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INDIAN AFFAIRS
Himachal Pradesh launches artificial propagation programme of mahseer fish for conservation
i. Himachal Pradesh government in a bid to prompt the fisheries department asked to make an artificial propagation programme for its rehabilitation and conservation.
ii. For the emerge of mahseer fishes that state set aside Rs 6 crore at Machhial near Jogindernagar town in Mandi district to rear the mahseer, also known as the tiger of Indian rivers, to breed the fish and let out its fingerlings into the wild.
iii. Himachal Pradesh fisheries department observed that the stength of the golden mahseer is lessening due to various causes, including construction of dams, barrages, pollution, indiscriminate fishing of brood and juvenile fish, introduction of exotic species and habitat deterioration.
Golden Masheer:
♦ Golden mahseer is a Local words means The Big Mouth is longest-living freshwater fish. It is also known as the tiger of Indian rivers.
Govt constitutes IEPF Authority
i. In a bid to strengthen the framework for safeguarding the interest of investors union Government has formed a six-member Investor Education and Protection Fund Authority.
ii. This move comes under the Companies Act, 2013 that would be for multiple purposes that includes to distribute disgorged amount depositors ambit that have suffered losses due to wrongful acts by other entities.
iii. The constitute team will look after the fund also maintain separate accounts and other records as prescribed by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG).
The Team:
♦ The team comprising six-members under the chairmanship of Corporate Affairs Secretary Tapan Ray and SEBI Executive Director Gyan Bhushan and RBI Executive Director U S Paliwal are also members.
♦ Joint Secretary Amardeep Singh Bhatia has been appointed as the Chief Executive Officer to the Investor Fund Authority.
Gujarat CM launches ‘Smart Village’ program
i. Gujarat government has launched Smart Village program, it was launched by Chief Minister Anandiben Patel on her two year completion in office in Gandhinagar in Gujarat.
ii. The state government will select 300 villages for Smart Village program that will get 80 lakh to 2 crore rupees cash assistance to improve public facilities in the villages.
iii. She will felicitate villages that have 100 percent completion of toilet. The chief minister also attended Accessible India Campaign.
Gujarat:
♦ Capital: Gandhinagar
♦ Governor: Om Prakash Kohli
♦ Chief Minister: Anandiben Patel.
6,000 Gujarat villages become open defecation free, says government
i. Gujarat Government announced that totally 6,000 villages in the state becomes open defecation free under Swachh Bharat Abhiyan.
ii. This announcement comes from the government when the BJP led government is celebrating its second anniversary in the office.
iii. The state have built more than 12.50 lakh toilets across Gujarat in the last two years. As of now, 30 talukas in the state now have 100 per cent toilet facility.
iv. Union government sets targets to achieve 100 % target by 2019 as the time of celebration of 125th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.
INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
2016 Women Economic Forum (WEF) hosted by India and organized by All Ladies League
The ALL Ladies League (ALL) organised the Women Economic Forum (WEF) from May 16-21, 2016 in New Delhi, India
i. Theme: “Women: Uplifting and Uniting the World”
ii. Participants: 1500 women from 75 countries
iii. Sessions: 408 sessions on 28 themes like business, technology, entrepreneurship, industry, health, travel, spirituality, peace, diplomacy, security, conflict resolution, personal leadership, innovation, research
iv. Goal: Energize women’s entrepreneurship and leadership
G7 finance summit held in Japan
i. The G7 finance summit begins at Sendai in Japan to give fillip for balancing the growth of the global economy amid the slowing down of the Chinese economy and those of other emerging countries.
ii. This is the first such meeting where macroeconomic challenges urged and seek ways to inspire growth and check instability in markets by pooling together macroeconomic agendas.
iii. The world’s seven most developed countries will be represented by finance ministers and governors of the central banks.
iv. G7 representatives and their European Union counterparts met informally in the forum titled Future of the Global Economy.
G7 Countries:
♦ Japan, the US, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Canada.
♦ The G7 countries represent more than 64% of the net global wealth ($263 trillion).
