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Daily G.K. - Top Stories

07 Jun 2019

INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

Maas Visiting Iran to Save Faltering N-Deal

  •  Germany's foreign minister is travelling to Iran to discuss the faltering nuclear accord between Tehran and leading world powers. 
  • Maas plans to meet his Iranian counterpart Mohamed Javad Zarif to discuss Tehran's role in the restive region and the 2015 nuclear accord.
  • Heiko Maas' visit to Iran will be part of a broader trip to West Asia, with stops in Jordan and the UAE.

China Issues first 5G Licenses

  •  China issues 5G commercial licenses to four top state-owned companies, marking the first step towards adopting a technology that's set to revolutionise the country's digital economy amid an escalating trade war with the US.
  • China's ministry of industry and information technology (MIIT) handed out the licenses to three- telecom giants- China Mobile, China Telecom, and China Unicom, and China Broadcasting Networking Corporation, the largest cable company in the country. 
  • As of now, South Korea is said to be the only country to have adopted the new technology on a large scale. 
  • The 5G technology will be able to transmit the data at least 10 times faster than the 4G systems. 
View Month Wise

BUSINESS AND ECONOMY

 RBI Cuts Rate to a 9-Year Low

  •  Corporate and Consumer loans will get cheaper with the RBI, expectedly, cutting the policy rate by 0.25 percentage points to 5.75%, its third consecutive rate cut in 2019, in an attempt to reverse the slow down in economic growth and boost consumer spending. 
  • The policy rate is the lowest it has been since July 2010, a year when the RBI effected a staggering six interest rate increases to combat stubborn inflation. 
  • The RBI also changed its stance to "accomodative" from "neutral" which means that it could cut the rate again, and then again, if growth doesn't pick up.  
  • Meanwhile, RBI raised its consumer price index (CPI) inflation projection for the first half of the year to 3-3.1% from 2.9-3% while marginally reduced the second-half inflation outlook to 3.4-3.7% from 3.5-3.8%, with risks broadly balanced.
  • The reason for the revision was factors such as sharper-than-expected seasonal rise in vegetable prices and pick-up in prices in several food items while weakening of domestic and external demand and forecast of normal monsoon.
  • Expectations are that banks will pass on the rate cut by lowering their lending rates and in turn possibly lowering the equated monthly instalments (EMI) that individuals pay on home and consumer loans.

Blackstone-Embassy JV to acquire stake in IBREL

  •  US private equity giant Blackstone Group Lp and Bengaluru-based property developer Embassy Group are set to jointly acquire the stake of Indiabulls Group chairman Sameer Gehlaut in Indiabulls Real Estate Ltd (IBREL), a move that will also see Indiabulls exit the real estate business to focus entirely on financial services.
  • The Blackstone-Embassy joint venture will buy promoter Gehlaut's 39% stake in IBREL for around Rs. 2,700 crore at an equity valuation of Rs. 7,000 crore.
  • The Blackstone-Embassy duo has come together for the Indiabulls deal, after Embassy Office Parks (a joint entity of Blackstone and Embassy) launched India's maiden real estate investment trust (REIT) earlier in 2019.
  • Once the deal is completed, a quarter of IBREL will be held by foreign institutions while the remainder will be with public shareholders and mutual funds among others.
  • This is not the first time Blackstone and Indiabulls have entered into a transaction.
  • In March 2018, IBREL sold a 50% stake in its marquee office properties in central Mumbai to Blackstone for $730 million or Rs. 4,750 crore.
  • Blackstone also bought IBREL's commercial office property in Chennai One Indiabulls Park for around Rs. 900 crore.

RBI waives RTGS, NEFT charges

  •  The RBI has decided to waive all charges on Real Time Gross Settlement System (RTGS) and National Electronic Funds Transfer (NEFT) transactions — two preferred routes for instantly transferring funds digitally.
  • The central bank, which levies a minimum charge on banks for transactions routed through its RTGS meant for large-value, instantaneous fund transfers and the NEFT system for other fund transfers, had directed all banks to pass these benefits to their customers.
  • RTGS is an electronic form of funds transfer on a real-time basis. The system is primarily meant for large-value transactions.
  • The minimum amount to be remitted through RTGS is Rs 2 lakh with no upper or maximum ceiling.
  • NEFT is a nation-wide payments system facilitating one-to-one funds transfer, usually on the same day.
  • Under this, individuals, firms and corporates can electronically transfer funds from any bank branch to any individual, firm or corporate having an account with any other bank branch in the country.
  • The operating hours of NEFT is from 8am to 7pm.
  • The move comes on the heels of the RBI-appointed Nandan Nilekani-led committee report for deepening digital payments, which earlier  recommended that banks incentivise digitisation of payments by not charging their customers and small merchants on digital transactions.
  • The high-level committee report had stated that the volume of NEFT transactions has steadily grown at a CAGR of 26% over the past four years.
  • However, the number of transactions is small, though the size of transactions is large.
  • The average size of an NEFT transaction over the past five years has varied between Rs 60,000 and Rs 1 lakh.
  • Among banks, SBI had recorded the highest number of online transactions — both NEFT and RTGS.
View Month Wise

