Current Affairs Daily Updates: 5th May 2017

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Current Affairs Daily Updates: 5th May 2017
APPOINTMENTS
Prabhat Kamal Bezboruah appointed as Chairman of Tea Board of India
  • ‘Prabhat Kamal Bezboruah’ has been appointed as the Chairman of the Tea Board of India (till November 2018).
  • With this, he has become the first non-IAS and the first industry insider to head Tea Board.
  • Renowned coffee grower ‘M S Boje Gowda’ has been appointed as Chairman of the Coffee Board of India (till December 2018).
  • Recently, the union govt. has notified that all agricultural boards under the Ministry of Commerce will be headed by a non-IAS and industry person while the Vice-Chairman will be an IAS and have the executive authority.
Anil Kumar Singhal Appointed As EO For TTD
  • The Northern IAS officer Anil Kumar Singhal has been appointed to the post of Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam (TTD) Executive Officer (EO) Presently he was the resident commissioner of AP Bhavan, at New Delhi.
  • He was 1993 batch IAS Officer. The Govt has issued the orders to Singhal. In 2002 he was worked as Chittoor District Joint collector and then he also worked in 2004 as Medak District Collector.
AWARDS AND HONOURS
Boxing Federation of India recommends women’s trio for Arjuna award
  • The Boxing Federation of India (BFI) recommended the women's trio of World championship silver - medalists for 2017 Arjuna Awards.
  • The trio includes Saweety Boora(81kg), Sonia Lather(57kg) and Sarjubala Devi (51kg)
  • Both Saweety and Sonia are silver-medallists at the Asian Championships.
BUSINESS AND ECONOMIC AFFAIRS
Quikr acquires home services start-up 'Zimmber'
  • Online classifieds company 'Quikr' has announced the acquisition of on-demand household services provider ‘Zimmber’.
  • 'Zimmber' will benefit from synergies with QuikrServices and other Quikr verticals.
  • Household services is an exciting category which is seeing increasing adoption among urban consumers.
Facebook Launches Express Wi-Fi in India
  • Facebook  launched its “Express Wi-Fi” commercially in India.
  • Express Wi-Fi is one of facebook projects to help more people get online. Anyone can run an Express Wi-Fi hotspot, which means entrepreneurs across the country can offer their communities faster and more affordable internet.
  • The service is now available via 700 hotspots across four states of Uttarakhand, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Meghalaya.
  • For the expansion of service, Facebook has announced a partnership with Bharti Airtel for setting up an additional 20,000 hotspots covering millions of Indians over the next few months.
  • Apart from India, “Express Wi-Fi” services are currently active in Indonesia, Kenya, Nigeria, and Tanzania.
INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
Russia, Turkey and Iran Sign Deal on Safe Zones in Syria
  • Russia and Iran which are allies of the Syrian regime as well as the rebel supporter Turkey signed a Russia-backed plan for creating safe zones in Syria. The pact which was signed in the Kazakh capital Astana was meant to halt fighting in the war-torn Syria.
  • However, the Syrian government and rebel delegations were not signatories to the agreement. Russia-backed plan to create safe zones in Syria is targeted at further pacification and cessation of hostilities and a halt in fighting in the zones.
  • As per the plan, the zones were set to remain in place for six months. The time period could eventually be extended. The zones would cover the whole of Idlib province, portions of the Latakia, Aleppo, Hama and Homs provinces, parts of the Deraa and Quneitra provinces, as well as the Ghouta suburb of Damascus.
  • As per the memorandum, there will be a halt in the usage of all categories of arms among belligerents, including aerial weapons.
  • The major objective of the memorandum is to halt the violence and facilitate conditions for the safe, voluntary return of refugees as well as to provide rapid and uninterrupted delivery of relief supplies and medical aid.
  • However, the ways to monitor and police the safe zones are not clearly spelt out. Russia has stated that ways to monitor the zones would be an issue for separate talks.