BANKING & FINANCE
United States based World Bank announced Pandemic Insurance plan to mobilize funds
The Pandemic Emergency Financing Facility will generate global and national responses to disease outbreaks that threaten large population after the 2014 Ebola Disaster in West Africa
Pandemic Insurance Plan:
i. Announced by: The World Bank
ii. To organize funds quickly against virulent disease outbreaks
iii. Combination of disaster insurance and bonds
HSBC to halve branches in India as customers go digital
i. London based Hong Kong & Shanghai Banking Corporation Holdings will shut halve the number of branch in India to 26 from the present 50 and keeping focus on retail banking over digital channels,
ii. The Branch Shut will lead to over 300 employees being affected also less than one per cent of its total workforce of over 33,000 people.
iii. The branches that are being closed service less than 10% of its Indian customers, also to be noted that the bank has been present in India since 1853.
HSBC Bank:
♦ Founded: 1865
♦ Headquarters: London
♦ CEO: António Pedro dos Santos Simões
AWARDS & RECOGNITIONS
India-Pakistan school Students Exchange Program gets innovation award
School students from India and Pakistan have been interacting with each other through handwritten letters, Audios and Visual recording
Purpose: Shared the history of the two neighbours before Partition
Student Exchange Program
i. A year Long Dialogue consisting of exchange of history of two nations in the form of handwritten, Visual and Audio
ii. School children aged between 10-14 years from the cities of India and Pakistan will be attended
APPOINTMENTS & RESIGNS
Anurag Thakur becomes youngest BCCI president gets elected unopposed after Shashank Manohar
Anurag Thakur was unanimously elected as the youngest BCCI President and taking charge as the Most profile position in Indian Cricket Administration
i. Previous President: ShashankManohar
ii. Current President: Anurag Thakur
iii. Replacement in respect of President was chosen bySenior BCCI Vice president KC Khanna headed the Special General Meeting
Former IPS officer Kiran Bedi appointed as Lt Governor of Puducherry
i. The BJP government has named former IPS officer and BJP leader Kiran Bedi as the lieutenant-governor of Puducherry for nearly two years.
ii. The country’s first woman to serve as IPS was put under the additional charge of Lt Governor of Andaman and Nicobar Island.
iii. Chandrawathi was the first woman Lt Governor while Bedi will be the fourth Lt Governor in women’s category.
iv. The post was lying vacant after the centre sacked UPA nominee Virendra Kataria ba also Lt Governor of Andaman and Nicobar Island Lt Gen Ajay Singh had been given additional charge of Puducherry.
Kiran Bedi:
♦ Bedi is the first woman to join the Indian Police Service (IPS) in 1972.
♦ She also became the first Indian woman to be appointed as a Police Advisor to UN -Secretary-General.
♦ Bedi contested the 2015 Delhi Assembly election as the BJP’s Chief Ministerial candidate
Government promotes 4 general managers as directors at general insurers
i. Union Government has promoted four general managers of state-owned general insurers as whole-time directors, including at GIC Re and Hoda at United India Insurance, K K Rao at Oriental Insurance, P Venkatramaiah of National Insurance Company and Segar Sampath Kumar at New India Assurance.
ii. Centre also created one more post of whole-time director at the country’s sole reinsurer GIC Re and all the five state-owned non-life insurers will be having two whole-time directors each.
State Owned Insurance Companies:
1.Agriculture Insurance Company of India
2.National Insurance Company
3.New India Assurance
4.The Oriental Insurance Company
5.United India Insurance Company
Sudhakar Rao steps down as USL’s Independent Director
i. Non-Executive Independent Director of United Spirits Sudhakar Rao has resigned from the post with effect from today due to unavoidable circumstance.
ii.He is a former Chief Secretary of Karnataka, was appointed as an Additional Director of the USL in 2013. Later he was promoted to the post of Director in the company.