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

Most Detailed Simulation of Black Hole

  •  The scientists unveiled the most detailed simulation of a black hole yet, solving a mystery dating back more than four decades over how the star-devouring monsters consume matter.
  • Coming fresh on the heels of the first ever photo of one of the giant objects, which are scattered across the universe, astrophysicists are new several steps closer to understanding how they form and develop.
  • A black hole is born when a large star collapses in on itself. Far from being a "hole", they are instead incredibly dense objects with a gravitational pull so strong that nothing, not even light, may escape them.
  • As they suck in matter, they form an accretion disk — a churning mass of superaccelerated particles that are the brightest objects in the Universe — around them.
  • It is the accretion disk that can be seen as a blurry halo around the image of the black hole released in April from the Event Horizon Telescope. But accretion disks are nearly always tilted at an angle to the orientation of the black hole, known as its equatorial plane.
  • But no model could ever work out how, precisely, that would happen. Until now.
  • A team of astrophysicists from Northwestern University, Oxford University, and the University of Amsterdam, used graphical processing units to crunch large sets of data and simulate how black holes interact with their accretion disks.

World's First Robot Artist

  •  Ai-Da is the brainchild of Aidan Meller, who claims she is the world's first ultra-realistic humanoid artist, able to draw creatively thanks to in-built artificial intelligence (AI) technology.
  • The 46-year-old art dealer unveiled Ai-Da — dressed in a brown wig and period-style painter's blouse — in Oxford, ahead of an exhibition of her first works opening next week in the English university city.
  • Ai-Da can currently only hold certain hard tools like pencils, not brushes.
  • Meller, also an art gallery director, first dreamed up Ai-Da — named after Ada Lovelace, the English mathematician and writer often called the world's first computer coder — eight years ago. But he only began seriously working on the project in 2017.
  • Reasoning that the coming age of AI was today's equivalent, Meller set about creating a robotic artist to fuse his ideas into one artistic endeavour. With the help of British robotics company Engineered Arts, and researchers at both Leeds and Oxford universities, Ai-Da was finally completed in April.
  • Meller was eager for her to adopt a female persona because he argued art and coding worlds need more women represented. 
View Month Wise

SPORTS

ICC World Cup 2019

  •  Australia pulled off a 15-run victory against West Indies in a tense match.
  • Mitchell Starc took 5 wickets in a great show of bowling as defending champs Australia was held victorious.

India Plans to Help Maldives Improve Cricketing Standards

  •  India plans to go the whole nine yards to develop Cricket in the Maldives.
  • It will help the island nation bring its national cricket team to international standards, build a stadium there and also train umpires and scorekeepers.
  • This is in response to a recent request by the President of the Maldives, Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, who is a cricket buff.
  • India has already supplied cricket kits to the island nation.
  • The Maldives became a member of the Asian Cricket Council in 1996 and followed it up with affiliate membership of the International Cricket Council two years later.

Dhoni's Tribute to Army takes a Hit

  •  Mahendra Singh Dhoni sporting an Army insignia on his glove during the India South Africa clash was well appreciated by his fans but the ICC requested the BCCI to have the badge removed, saying it is against its regulations.
View Month Wise

NATIONAL AFFAIRS

Tamil Nadu Allows Shops, Malls to Function Round-the-Clock

  •  The Tamil Nadu government has passed an order allowing all commercial establishments such as shops and malls to function 24 hours a day.
  • The decision to allow commercial establishments to remain open round-the-clock was taken to boost employment levels and increase revenues.
  • The order, however, listed a set of rules that all commercial establishments should follow.
  • "No employee should be forced to work more than eight hours per day. The shops and establishments should give one holiday in a week to their employees"
  • "No woman employee should be forced to work in the night hours unless they are submitting a written letter accepting the night shift."
  • "It is essential for [that] the business establishments should constitute an internal sexual harassment prevention committee to protect the women employees."
  • "Transportation facilities should also be made for the women employees."
  • Presently, commercial establishments in the state are allowed to remain open till 10pm.

