme was ‘Air Pollution’. Union Environment Ministry launched the song 'Hawa Aane De' to spread awareness about Air pollution. Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change has recently launched the National Clean Air programme (NCAP) which is a mid-term 5 Year Action Plan with targets of 20-30% reduction of PM 2.5 and PM 10 concentration in 102 cities, out of which 84 cities have already submitted their action plan.  The main objective of NCAP is to control and abate air pollution across the country.  It is a multi sectoral and collaborative approach with mainstreaming and integration.
• The Indian Army is commemorating 2019 as the ‘Year of Next of Kin’. It plans to reach out to the next of kin of battle casualties, ex-servicemen and serving soldiers to inform them of entitled financial benefits, welfare schemes and help resolve pension-related problems.
• National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) has developed the world's first complete parent-wise genome assembly of buffalo.Named as 'NDDB ABRO Murrah', the genome assembly of riverine buffaloes would provide more insights about buffalo genome.

International News

• Zimbabwe started to trade its new currency, the RTGS dollar, days after the central bank announced measures to try and resolve a chronic monetary crisis.

The currency was launched at an initial rate of 2.5 RTGS dollars per US dollar, “as per agreement with forex dealers in the banks”.

• Brief Answers to the Big Questions is a popular-science book written by physicist Stephen Hawking, and published by Hodder & Stoughton (Hardcover) and Bantam Books (Paperback) on 16 October 2018. The book was incomplete at the time of the author's passing in March 2018, but was completed with “his academic colleagues, his family and the Stephen Hawking Estate”.
• President Donald Trump has terminated India’s designation as a beneficiary developing nation under the key GSP trade programme after determining that it has not assured the US that it will provide “equitable and reasonable access” to its markets. The Generalized System of Preference (GSP) is the largest and oldest US trade preference programme and is designed to promote economic development by allowing duty-free entry for thousands of products from designated beneficiary countries.
• Facebook launched an ambitious plan to create a new digital currency and financial system to transform the way money moves around the world, and not just on its own apps. It’s leading a consortium to create an open-source digital currency called Libra, set to launch in the first half of next year. The Libra currency, as described in this white paper, will not be run by Facebook, but rather by a nonprofit association supported by a range of companies and organizations. But Facebook does have a plan to profit from it with a new subsidiary, Calibra, which is building a digital wallet of the same name for storing and exchanging the currency.

Economy News

• NewSpace India Limited (NSIL), the commercial arm of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), was officially inaugurated in Bengaluru.
• The government has issued a notification taking over the National Housing Bank (NHB) after buying entire stake for Rs 1,450 crore from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The RBI has exited the NHB, thus making it a fully government-owned entity. The central bank was holding 100 per cent stake in the NHB, the housing finance regulator.
• The Reserve Bank of India has extended the last cut-off timing for customer transactions through Real Time Gross Settlement Systems (RTGS) from 4.30pm to 6pm on all working days, effective June 1, 2019.
• The sea phase of the Indo-French naval exercise 'Varuna' began on 8 May 2019.This year's edition of the Indo-French naval exercise currently underway off the Goa coast is the largest ever undertaken by the two navies. The exercise, began on May 1, will culminate on May 10 after sea phase operations.
• A government-appointed advisory group has suggested issuance of 'Elephant Bonds' (25-year sovereign bonds) wherein people declaring undisclosed income will have to mandatorily invest half of that amount in these securities. The fund will be utilised only for infrastructure projects.
• Mukesh Ambani's oil-to-telecom conglomerate Reliance Industries has toppled state-owned Indian Oil Corp (IOC) to become the country's biggest company by revenue. Reliance in the 2018-19 fiscal year that ended March 31, reported a turnover of Rs 6.23 lakh crore. In comparison, IOC posted a turnover of Rs 6.17 lakh crore for the fiscal, according to regulatory filings by the two companies. It was also the most profitable company in the country with a net profit of more than double that of IOC in FY2019.
• The Defence Ministry approved Indian Navy's proposal to acquire 10 Kamov-31 choppers from Russia at a cost of around Rs. 3,600 crore to strengthen its capability against aerial threats to its aircraft carriers and large warships.

People in News

• India’s first woman IAS officer after Independence, Anna Rajam Malhotra, who served in the Madras State under then Chief Minister C. Rajagopalachari and at the Central government, died in Mumbai at the age of 91.
• Naveen Patnaik took oath as chief minister of Odisha for a record fifth term in a row.The Biju Janata Dal headed by him has won a decisive victory in the assembly polls bagging 112 of the 146 assembly seats.
• YSR Congress chief Yeduguri Sandinti Jaganmohan Reddy has taken the oath as the second chief minister of Andhra Pradesh post its bifurcation.
• Sikkim Krantikari Morcha (SKM) president Prem Singh Tamang, or P.S. Golay took oath as the Chief Minister of Sikkim.
• Pema Khandu will be sworn-in as the Chief Minister of Arunachal Pradesh for the second time.
• Virat Kohli is the first cricketer in the world ever to break into the 100 million category for followers on social media.
• Aarohi Pandit has become the world’s first female pilot to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean in a Light Sport Aircraft (LSA).
• UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appointed Indian Army officer Lieutenant General Shailesh Tinaikar, as the new Force Commander of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS).
• Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) has appointed its first independent woman director Jayshree Vyas.