A Trump's Obamacare replacement bill passed by US House
  • In USA, lawmakers vote to repel and replace Obamacare which makes quality health insurance more affordable and available to the Americans.
  • The Republican bill is known as the American Health Care Act.It would repeal most obamacare taxes,including a penalty for not buying health insurance.
  • The bill would slash funding for medicaid, a program that provides insurance for the poor.
NATIONAL AFFAIRS
NGT announces Rs. 1 lakh fine for dumping e-waste around Ramganga
  • The National Green Tribunal (NGT) announced anyone found dumping electronic waste(e -waste) on the banks of river Ramganga in Moradabad in Uttar Pradesh have to pay Rs one lakh as environment compensation.
  • This decision was taken by the bench headed by Justice Swatanter Kumar.
  • River Ramganga is a tributary of the Ganga.
  • According to reports, India is the fifth-largest producer of e-waste, discarding roughly 18.5 lakh metric tonnes of electronic waste annually.
Power minister announces 1,000 Megawatt wind energy auction scheme
  • The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy Piyush Goyal announced the launch of second round of wind energy auction for 1,000 MW.
  • The announcement was done concurrently with the signing of Memoranda of Agreement (MoA) between the public sector Power Trading Corporation and the electricity distribution companies (discoms) of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Delhi, Assam and Odisha.
  • According to the Memorandum of Agreement, the distribution utilities of Uttar Pradesh will buy 449.9 MW electricity, Bihar 200 MW, Jharkhand 200 MW, Delhi 100 MW, Assam 50 MW and Odisha will buy 50 MW of wind power for meeting their non-solar renewable purchase obligation(RPO).
  • All these companies will sell power to Power Trading companies at a rate of 3.46 a Kilo Watt hour.
World class Weapons-producing unit inaugurated in MadhyaPradesh
  • Madhya Pradesh, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Union Rural Development Minister Narendra Singh Tomar inaugurated the world level weapon production unit “Punj Lyod Defence System” in Malanpur Industrial Area of Bhind district.
  • It is India's first private sector small arms manufacturing plant.
  • The plant will manufacture four products, namely, X95 carbine and assault rifle, Galil sniper rifle, Tavor assault rifle and Negev Light Machine Gun (LMG).
  • It has been set up in joint partnership of Punj Lyod Raksha Systems and Israel Weapon Industry under the Make in India Programme.
Govt unveils no-fly list and rules to handle unruly air passengers
  • The Ministry of Civil Aviation has released draft rules for a “national no-fly list” of unruly passengers for all domestic carriers. 
  • Government has come up with this initiative in  Govt unveils no-fly list and rules to handle unruly air passengers wake of a recent incident in which Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad, repeatedly hit Air India staff with a slipper as he was not allotted a business class seat on an all economy flight. This incident took place at New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport in March 2017.
  • This draft is an amendment to the existing Civil Aviation Requirement (CAR), a set of rules on unruly and disruptive passengers.
  • The ‘National No-Fly List will comprise passengers who have been identified as unruly after an inquiry by a committee formed by that particular airline.
Cabinet approves New Central Sector Scheme – SAMPADA
  • The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, chaired by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has given its approval for restructuring the schemes of the Ministry of Food Processing Industries (MoFPI) under new Central Sector Scheme – SAMPADA (Scheme for Agro-Marine Processing and Development of Agro-Processing Clusters) for the period 2016-20 coterminous with the 14th Finance Commission cycle.
  • SAMPADA with an allocation of Rs. 6,000 crore is expected to leverage the investment of Rs. 31,400 crore will benefit 20 lakh farmers and generate 5,30,500 direct/ indirect employment in the country by the year 2019-20.
  • The objective of SAMPADA is to supplement agriculture, modernize processing and decrease agri-waste.
Centre sanctions Rs 200 crore for Jammu and Kashmir primary teachers
  • For paying pending salaries of primary teachers in Jammu and Kashmir Union Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar has sanctioned Rs 200 crore.
