Daily Current Affairs Update September-06 2017

1. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj arrived in Russian port city of Vladivostok on a three-day visit to attend the third Eastern Economic Forum which will deliberate on pressing issues relating to global trade.

2. The National Highway Authority of India has awarded its first international project in Myanmar to a joint venture of Punj Lloyd-Varaha.

3. Infosys co-founder N R Narayana Murthy and Mumbai-born scientist Veena Sahajwalla have been conferred the PLuS Alliance Prize.
The Prize of  USD 50,000 was awarded in two categories; Education Innovation and Research Innovation.

4. China Bans Raising Funds Through Cryptocurrencies
China has banned individuals and organizations from raising funds through Initial Coin Offerings (ICO), or launches of digital currencies, saying the practice constituted illegal fund-raising.

Crypto Currencies or Virtual Currencies are type of unregulated digital money that is neither issued by central bank/public authority, nor is necessarily attached to a fiat currency, but is used and accepted among the members of a specific virtual community. They are capable of being transferred, stored or traded electronically.

5. India’s Ankur Mittal won his maiden International Shooting Sport Federation, ISSF World Cup medal by clinching silver in the double trap event of the edition being held in Moscow.

6. The Union Ministry of Human Resource and Development (HRD) has launched Diksha Portal (diksha.gov.in) for providing digital platform to teacher to make their lifestyle more digital.
It will serve as National Digital Infrastructure for Teachers. Through this portal, all teachers across nation will be equipped with advanced digital technology.
Diksha portal launched with a tagline “National Digital Infrastructures for Our Teacher Our Teacher ”

7. The National Institution for Transforming India (NITI) Aayog launched National Nutrition Strategy aimed at Kuposhan Mukt Bharat.
It aims to attain optimal nutritional status by 2022.

8. Jharkhand Governor Draupadi Murmu gave her assent to the Jharkhand Religious Freedom Bill, 2017.
With this Jharkhand, become seventh state in the country to have anti-conversion law.
Other six states with similar law are Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh

The Bill seeks to bring stringent anti-conversion law in place under which forceful or allurement induced religious conversion will be non-bailable criminal offence

9. Noted Journalist Gauri Lankesh shot dead in Bengaluru

10. A 1,300-km undersea pipeline from Iran, avoiding Pakistani waters, has been proposed to port cheap gas. It is said that this pipeline can bring natural gas from the Persian Gulf to India at rates less than the price of LNG available in the spot market.

• As per the proposal, the pipeline can first travel to Oman, and then onwards to Porbandar in the state of Gujarat.

11.  India slides in world university rankings

Poor performance in internationalisation of their campuses and a low research score have pulled down Indian higher education institutes such as the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and some of the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) in the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings 2018.

 THE published the 14th annual edition of its World University Rankings, a list of the top 1,000 universities from 77 countries

The University of Oxford retains first place in the World University Rankings

While IISc has dropped from the 201-250 band in the previous rankings to the 251-300 band, IIT-Delhi and IIT-Kanpur have fallen from the 401-500 band to the 501-600 band. IIT-Madras fell from the 401-500 band to the 601-800 cohort.

12. 3,500 state, central schemes worth Rs 6 lakh cr to come under DBT soon

More number of central government schemes under Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT), the Narendra Modi administration has instructed the states to ensure that they pass their own DBT laws and create their own portals to bring in their schemes under the DBT umbrella.

Direct Benefit Transfer or DBT is an attempt to change the mechanism of transferring subsidies launched by Government of India on 1 January 2013

13. Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and held talks on ways to strengthen bilateral ties.

14. The finance ministry has advised all banks to take immediate steps to restrict transactions in bank accounts of more than 2.09 lakh companies, whose names have been struck off the Register of Companies.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had first revealed the government’s decision to cancel the registrations of one lakh companies that had suspicious and questionable operations, identified on the basis of data mined from the deposit of bank notes following last November’s demonetisation of Rs.500 and Rs.1,000 notes.

15. The Reserve Bank has restricted foreign investors from buying more shares in non-banking finance company Bharat Financial Inclusion after the allowed investment limit reached the ceiling.

Bharat Financial Inclusion Limited (formerly known as SKS Microfinance Limited) BFIL is a non-banking finance company (NBFC)

Headquarters: Hyderabad, India

16. The ministry of electronics and IT (MeitY) is working on a multi-pronged strategy under which it plans to make the Bharat Interface for Money app, or BHIM, the single point for all mobile payments. This plan includes handsets coming pre-loaded with the application as well as having a single quick response (QR) code that will be integrated with the app and is accepted by all merchants, in a bid to enable a seamless nationwide network.

 BHIM (Bharat Interface for Money) is a Mobile App developed by National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), based on the Unified Payment Interface (UPI). It was launched by Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India, at a Digi Dhan mela at Talkatora Stadium in New Delhi on 30 December 2016.

At present, there is no charge for transaction from Rs.1 to Rs.1 Lakh.

17. Shri Rao Inderjit Singh took over as the Minister of State for Chemicals and Fertilizers.

18. Scientists of Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)-National Chemical Laboratory in Pune have developed an ultra-thin artificial leaf that absorbs sunlight to generate hydrogen fuel from water, similar to an actual plant leaf.

19. Hurricane Harvey to be costliest natural disaster in US history: Report.

The total losses from Harvey, which has created havoc in Texas and Louisiana in southeast US, would reach USD 190 billion or one per cent of the nation's Gross Domestic Product (GDP

20. The tennis player who recently became the oldest semi-finalist in US Open history is - Venus Williams (37 )

21. Coastal erosion has resulted in the disappearance of this biodiversity-rich uninhabited islands, which was a part of Lakshadweep - Parali I

22. Israel conducts largest military drill in 20 years

23. Former Union Minister and Trinamool MP who passed away recently - Sultan Ahmed

24. Rs. 20K per branch per month  Penalty on Banks without Aadhar Centres

One additional month has been given to banks to open Aadhar enrolment centres

 The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) had asked private as well as public banks to open Aadhaar enrolment and updation facility in 10 percent of their total number of branches by the end of August 2017.

25. President Donald Trump has nominated Kenneth Ian Juster as the next American ambassador to India.

26. India has handed over an off-shore patrol vessel, Varuna, to Sri Lanka.

27. SBI is currently beta-testing its intelligent assistant called SIA – SBI Intelligent Assistant.

• SIA is a chatbot which is aimed at handling customer queries & help guide them through various retail products & services offered by SBI.

28. India has started exporting petroleum products to Myanmar by road, discovering a new market for its fast growing oil refining sector.

29. Energy Efficiency Services Limited ( EESL) , under Ministry of Power, Government of India has launched UJALA (Unnat Jyoti by Affordable Lighting for All) Scheme in the State of Melaka, Malaysia today

30. According to Morgan, Economic activity in the country lost some pace amid GST related disruptions but underlying growth momentum remains strong and the country may clock 6.7 per cent growth this fiscal.

31. Maharashtra government to use helicopters to drop seed bombs for mangrove plantations

32.   Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis has given his in-principle approval for a ₹300 crore project, wherein a 39-kilometre cycling and jogging track will come up in Mumbai by 2019. The track, expected to be among the longest of its kind in India, will include a Bollywood walk and books route. It will connect 19 railway, seven metro and four monorail stations.

33.ISRO scientists have developed new atmospheric correction algorithms that can remove haze in images taken by Earth-observation satellites.

34. Ajanta Pharma has received final approval from the US health regulator for Entacapone tablets, used in the treatment of Parkinson's disease.