Reconstitution of NITI Ayog

  •  Prime Minister Narendra Modi has approved the reconstitution of the policy think tank of the government, NITI Aayog, ahead of its first meeting in the National Democratic Alliance's second term on June 15.
  • In a statement issued by the cabinet secretariat, Rajiv Kumar continues as vice chairman in the reconstituted body, and VK Saraswat, Ramesh Chand and VK Paul as full-time members.
  • The name of economist, Bibek Debroy, was dropped in the statement.
  • Mr Bibek Debroy will continue to work in his capacity as chairman of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EAC-PM).
  • Modi had revived the EAC-PM in September 2017 with Debroy as the chairman.
  • Debroy was also chairman of the high-powered committee set up by the railway ministry in 2014 to restructure the Indian Railways and was instrumental in proposing radical reforms.
  • The names of ex-officio members in the reconstituted Niti Aayog were also changed on the Niti Aayog website.
  • PM Modi, who is also the chairperson of the policy think tank, appointed home minister Amit Shah, defence minister Rajnath Singh, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman and agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar as ex-officio members.
  • The prime minister also appointed road transport minister Nitin Gadkari, commerce & industry and railway minister Piyush Goyal, social justice minister Thawar Chand Gehlot and statistics & programme implementation minister Rao Inderjit Singh as special invitees to the panel, as per the earlier statement.
  • Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant, who was given an extension till June 30, 2019, will continue in his role till the end of his tenure.
  • Kant is a 1980-batch IAS officer of the Kerala cadre. He was appointed CEO of the policy think tank on February 17, 2016, for a two-year term.

12 Telangana MLAs join TRS

  •  In a huge setback to the Congress, which thought it was on the comeback trail in Telangana after winning three of the 17 Lok Sabha seats in the state, 12 of its MLAs were recognised as members of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) by speaker Pocharam Srinivas Reddy , after they met him and submitted a letter seeking merger of their group with the ruling party.
  • This leaves the Congress with just six MLAs in the 119-member House.
  • The Congress is set to lose the status of the second largest party in the assembly as that honour will now go to the seven-member AIMIM.
  • TRS numbers have now gone up from 90 to 102 in the assembly.
View Month Wise

DEFENCE

India Inks Deal to buy 'Balakot' Bombs

  •  The Indian Air Force struck a Rs. 300 crore deal with Israel to purchase around 100 Spice- 2000 bombs, the weapon used during the February 26 air strikes in Pakistan's Balakot.
  • This is the first military contract to be inked by the new government. 
View Month Wise

PERSONS IN NEWS

Azim Premji to Retire

  •  India's second richest man, Azim Premji, announced his retirement as chairman of Wipro, the company that he transformed from a small cooking fat firm into a global information technology (IT) powerhouse. 
  • Premji will step down as executive chairman on July 30, to be replaced by his son Rishad Premji, but will remain on the board as non-executive director and founder chairman.
  • The company named CEO Abidali Z Neemuchwala as its new MD. 

Navjot Sidhu Loses Key Portfolio

  •  Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh carried out a major reshuffle of portfolios for most ministers including Navjot Singh Sidhu.
  • The change, which cost Sidhu the Local Bodies, Tourism and Culture ministries, had been in the works for some time. Sidhu has been assigned the power ministry.
  •  Sidhu has been at loggerheads with the chief minister ever since his wife Navjot Kaur was denied a ticket for the April-May Lok Sabha elections.