  • Prakash Javadekar has sanctioned Rs 25 crore and Rs 52 crore for two engineering colleges in the state.
  • Scholarships will be available to polytechnic students.
  • These engineering colleges will be at Sapakora in the Kashmir valley and at Kathua in Jammu.
  • Construction of the buildings will be completed in two years.
  • The recurring grant of Rs 34 crore to secondary education will also be sanctioned.
  • Seven hostels cost Rs 50 crore for girl students at Bemina, Paloda, Thatri, Rajouri, Kupwada, Pulwama and Kargil.
Police public schools will be set up in Haryana
  • The Haryana Government will set up police public schools in all subdivisions to provide best education facillities to the children of police personnel in the state by the end of April 2018.
  • 1,560 houses for police personnel are being built by the Haryana Police Housing Corporation in the first phase.Construction of 1,500 more houses will be undertaken in the second phase.
  • Apart from new police stations, the building for the National Institute of Fashion Technology in Panchkula will be constructed by the corporation at a cost of Rs 100 crore.
  • The police Housing Corporation has already constructed 10 such police schools in the state.
IBBI constitutes Technical Committee to lay down Technical Standards for the performance of core services
  • The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI) has constituted Technical Committee to lay down Technical Standards for the performance of core services and other services in accordance with Regulation 14 of the IBBI (Information Utilities) Regulations, 2017.
  • The committee will be Chaired by Dr. R. B. Barman and the three members of the committee are Dr. Nand Lal Sarda, Dr.  Pulak Ghosh and Sh. V. G. Kannan.
  • The Committee shall give its recommendation specifically on the matters namely- the Application Programming Interface; standard terms of service; registration of users; unique identifier for each record and each user.
International Permaculture conference to be held in Hyderabad
  • The 13th International Permaculture Convergence (IPC) experts will be held on November 27 to December 2, 2017 in Hyderabad
  • The theme of IPC is ‘Towards healthy societies’.
  • It is being organized by Hyderabad-based environmental and developmental NGO Aranya Agricultural Alternatives.
  • The IPC team will host a crowd funding activity on milaap.org from May 3 till July 1, 2017.
  • Meeting of IPC will be attended by 1200 delegates.
  • The objective of IPC 2017 is to provide Indian farmers an opportunity and to learn how their current challenges can be solved using permaculture principles.
  • These events will serve a platform to discuss strategy, education standard, research, and regional and global permaculture developments.
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY / DEFENCE AFFAIRS
'South Asia Satellite' launched today- Important Points to Ponder
  • India has launched the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV-F09) carrying the GSAT-9 or the “South Asia” satellite.
  • The satellite was lifted off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh.
  • Nepal, Bhutan, Afghanistan, Maldives, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka agreed but Pakistan is not a part of the project that was initially christened the SAARC satellite.
  • Important Points of the Satellite-
    • The lift-off mass of GSLV-F09 is about 2,230 kg which includes the satellite and its launch vehicle.
    • The mainframe of the satellite is cuboid in shape, built around a central cylinder.
    • The mission lifespan is 12 years.
    • The satellite is meant for providing communication and disaster support and connectivities among the countries of South Asia region
    • All participating nations will have access to at least one transponder using which they can telecast their own programming.
    • Nepal, Bhutan, Afghanistan, Maldives, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are the part of project
    • The satellite will provide communication channels between countries for better disaster management as the region is prone to natural disasters.
SPORTS AFFAIRS
Shapath Bharadwaj reaches first World Cup Final in Men's Double Trap
  • Indian Shooter Shapath Bharadwaj reached his first ever International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Cup stage Final.
  • Shapath was one of the four shooters to finish with a score of 135.
  • His team mates Sangram Dahiya and Ankur Mittal finished17th and 19th shoots respectively with identical scores of 127.