Current Affairs July 2017

1. CURRENT AFFAIRS
JULY 1
ANIRUDH REDDY

2. India Events and Affairs

3. 1.
 QUESTION : Recently Parliament held a midnight session and
it was only the 5th time in the history. What could be the
reason ?
 Launch of GST
 Indirect tax - Constitution 122nd Amendment Bill- The
Constitution (101st Amendment) Act, 2016
 Governed by GST Council and its Chairman is the Finance
Minister of India
 Mumbai’s Vikrikar Bhavan has been renamed as GST Bhavan

4. Q.
 The Constitution (One Hundredth Amendment) Act, 2015 was enacted to give
effect to:
 1. the transfer of certain territories by India to Bangladesh and transfer of certain
territories from Bangladesh to India
 2. the acquiring of territories by India from Bangladesh.
 3. National Judicial Appointment Commission
 4. transfer of certain territories by India to Bangladesh.

5. Removing no-detention policy
 Right to Education Act,or Right of Children to Free and
Compulsory Education Act, 2009
 Article 21A- free and compulsory education for children
between 6 and 14.
 Education as a fundamental right
 no child will be detained or held back in any class or expelled
till the completion of elementary education covering classes 1
to 8

6. Textiles India 2017
 India’s first ever mega textiles trade fair.
 Gandhinagar, Gujarat
 Inaugurated by pm
 Union Textiles Minister Smriti Irani
 Gujarat CM Vijay Rupani

7. Crude Oil from US
 Indian Oil Corp (IOC) has bought shale oil from the United States for the first time.
 India is the world’s third-largest oil importer.
 Oil suppliers to india – Saudi Arabia (30.3 MT)
 -Iraq (29.1 MT)
 - Iran (19.8MT)
 Why ? OPEC Cuts production which led to rise in prices of oil from middle east

8. OPEC – HQ Vienna, Austria

10. Asian Athletics Championships
 Odisha / Kalinga Stadium
 The name of the mascot is Olly and it is named after a animal known for mass
nesting. Can you guess it?
 Olive Ridley Turtles/ Gahirmatha Beach / Bhitarkanika national Park.

11. UDAY Scheme
 Ujwal DISCOM Assurance Yojna (UDAY)- Union Ministry of Power
 financial turnaround and revival package for electricity distribution companies of
India (DISCOMs)

12. Q
 Prime Minister, Mr. Narendra Modi, in March, 2016, launched an ambitious
programme "Setu Bharatam". The programme is aimed at:
 1. Linking all major cities and towns by rail, air and road by 2019.
 2. Making all National Highways railway level crossing free by 2019
 3. Providing travel concession to senior citizens throughout India.
 4. Providing travel concession to women and children throughout India
 New Schemes which target important issues are important for the exam.

13. Sunderbans
 West Bengal Mangroves
 National Park, Tiger Reserve, and a Biosphere Reserve
 Bengal Tiger, Salt water Crocodile, sundari tree
 1986 to 2012, 124.418 sq km or about 5.5% of the mangrove cover of Sunderbans
was lost and varying degrees of erosion has been observed

14. World Heritage City
 600-year old walled city of Ahmedabad
 eastern bank of the Sabarmati river
 World Heritage City by the World Heritage Committee of UNESCO
 It is the first Indian city to get this honour
 Sultan Ahmed Shah I of Gujarat Sultanate in 1411

15. digital initiatives to push e-education
 Swayam - Study Webs of Active –Learning for Young Aspiring Minds
 Swayam Prabha - 32 DTH channels
 National Academic Depository - Online Academic Awards
 National Digital Library. – online library which is part of the online services of
the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur

16. Aaykar Setu - App
 Central Board of Direct Taxes ,Union Ministry for Finance
 income tax return (ITR) online,
 locate the nearest Tax Return Prepares (TRP),
 provides calculators and other tools,
 helps you manage your PAN and TDS

17. Presidential retreats
 'The Retreat Building’, Mashobra, Shimla
 Rashtrapati Nilayam, Bolarum, Hyderabad
 These locations, one in north and another in south, symbolise unity of our country
and unity of our diverse cultures and people.
 Ashiana Annexe’, comprising of 12 low cost dwelling units in Dehradun,
Uttarakhand was recently inaugurated by the President.

18. educational qualifications for contesting
election
 Rajasthan has become the first state in India to fix the minimum educational
qualifications for contesting election to village cooperative societies and various
other cooperative bodies.
 The required qualifications will range from Class V to Class VIII.