May set to Resign as British PM

  •  Theresa May conducted her final public tour as British PM with a visit to Normandy in France to mark the 75th anniversary of the World War 2- D Day landings.May will formally step down as Prime Minister on 7 June 2019, having set the timetable for her Downing street exit in May 2019.
  • It will then trigger the official phase of the Conservative Party Leadership contest, so far with 11 MPs in the running to succeed her. Former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson remains the front-runner.
View Month Wise

GOVERNMENT POLICIES AND SCHEMES

Revamping Cabinet Committees

  •  PM Narendra Modi has revamped the various Cabinet committees that are key to the government's decision-making process, making adjustments for newly inducted ministers and new portfolios handed out to members of his previous Cabinet.
  • In a continuation of the Modi government's policy, home minister Amit Shah is part of all the committees.
  • The Prime Minister himself is a member of six as is defence minister Rajnath Singh.
  • Singh was named as a member of two, albeit crucial committees - the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) and the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA). Later, he was added as a member to four more committees, the Cabinet Committee on Parliamentary Affairs (CCPA), the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs, the Cabinet Committee on Investment & Growth, and the Cabinet Committee on Employment and Skill Development.
  • PM Modi is on all panels except the accommodations and parliamentary affairs committees, finance minister Niramala Sitharaman on seven (all except the appointments committee) and commerce and railways minister Piyush Goyal on five (all except the appointments, parliamentary affairs and security committees). New external affairs minister S Jaishankar is a part of the CCS and CCEA.
  • The committees also have several other special invitees from the Cabinet, apart from senior bureaucrats.

Jagan Reddy scraps Chandrababu Naidu's farmer scheme

  •  Andhra Pradesh chief minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy announced the scrapping of Annadata Sukhibhava, a crop investment support scheme introduced by the previous Telugu Desam Party (TDP) government headed by N Chandrababu Naidu in March.
  • Reddy said the scheme would be remodelled and rechristened as "YSR Rythu Bharosa", under which each farmer would be given crop investment assistance of Rs 50,000 per year in four instalments of Rs 12,500 each.
  • He announced that the Rythu Bharosa scheme would be launched on October 15 with revised guidelines by remitting Rs 12,500 into the account of each farmer to enable them to purchase crop inputs like fertilisers, pesticides and seeds during every cropping season.
  • Under the "Annadata Sukhibhava" scheme introduced by the TDP government, each farmer was promised Rs 10,000 per acre every year. Even before the first instalment was credited into farmers' accounts, elections were announced in the state.
View Month Wise

GENDER/ HEALTH/ EDUCATION

Minister-led IIT Body May Meet more Often

  •  The human resource development (HRD) ministry is planning to suggest a tweak in the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Act so that the IIT Council can meet more frequently to ensure greater coordination between the premier institutions and the government. 
  • The IIT Council, which meets once a year, is headed by the Union HRD minister and includes the chairmen and directors of IITs as well as top officials of regulators such as the University Grants Commission (UGC) and the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE).
  • According to an HRD ministry official, it was suggested that the council should meet at least twice a year. This will provide for greater coordination, speedier resolution of pending issues, and also a better chance to share the best practices among these premier institutions which are at the forefront of research and innovation.
  • Apart from top government functionaries and IIT and regulatory officials, the IIT Act also provides for nomination of three members of Parliament to the IIT Council. According to the act, the council coordinates the activities of all the institutions.
  • The council is further mandated to advise on matters relating to the duration of the courses, degrees and other academic distinctions to be conferred by the 23 IITs, admission standards, and other academic matters.
  • It is also expected to lay down policy regarding cadres, methods of recruitment, and conditions of service of employees, institution of scholarships and free ships, levying of fees, matters of common interest, and to examine the development plans of each institute.

DU Colleges Set to Hike Fees

  •  Many Delhi University (DU) colleges are set to revise their fee structure for undergraduate courses from this year citing "insufficient funds".
  • While some colleges have already conducted their staff council meetings to discuss the issue, many have constituted committees for the revision.
  • According to the University Grants Commission (UGC) draft notification 2017, the central universities/colleges were asked to follow 70:30 funding formula, of which, 30% was the internal revenues of universities/colleges.

11-Year Old Tops Mensa

  •  An 11-year-old Indianorigin girl in London whose parents hail from Mumbai has achieved the top possible score in a Mensa IQ test.
  • Jiya Vaducha sat the Mensa supervised test alongside adults at Birbeck, University of London, on 16 May and got 162, the top mark.
  • She now can join Mensa, the global high IQ society.
  • The Mensa test is split into two papers which test different types of IQ. Cattell III B includes verbal reasoning, while Culture Fair is diagrams and images. A score within the top two per cent on either is required for Mensa membership.
  • Jiya got a score of 162 in the Cattell III B Scale, putting her in the top one per cent in Britain, and in the Culture Fair Scale she came in the top three per cent with a score of 131.
  • 162 on the Cattell III B test is the highest score a child can achieve -- it is 161 for adults. Jiya's score puts her in the top one per cent of the population.
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