Current Affairs Today – May 31 2015

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 Indian Affairs

 Vinod Pipersenia is new chief secretary of Assam

• Assam government appointed Vinod Kumar Pipersenia as the 45th chief secretary of the state. He will replace incumbent JiteshKhoshla. He is an IAS officer of 1980 batch of Assam-Meghalayacadre.
• Before this he was working as the Additional Chief Secretary of Agriculture, Irrigation and PWD Department.

Narendra Modi will be first Indian PM to visit Israel and Palestine

• Narendra Modi will become the first Indian Prime Minister to visit the jewish state Israel. Israel is currently one of India’s key defence and security partners. There are no fixed dates for the visit yet.
• In 2003, under the previous Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government headed by prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, India welcomed then Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon,
• Former deputy prime minister and home minister in the NDA government, Lal Krishna Advani, and then foreign minister Jaswant Singh visited Israel in 2000.
• Recently, home minister Rajnath Singh’s visited Israel in November and Modi met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York in September.

 International Affairs

 Indian-origin businessman honoured in Singaporea

• Gautam Banerjee, who is the senior managing director at Blackstone and co-chairman of its Asia operating committee, as well as chairman of Blackstone Singapore, an Indian-origin entrepreneur is among the four persons, on whom the national honour will be conferred in Singapore for their “instrumental roles” in the continued growth of the country’s business scenario.
• He was awarded the ‘Public Service Medal’ by President Tony Tan Keng Yam. The Public Service Medal was also awarded to Paul Graham, Global Chief Operating Officer and CEO for Mainland Europe, Middle East and Africa for DHL Supply Chain.
• Dominic Barton, Global Managing Director for McKinsey and Company, and Michael R Splinter, Applied Materials Chairman, were awarded the ‘Public Service Star (Distinguished Friends of Singapore) award’.
• Bannerjee was also nominated as a member of parliament in Singapore, he currently serves on the board of Singapore Airlines Limited, the Indian Hotels Company Limited and is the vice chairman of the Singapore Business Federation.
• Economic Development Board (EDB) of Singapore, Chairman : Beh Swan Gin.

 Appointments

 New directors for ISRO’s three major centres

• Three major centres of IndianSpace Research Organisation, including Satish Dhawan SpaceCentre (SDSC), Sriharikota, are to get new directors.
• Dr K Sivan, currently Director of Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre (LPSC), Thiruvananthapuram, will take over from M Chandradathan, who is to retire by end May 2015, as the Director of Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC), Thiruvananthapuram.
• ISRO said S. Somanath, Director (Projects), VSSC, will take over as Director, LPSC, from Dr K Sivan.
• P Kunhikrishnan, Deputy Director (Mechanisms and Vehicle Integration), VSSC, will take over over from Dr M Y S Prasad, as Director of Satish DhawanSpace Centre (SDSC) SHAR, Sriharikota.

 GoAir Airlines names Wolfgang  Prock-Shauer  as new CEO

• Budget carrier GoAir has appointed former Jet Airways chief executive, Austrian national, Wolfgang Prock-Shauer, who has over 34 years of experience, as the new CEO of the company.
• He will take charge from June 15. Prock-Shauer will succeed Italian airline professional, Giorgio De Roni, who quit in March. Earlier Prock was a part of the management board of German airline AirBerlin.
• Jeh Wadia : GoAir’s managing director.

 Banking & Finance

 First facial recognition ATM developed in China

• Chinese researchers from Tsinghua University and Tzekwan Technology, a Hangzhou firm in eastern China’s Zhejiang province that provides security protection for financial transactions, have developed the first automated teller machine (ATM) with facial recognition technology.
• China currently relied mostly on imported ATM technology, the report said, but the new machine, which combines high-speed banknote handling, improved counterfeit-bill recognition and facial recognition, was wholly Chinese.It seems to be a part of “Made in China” campaign, which aims to transition the mainland from a manufacturing hub for low-end goods to high-quality products within the next 10 years.
• The new ATM’s are expected to connect with the country’s banks and public security networks, which guarantees that only cardholders withdraw money, even if someone else knows the password. These biometrics ATMs are not being used by some countries, such as the United States, because of privacy concerns and its high cost.
• Tzekwan chairman : Gu Zikun,

 Sports

 Deepika Kumari wins bronze in Archery World Cup

• Archer Deepika Kumari bagged the bronze medal in the women’s individual recurve event of the World Cup, going on in Antalya, Turkey.
• Ninth seeded, Deepika defeated her second-seeded opponent Chang Hye Jin of Korea by 6 (26, 29, 26, 28)- 2 (25, 26, 28, 27) to come up as then winner. Korean archers stood first and second on the podium with Deepika at third.
• Earlier she was denied a place in the final by Olympic gold medallist Ki Bo Bae of Korea, going on in Antalya

4 Indians bag gold in International wrestling tournament

• Four Indian wrestlerss, struck gold at the International Wrestling tournament in Sassari City, Italy, in their respective weight categories in Men’s Freestyle.
• Yogeshwar bagged gold in 65kg division, while Praveen Rana claimed the gold in 70kg category.
• Amit Kumar and Narsingh Yadav also finished on the top of the podium in 57kg and 74kg categories, respectively. Other Indians in the competition were Mausum Khatri (97kg) and Hitender (125kg).

Gurpreet Singh gets quota place for Rio Olympics

• Gurpreet Singh gave India a fifth quota place in shooting for the 2016 Rio Olympics.
• Gurpreet secured 154 in the final of the Men’s 10m Air Pistol at the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) Shooting World Cup, being held in Munich, finishing fourth. The winner was Joao Costa (201.4 points) of Portugal, while Tomoyuki (200.4) Matsuda of Japan won the silver and Sun Yang (177.3) was third, securing a quota place for China, another quota place went to fifth placed Daemyung Lee (136) of South Korea.
• He is the second Indian to have secured a Rio berth at the ongoing World Cup, apart from Abhinav Bindra, who won a quota place with a sixth place finish in the Men’s 10m Air Rifle final.
• Gagan Narang, Jitu Rai and Apurvi Chandela are the other Indians to have secured an Olympic quota place. Narang did so after finishing third in the 50m Rifle Prone Event of the ISSF World Cup at Fort Benning in USA earlier this month.
• Chandela won the quota place by winning the bronze in the 10m Rifle at World Cup in Korea last month, while Rai had won India’s first Olympic quota place at the World Championships in Granada, Spain last year, when he won a silver in the 50m Free Pistol event.
• National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) president : Raninder Singh.