19. NH-39
 Cabinet Committee on Economic
Affairs (CCEA) has given its approval
for upgradation and widening of 65
kms of Imphal - Moreh Section of
NH-39 in Manipur.
 vital link in providing road
connectivity up to Thailand
 It will boost trade, commerce and
tourism in the region

20. 2017 Sustainable Development Goal Index
 India has been ranked 116 out of 157 countries
 report released by Sustainable Development Solutions Network and Bertelsmann
Stiftung.
 The ranking is on the basis of countries’ performance in the 17 SDGs.
 Sweden(1st), Denmark(2nd),Finland(3rd)
 SDGs- officially known as ‘Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for
Sustainable Development’ - 17 "Global Goals" with 169 targets

21. first solar-powered local train
 DEMU (diesel electric multiple unit) train.
 The entire electrical need of the coaches, which includes lights, fans and
information display system, will be met by the energy produced by solar panels
 Sarai Rohilla in Delhi to Farukh Nagar in Haryana

22. People in News

24. Maryam Mirzakhani
 First woman to win Fields Medal in 2014
 mathematicians under 40 years of age
 described as the mathematician's "Nobel Prize“
 Passed away due to cancer

25. Achal Kumar Jyoti
 Chief Election Commissioner
 President of India based on a recommendation from Govt
 6 yrs or up to 65 yrs of age

26. KK Venugopal Rao
 15th Attorney General of India.
 Indian government's chief legal advisor
 appointed by the President of India
 Article 76 of the Constitution
 holds office during the pleasure of the President
 1st AG - M. C. Setalvad – Longest (1950-1963) AG and Chairman of the First Law
Commission of India.

27. R K Pachnanda
 new Director General of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police.
 one of the five Central Armed Police Forces
 Estb. After China-India War of 1962
 Border Security Force (BSF),
 Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF),
 Central Industrial Security Force (CISF),
 Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB)

28. Sanjay Kumar
 was appointed as Director General (DG) of National Disaster Response Force
(NDRF).
Mahesh Muralidhar Bhagwat
 2017 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report Heroes Award
 Unites States Department of State

29. Liu Xiaobo
 China’s democracy icon and nobel laureate
 2010 Nobel Peace Prize for his long and nonviolent struggle for fundamental
human rights in China
 1989 Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing.

30. Institutions

31. Asian Development Bank
 $ 10 billion for infrastructure for lesser developed states like UP, Bihar, Jharkhand,
Odisha and Chhattisgarh.
 ADB – HQ Manila, Philippines
 Multilateral Development Bank-67 members
 Fighting poverty in Asia and the Pacific-Social and economic development
 Japan and United States hold the largest proportion of shares at 15.607%.
 3.China holds 6.444%
 4. India holds 6.331%
 5.Australia holds 5.786%

32. Asian Infrastructure
Investment Bank
 Headquarters-Beijing, China
 China (30.34 per cent),
 India (8.52 per cent)
 Russia (6.66 per cent)
New Development
Bank(BRICS Development
Bank)
 Headquarters-Shanghai, China
 President - K.V. Kamath
 Brazil, Russia, India, China and South
Africa
 Equal share holding

33. The Energy Resources Institute(TERI)
 2nd place in ‘2016 Top Climate Think Tanks in the Rest of the World-Absolute
Global Rankings’
 Awarded by International Centre for Climate Governance(ICCG)
 Green Rating for Integrated Habitat Assessment (GRIHA) -- by TERI and Ministry of
New and Renewable Energy
 national rating system for green buildings in India

34. Treaty banning nuclear weapons
 122 members of the United Nations have voted in favour
 Netherlands was the only country to vote against it
 Singapore abstained from voting
 9 nuclear powers of the world- Russia, USA, India, Britain, China, France, Pakistan,
North Korea and Israel didn’t take part in the negotiations and didn’t cast their
vote
 CTBT/NPT – Is India a signatory?

35. 12th G20 summit- Hamburg, Germany
 G20 - meeting of Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors. Started in 1999
 funding of terror activities and a joint crackdown on the global network of
terrorism.
 Adoption of Hamburg Plan to address problems like climate change, sustainable
livelihoods and global health.

38. Association of Southeast Asian Nations
(ASEAN)-Secretariat atJakarta
 India plans to invite 10 leaders from ASEAN the as chief Guests for the 2018
Republic Day celebrations.

