Current Affairs August 2017

1. Current Affairs
August 1
Anirudh Reddy

2. India

3. NITI Aayog
 Rajiv Kumar - vice-chairman
 Prime Minister serves as the Ex-officio chairman
 Arvind Panagariya has resigned and is returning
 to Columbia University for teaching Indian Political Economy
 replaced the Planning Commission
 bottom-up approach for cooperative federalism
 Executive body

4. Monetary Policy Committee
 The Reserve Bank of India’s Monetary Policy Committee has reduced
 short term lending rate (repo rate) by 25 basis points to 6%
 The decision is consistent with RBI’s neutral stance of monetary policy in
consonance with the objective of achieving the
 medium-term inflation target of 4% within a band of +/- 2%, while supporting
growth.
MPC - responsible for fixing the benchmark interest rate
Repo Rate
Monetary Policy

5. Justice B.N. Srikrishna committee
 10-member committee headed by (retd.) Justice B.N. Srikrishna
 identify key data protection issues.
 It will also suggest a Draft Data Protection Bill to

6. e-Rashtriya Kisan Agri Mandi (e-RaKAM)
 e-Rashtriya Kisan Agri Mandi (e-RaKAM)
 platform for farmers to sell agricultural produce.
 technology to connect farmers to markets
 MSTC Ltd and Central Railside Warehousing Company (CRWC) Ltd.

7. National Bank for Agriculture and Rural
Development(NABARD)
 The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Amendment) Bill, 2017
 capital of NABARD to Rs 30,000 crore from Rs. 5000 crores
 that the Union Government alone must hold at least 51% capital share of NABARD.

8. T K Viswanathan committee
 Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI)
 “Fair market conduct”
 surveillance of the markets
 strengthen rules for algorithm trades

9. Arbitration Mechanism
 Justice B.N. Srikirshna commitee
 Institutionalization of Arbitration Mechanism in India
 speedy resolution of commercial disputes and
 to make India an international hub of Arbitration.

10. Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana
(PMSSY)
 14 new AIIMS (All India Institute of Medical Science)
 They also plan to open 20 state cancer institutes and 50 tertiary care cancer
institutes in different parts of the country.

11. Direct Benefit Transfer system using
Aadhar autentication
 Maharashtra became the first state to have a Direct Benefit Transfer system
usingbAadhar autentication.
 two online portals MahaDBT and MahaVASTU
 bring in more transparency in the construction sector.

12. Indian Railways + L&T = electric trains
 EPC (engineering, procurement,construction)
 With Larsen and Turbo (L&T) for electrification of railway lines.

13. National Handloom Day
 7 th August.
 commemorates the Swadeshi Movement – first “Make in India campaign ”
 Lord Curzon
 partition of Bengal

14. Armed Forces Special Powers Act(AFSPA)
 Home Minsitry declared entire Assam state as a disturbed area under the AFSPA
 grants special powers to the Armed Forces

15. NSDC+GOOGLE = Android Skills
 Android Skill Development programme
 To increase number of android programmers

16. NITI Aayaog + States = Development
 Sustainable Action for Transforming Human Capital (SATH) initiative (along with
McKinsey & Company and IPE Global consortium)
 radically transform their Health and Education sectors
 health sector - Uttar Pradesh, Assam and Karnataka.
 education sector - Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand and Odisha

17. 75th anniversary of the Quit India Movement
 theme “Sankalp se Siddhi- the attainment through resolve”.
 month of August as a month of revolution
 non-cooperation movement - 1st August , 1920,
 Quit-India movement - 9th August, 1942 and
 Independence - 15th august

18. IIP - Index of Industrial Production
 India’s factory output
 negative 0.1% growth in June 2017
 primarily due to decrease in output of the manufacturing and capital goods sectors
 Eight Core Industries
 Electricity , steel, cement, refinery products, crude oil, coal, natural gas and
fertilisers
 Published by Central Statistical Organisation ( cso )

19. widows of Vrindavan
 SC directed Center and UP govt to take steps to rehabilitate
 so as to bring them to a stage where they can live with dignity
 based on a PIL filed 10 years ago by the
 Environment and Consumer Protection Foundation

20. World

21. Regional Comprehensive Economic
Partnership
 The 19th Round of the RCEP Trade Negotiating Committee meetings and other
related meetings were held in
 Hyderabad, Telangana.
 RCEP = ASEAN + India,China + Japan,Korea + Australia,New Zealand
 regional economic integration

22. Shahid Khaqan Abbasi
 18th Prime Minister of Pakistan
 Was Petroleum Minister

23. permanent residency
 Qatar recently became the first Arab state to offer permanent residency
 children of Qatari women married to foreigners, people with special talents
“needed by the state,” and others who have extended notable services to the
country
 will benefit from elements of the state’s generous welfare system, including
education and health-care services

24. Mekong - Ganga Cooperation
 At the 8th Mekong Ganga Cooperation Ministerial Meeting was held
 India,
 Thailand,
 Myanmar,
 Cambodia,
 Laos
 Vietnam

25. Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral
Technical and Economic Cooperation
 The 15th edition ministerial meeting was held in Kathmandu, Nepal.
 It was inaugurated by PM of Nepal, Sher Bahadur Deuba
 BIMSTEC Secretariat - Dhaka, Bangladesh

26. International Maritime Search and Rescue
Exercise (IMMSAREX)
 Indian Ocean Naval Symposium’s (IONS) maiden International Maritime Search and
Rescue Exercise (IMMSAREX)
 will be held in November 2017 in the Bay of Bengal under the
 chairmanship of Bangladesh.
 IONS - maritime co-operation among navies of the littoral states of the Indian
Ocean Region

28. El Nino
 According to recent study conducted by scientists,
 El Nino of 2014-16 caused over 3 billion tonnes of carbon to get released into the
atmosphere,
 taking carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration to record levels.
 based on analysis of data collected by NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2
(OCO-2) satellite, which measures level of CO2 in the atmosphere
 El Nino?

29. Technology & science

30. Heavy Metals
 The Supreme Court has banned the use of 5 heavy metals
 lithium, antimony, mercury, arsenic and lead
 in the manufacturing of firecrackers
 because the air pollution they cause

31. Humraaz mobile application
 The Indian Army
 serving soldiers can track details like postings and promotions.
 The app will also enable soldiers to view their monthly salary slips, Form 16 and
also download them.

32. Space agencies
 Antrix Corporation (PSLV/GSLV)
 Arianespace (Ariane 5/Soyuz-2/Vega)
 China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (Long March)
 SpaceX (Falcon 9/Falcon Heavy)

33. Launch places
 Baikonur Cosmodrome – Kazakhstan
 Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, USA
 Kennedy Space Center, Florida, USA
 Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SHAR), Andhra Pradesh, India

34. Venus
 Israel - its first environmental research satellite called Venus (Vegetation and
Environment Monitoring New Micro-Satellite).
 The Israel Space Agency (ISA) and its French CNES
 . It was launched on board of Arianespace vega
 launched from the European(ESA) spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.

35. NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar
(NISAR)
 ISRO and NASA are jointly working
 a dual frequency synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite by 2021.
 create two- or three-dimensional images of objects, such as landscapes
 The satellite will be the world’s most expensive earth-imaging satellite.
 It aims to study global environmental change and natural disasters.

36. Hyperspectral Imaging Satellite (HySIS)
 ISRO
 A full fledged niche Earth Observation(EO) Satellite.
 critical chip called an “optical imaging detector array’”
 indigenously developed by ISRO.
 across the electromagnetic spectrum

37. Environment

38. largest volcanic region on Earth
 two km below the surface of the vast ice sheet in west Antarctica.
 They have found 91 previously unknown active volcanoes in the region known as
the West Antarctic rift system,
 adding to the exiting 47 volcanoes that existed before
 making it the largest volcanic region in the world.

39. PEOPLE IN NEWS

40. M Venkaiah Naidu
 13th Vice President of India.
 electoral college - members of both Houses of Parliament
 Proportional Representation by means of the Single transferable vote
 ex officio Chairperson of the Rajya Sabha
 Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan

41. Chief Justice of India
 Justice Dipak Misra - 45th Chief Justice of India
 the seniormost judge of the Supreme Court
 till the age of 65 yrs
 First holder - Justice H. J. Kania
 Justice Mohammad Hidayatullah became the acting President of India

42. Ustad Hussain Sayeeduddin Dagar
 custodian of the Dhrupad tradition of Hindustani classical
 He was the youngest of the famous seven ‘Dagar Bandhus’.
 Hindustani music Styles
 dhrupad, khyal, tarana, tumri, tappa, gazhal

43. S. Aparna
 Seniors IAS officer S. Aparna has been appointed as the Executive Director of the
World Bank
 representing the constituency of India, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Sri Lanka.
 World Bank Group / HQ- Washington DC
 Group of 5 institutions
 World Bank – 2 institutions – for developing countries
 the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), and the
International Development Association (IDA)

44. Prasoon Joshi
 songwriter-poet
 Chairman of Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC)
 Pahlaj Nihalani.
 Censor Board / grants certificates
 statutory body - Cinematograph Act, 1952.
 to regulate the public exhibition of films in India

45.  Raja Harishchandra is a 1913 Indian silent film, directed and produced by
Dadasaheb Phalke, and is the first full-length Indian feature film.
 Alam Ara is a 1931 Indian Bollywood film directed by Ardeshir Irani. It was the first
Indian sound film.
 Which was India's first color film? Kisan Kanya directed by Moti B in 1937
 first Indian to win an Oscar? Bhanu Athaiya
 Honorary Oscar for Lifetime Achievement - Satyajit Ray

46. SPORTS

47. DEFENCE

48. Kalyani Rafael Advanced Systems
 India’s first private sector missiles subsystems manufacturing facility
 Hyderabad
 Greenfield project
 51:49 joint venture with Israel Advanced Defence Systems Ltd.
 Union Government’s Make in India initiative.