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
New form of light discovered, proving Planck’s constant can change
i. Researchers from Trinity College Dublin have discovered a new form of light that go against predicted qualities of light it could totally change the way we realize the electromagnetic spectrum.
ii. Basically one of the measurable properties of light is called angular momentum that measures how quickly a beam of light rotates.
iii. Earlier, findings says that the angular momentum could only be a multiple of a number called Planck’s constant. However new findings details a new form of light with an angular momentum of just half Planck’s constant.
The Research:
It was observed that when a beam of light passed through a set of crystals that compressed it into a rotating, hollow cylinder and measured the angular momentum of this beam of light with a value half that of Planck’s constant.
SPORTS
Mohun Bagan beats Aizawl FC 5-0 to lift 14th Fed Cup title
i. Mohun Bagan clinched Hero Federation Cup by defeating Aizawl Football Club by a record 5-0 margin and regain the title after eight years, at the Indira Gandhi Stadium in Guwahati.
ii. The record margin victory comes as two goals was Mizoram striker Jeje Lalpekhlua while Haitian Sony Norde, Dhanachandra Singh and Bikramjit Singh scored one each.
iii. Mizoram striker Jeje Lalpekhlua became the most prolific Indian striker, as he completed a tally of 20 goals in the season. He scored eight goals, including a hat-trick in the contest
Ashwin retains No. 2 spot in Test bowlers ranking
Indian Off Spinner Ravichandran Ashwin has retained his second spot in the lastest ICC Player Rankings for Test Bowlers issued, while no Indian features in the top 10 batsmen list.
| Rank | Bowler | Batsman | All Rounders |
| 1 | Stuart Broad | Steve Smith | R Ashwin |
| 2 | R. Ashwin | Joe Root | Shakib Al Hasan |
| 3 | James Anderson | Kane Williamson | Stuart Broad |
| 4 | Yasir Shah | Hashim Amla | Ben Stokes |
| 5 | Dayle Steyn | Younus Khan | Vernon Philander |
OBITUARY
World’s Oldest Olympic champion Sandor Tarics, Berlin veteran, dies at 102
i. The world’s oldest Olympic champion, Sandor Tarics, has died at the age of 102 in San Francisco.
ii. He was the team member of the Hungarian waterpolo team that gave triumph to its side in the Berlin Olympics in 1936, pushing Germany into second place.
iii. Sabdor in the United States in 1949 and earned recognition for his new home country as a designer of earthquake-proof building technologies.
iv. He also gave attendance to the 2012 London Olympics as the oldest living champion.
BOOKS & AUTHORS
Two new books released by Ruskin Bond
i. Sahitya Academy Award Winning author Ruskin Bond has released two new books both themed on nature.
ii. The books namely
1.My Favourite Nature Stories.
2.The World outside My Window.
iii. This is his first of its kind also these books talks about his various encounters with the natural world.
iv. These books deals the chorus of cicadas to the song of the whistling thrush, from his love for sea shells to his favourite place on earth, he envisions the reasons for his long-lasting love for nature.
Ruskin Bond:
Bond bagged Sahitya Academy Award in 1992 for Our Trees Still Grow in Dehra in English. He was also awarded the Padma Shri in 1999 and Padma Bhushan in 2014.
‘Making it Big’, the inspiring story of Binod Chaudhary
i. Nepali Author Binod Chaudhary’s story offers lessons on turning dreams into reality, and is a good inspiration for all upcoming entrepreneurs.
ii. He created Wai Wai, a Nepalese brand of instant noodles. Chaudhary was listed by Forbes as he ranked 1,342 and was declared the first billionaire of Nepal.
IMPORTANT DAYS
International Day for Biological Diversity
i. International Day for Biological Diversity also called World Biodiversity Day was created in 1993 by the United Nations for the promotion of biodiversity issues.
ii. This year 2016 Theme is: Mainstreaming Biodiversity; Sustaining People and their Livelihoods.
iii. The theme emphasizes peoples’ livelihoods and sustainable development in across the domain of activity, including economic sectors such as agriculture, forestry, fisheries and tourism.