39.  Brunei – Brunei Dollar- Bandar seri
Begawan
 Cambodia – Riel – Phnom penh
 Indonesia –Rupiah - Jakarta
 Laos –Laos kip - Vientiane
 Malaysia- ringgit-Kuala Lumpur
 Myanmar – Burmese Kyat -Naypidaw
 Philippines – Peso- Manila
 Singapore – Singapore Dollar
 Thailand – Bhat - Bankok
 Vietnam – Dong - Hanoi

40. Global Affairs

41. 11. Global Cybersecurity Index
 India has been ranked 23rd out of 165 nations
 United States, Malaysia, Oman
 International Telecommunication Union (ITU) – UN body
 WannaCry ransomware
 Distributed denial of service (DDoS)/Phishing/ClickJacking/Eaves Dropping/ Virus
and worms / Zero day Exploits

42. World heritage sites in danger
 By UNESCO
 Hebron in West bank, Palestine
New world heritage site
 Okinoshima Island, Japan’s men-only island
 ban on women from entering the island

43. Oil block 128
 Vietnam has granted
ONGC Videsh a two-year
extension to explore oil
block 128 in the disputed
South China Sea.
 Nine - dash line
 UNCLOS

46. PM Modi visit to Israel
 A fast growing Israeli Chrysanthemum flower was named “MODI” during the Indian
Premier’s visit to the Danziger flower farm.
 Capital: Jerusalem
 Currency: Israeli new shekel
 Benjamin Netanyahu

47. Sanctions on North Korea
 first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) - Hwasong- 14

48. World Population Day
 World Population Day is celebrated every year on the 11th of July
 population issues like family planning, gender inequality, poverty and maternal
health
World Youth Skills Day
 15th of July
 theme for 2017 is “Skills for All”

49. Defence

50. Special Rhino Protection Force
 Government of Assam
 protection of one horned rhinos - IUCN Red List of Threatened Animals
 Kaziranga National Park - World Heritage Site (other one is Manas National Park )
 Great one horned Rhinoceroses

51. Q
 Garuda Shakti III is a military Exercise between India and which country?
 1. Nepal
 2. Russia
 3. Indonesia
 4. China

52. Maitree 2017
 Indian Army and Royal Thailand Army
 Bakloh in Chamba district of Himachal Pradesh
 It was held at Krabi in Thailand in 2016

53. Malabar 2017
 India, Japan and United States have kicked off the 2017 MALABAR trilateral naval
exercise near Chennai in Bay of Bengal.
 All three countries air craft carriers were used.
 India – INS Vikramaditya ( recently retired INS viraat, scraped Vikrant)

54. Quick Reaction Surface to Air Missile
(QRSAM)
 Integrated Test Range (ITR) at Chandipur, Odisha
 truck-mounted canister launcher

55. Technology

56. Double Asteroid Redirection Test(DART)
 NASA is developing the first ever mission to deflect a near-Earth asteroid
 The target for DART is the asteroid called Didymos
Juno
 NASA’s unmanned spacecraft
 first space probe to complete flyby of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot which is a storm
measuring around 16,000km in diameter. It is the largest known storm in the solar
system.

57. S-band doppler weather radar
 India Meteorological Department
 Palluruthy in West Kochi, Kerala.
 manufactured by Bharat Electronics Limited on the basis of technology offered by
ISRO.
 predicting weather events such as storms and cyclones, other severe weather
conditions occurring in 500-km radius from Kochi

58. RailCloud - Cloud Computing system
 Indian Railways
 virtual server - faster connectivity at a reduced cost
 Cloud computing is an emerging technology for faster and on demand
commensurate deployment of server resources which results in reduced cost

59. Saraswati Supercluster
 Indian astronomers have identified extremely large supercluster of galaxies which
has been named Saraswati.
 supercluster is about 4 billion light years away
 Milky way galaxy – Local
group galaxy cluster Laniakea
supercluster

60. Sports

61.  Mithali Raj Indian cricket team captain
 first player in the history of women’s ODI cricket to score more than 6000 career
runs
 Ravi Shastri has been appointed as the new chief coach of the Indian Cricket Team
till ICC world Cup 2019.
 He will be succeeding Anil Kumble after he resigned.

62. Sundar Singh Gurjar
 gold medal in the men’s javelin
 World Para Athletics Championships , London

63. FIFA Confederation Cup
 1st – Germany
 2nd – Chile
 Hosted by Russia