Daily Current Affairs Update August-18 2017

1. Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs chaired by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi has given its approval to the Scheme of providing Budgetary Support under Goods and Service Tax (GST) Regime for the eligible industrial units located in State of Jammu & Kashmir, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and North Eastern States including Sikkim.

2. Sohail Mahmood Pakistan’s High Commissioner to India took charge at the High Commission

3. General Motors (GM) India has announced the appointment of Sanjiv Gupta as the new President and Managing Director of the company.

4. India and Mexico are planning to set up a CEO Forum to boost the trade ties

5. Tata Power has become the first power utility to introduce a QR code based bill payments system in India
According to the statement, the QR code linked to Unified Payments Interface (UPI) will be printed on the electricity bills.
Tata Power has become the first power utility to introduce QR code service for bill payments in Mumbai.

6.  Former Kerala advocate general M K Damodaran passed away in Kochi.

7. The Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry has announced November 13 as the date for conducting its National Assessment Survey (NAS) for the students of class 3, 5, and 8.

8. Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Dr.  Harsh Vardhan, launched the “Harit Diwali, Swasth Diwali” campaign.

9. Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) went digital by launching a bespoke mobile wallet (mobile payment App) that would enable its existing 100 million customers to make Bill payments
This digital wallet was launched at an event by Manoj Sinha, Minister for Telecommunications in the capital.

• Chairman & Managing Director of BSNL is Shri Anupam Shrivastava.
• Bipin Preet Singh is the Founder CEO & Director of Mobikwik.

10. Five Indian-origin persons, including Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, have featured in Fortune’s annual list of 40 young and influential people in the field of business.
The list has been topped by 39-year-old French President Emmanuel Macron“France’s youngest leader since Napoleon”

11.  Vishal Sikka of Infosys Ltd has resigned as Managing Director and Chief Executive of the company with immediate effect.

12. Pakistani rights activist Malala Yousafzai secured a place at Oxford University after getting her A-level results.

13. Scientists have developed an artificial womb that can be used in future to save the lives of extremely premature human babies.

14. A six-member all-woman team of the Indian Navy will set sail to circumnavigate the globe on the sailing vessel INSV Tarini. This is the first-ever Indian circumnavigation of the globe by an all-woman crew.

The expedition has been aptly titled ‘Navika Sagar Parikrama’ with an aim to promote women empowerment in the country and ocean sailing by the Indian Navy.

15. The Union Defence Ministry has cleared a proposal to procure six AH-64-E Apache attack helicopters along with weapons systems from American aerospace giant Boeing for the Indian Army.

16. Veteran photographer S Paul passed away in New Delhi. He was 88.

17. Preethi Srinivasan, the former State under-19 cricket captain, has bestowed with the 2017 Kalpana Chawla Award for courage and daring enterprise

18. The Desert National Park (DNP) is located near Jaisalmer, Rajasthan

19. The book “The Adivasi Will Not Dance” has been authored by Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar.

20. The 16th edition of IAAF (International Association of Athletics Federations) World Championships 2017 was held in London.

21. Brazilian star Neymar has become a goodwill ambassador for Handicap International 

22. The Indian and Chinese armies clashed recently along the Pangong lake in Ladakh when the People’s Liberation Army tried to penetrate into the Indian side.

23. In its recent report, a parliamentary committee has observed that extreme weather events are costing India $9-10 billion annually and climate change is projected to impact agricultural productivity with increasing severity from 2020 to the end of the century.

24. The Prime Minister interacted with Young Entrepreneurs at the “Champions of Change” initiative organised by NITI Aayog at Pravasi Bharatiya Kendra.

25. Pakistan-origin singer Adnan Sami, who got Indian citizenship last year, and eminent Carnatic musician and playback singer K J Yesudas have been nominated as trustees of the city-based Bharat Bhavan, a senior Madhya Pradesh government.

26. Bappi Lahiri, 1st music director who composed songs for Bharat Ratna Shri. Atal Bihari Vajpayee & Bharat Ratna Dr. Ambedkar gifted the CDs to Honorable President of India Mr. Ram Nath Kovind in the presence of Home Minister Rajnath Singh

27. Reliance Power said its Sasan captive coal mine has been awarded the National Safety Award (Mines) for 2013 and 2014. Under “commendable safe work environment and safety practices” category.

28. American tennis player Serena Williams has topped the Forbes’ list of highest paid female athletes of 2017, with $27 million in earnings between June 2016 and June 2017.

29. SUNREF (Sustainable Use of Natural Resources and Energy Finance) Housing India programme is to be launched by the National Housing Bank (NHB) along with French Development Agency (FDA) and the European Union.

30. Researchers from John Innes Centre, Norwich in the UK have developed a new polio vaccine using plants.

31. Asteroid Florence, which is one of the largest near-Earth asteroids, will pass safely by Earth on 1 September 2017 in its closest ever encounter with the planet.

32. He was appointed as the interim managing director and CEO of Infosys in August 2017 - UB Pravin Rao

33. The US and Japan have agreed to advance their multilateral security and defence cooperation with countries like India, South Korea and Australia in view of North Korea's dangerous provocative behaviour.

34. SBI is planning initial public offerings of 2 regional rural banks in next one year, the first such move by a public sector bank.

• SBI is preparing the ground to list Andhra Pradesh Grameena Vikas Bank & Saurashtra Gramin Bank to create value & increase efficiency.