Awards

• Rajendra Kumar Joshi was awarded the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman Award (PBSA) for his contributions in the field of science, education, and medicine. Dr. Joshi is a scientist of Indian origin and is based in Switzerland. The PBSA is the highest honour conferred on Non-resident Indians by the President of India for their significant contributions towards bringing honour and glory to India.
• Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen was awarded the prestigious Bodley Medal. It is the highest honor granted by the University of Oxford’s world-famous Bodleian Libraries. The medal is awarded to individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the fields in which the Bodleian is awarded are, including literature, culture, science, and communication.
• President Ram Nath Kovind was honoured with Croatia's highest civilian award, the Grand Order of the King of Tomislav. He was on an 8-day visit to Croatia, Bolivia, and Chile to further strengthen bilateral ties between India and the three countries. It is awarded to heads of state for their important contribution towards the development of relations with Croatia.
• An Indian police officer Jitender Kumar deployed to the UN mission in Congo and a consultant Shikha Garg with the UN development programme, killed in the Ethiopian Airlines plane crash, are among 115 UN peacekeepers and staff honoured by the global organisation for their sacrifice. They lost their lives in the service of peace between January 2018 and March 2019. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres,  along with top UN officials and Peacekeeping personnel paid tribute to 115 peacekeepers  from 43 different nations, who sacrificed their lives in the line of duty at the solemn ceremony yesterday.
• Alfred Brownell from Liberia, an environmental lawyer and activist, has been awarded the prestigious 2019 Goldman Environmental Prize for exposing alleged abuse by the palm oil company Golden Veroleum Liberia and helping to prevent it from converting about 50 km2 of forest that is home to elephants, pygmy hippopotamuses and chimpanzees into palm oil plantations. The other winners of the top environment prize are: Linda Garcia of Vancouver, Ana Colovic Lesoska of North Macedonia, Bayarjargal Agvaantseren of Mongolia, Jacqueline Evans of the Cook Islands and Alberto Curamil of Chile. The Goldman Environment Prize is awarded annually to six grassroots activists from six different continents who have taken action and risked their lives to protect the planet.

Rankings

• International NGO, Reporters without Borders has released the World Press Freedom Index 2019. The index is based on the assessment of the countries’  press freedom records in the previous year. India has dropped two places on a global press freedom index to be ranked 140th out of 180 countries. The World Press Freedom Index 2019′, topped by Norway which is followed by Finland, Sweden, Netherlands and Denmark. The 2019 index finds that hatred against journalists has degenerated into violence, contributing to an increase in fear around the world.
•  Global Peace Index is released by Australian think tank Institute for Economics & Peace. The GPI was founded by Steve Killelea, an Australian technology entrepreneur and philanthropist. India’s rank has slipped five places to 141 this year. In South Asia, Bhutan topped the index with 15th rank, followed by Sri Lanka 72, Nepal 76 and Bangladesh 101. The neighbouring country Pakistan has been ranked 153rd on the index.
• The United Nations has released ‘the World Population Prospects 2019’ and it is published by the Population Division of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs. According to the report, in 2019 India has an estimated population of 1.37 billion and China 1.43 billion. India is projected to surpass China as the world’s most populous country in the next eight years by 2027.

India is expected to add 273 million people by 2050 and will remain the most populated until the end of the century. The global population is projected to increase by another 2 billion people by 2050, from 7.7 billion in 2019 to 9.7 billion thirty years down the line. India leads the set of nine countries that will make up for more than half the projected growth of the global population by 2050. The world’s population is ageing, with the age group of 65 and above growing at such a fast rate that by 2050, one in six people in the world will be part of it as compared to one in 11 in 2019. By the end of the century, the world population is set to peak at a level of about 11 billion.

• Singapore has ranked as the world's most competitive economy for the first time since 2010, according to the IMD World Competitiveness Rankings. Established in 1989, the IMD World Competitiveness rankings evaluate 63 economies in four categories: economic performance, infrastructure, government efficiency and business efficiency.  India has moved up one place to rank 43^rd most competitive economy in world in annual competitiveness ranking.
• The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) launched the findings of SIPRI Yearbook 2019, which assesses the current state of armaments, disarmament and international security.A key finding is that despite an overall decrease in the number of nuclear warheads in 2018, all nuclear weapon-possessing states continue to modernize their nuclear arsenals.

At the start of 2019, nine states-the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea)-possessed approximately 13 865 nuclear weapons. This marked a decrease from the approximately 14 465 nuclear weapons that SIPRI estimated these states possessed at the beginning of 2018. The decrease in the overall number of nuclear weapons in the world is due mainly to Russia and the USA, which together still account for over 90 per cent of all nuclear weapons. China, India and Pakistan are increasing the size of their nuclear arsenals. India and Pakistan are expanding their military fissile material production capabilities on a scale that may lead to significant increases in the size of their nuclear weapon inventories over the next decade.