Current Affairs Daily Updates: 1st July 2017

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Current Affairs Daily Updates: 1st July 2017
APPOINTMENTS
SN Subrahmanyan takes charge as L&T CEO & MD
  • SN Subrahmanyan will take charge as the CEO and Managing Director of Larsen & Toubro from July 1, which will also mark the end of nearly two-decade-long tenure of A M Naik at the helm.
  • The appointment was approved by the company board on April 7 and marks a major change in leadership positions at L&T where Naik has served for over 52 years, including as its head for over 17 years.
  • Subrahmanyan is currently the Deputy Managing Director and President of the company.
KK Venugopal appointed as Attorney General of India
  • President Pranab Mukherjee appointed senior advocate and constitutional expert K K Venugopal (86) as the new Attorney General of India.
  • He succeeds Mukul Rohatgi as the country’s top law officer.
  • Attorney General for India is the Indian government’s chief legal advisor and its primary lawyer in the Supreme Court of India.
R K Pachnanda takes charge as Director General of ITBP
  • R K Pachnanda takes charge as Director General of Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP).
  • He is the 29th Chief of the ITBP.
  • He also served in all the major central paramilitary forces and agencies namely CRPF, CISF, BSF, NDRF, SPG, CBI and now the ITBP.
AWARDS AND HONOURS
Union Health Ministry mobile app EVIN wins GSMA Asia Mobile Award
  • Union Health Ministry’s mobile app Electronic Vaccine Intelligence Network (EVIN) wins GSMA Asia Mobile Award recently.
  • The Electronic Vaccine Intelligence Network (EVIN) is an online real-time vaccine logistics management system developed and implemented by the Ministry of Health and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
  • It has recognised the contributions of several transformative mobile innovations making a mark in the Asian region.
Ankit Kawatra won Queen’s Young Leaders Award for 2017
  • Anti-hunger activist Ankit Kawatra has been awarded theQueen’s Young Leaders Award for 2017 by Queen Elizabeth II at a ceremony in the Buckingham Palace.
  • The award recognises exceptional work towards solving hunger and malnutrition in India.
  • Ankit Kawatra is the founder of Feeding India, an organisation which works towards eradicating hunger and food wastage in India. The organisation which was established in 2014 functions across 43 Indian cities with the help of 4,500 volunteers serving 8 million meals to the needy.
BUSINESS AND ECONOMIC AFFAIRS
Reliance Jio launches AAE-1, world's longest 100Gbps submarine cable system
  • Reliance Jio has launched the Asia-Africa-Europe (AAE-1) submarine cable system.
  • The company claims that it is the world's longest 100Gbps technology-based submarine system and will stretch for over 25,000km from Marseille, France to Hong Kong.
  • It will have 21 cable landings across Asia and Europe.
  • The project is a combination of leading telecom service providers from Europe, the Middle East and Asia. It will feature diversified Points of Presence (PoP) in Asia (Hong Kong and Singapore), with three onward connectivity options in Europe (France, Italy and Greece)
  • AAE-1 will pass through critical hubs, serving the demand for video centric data bandwidth that supports all types of communications, applications and content within India and beyond.
  • Jio says that the system will link seamlessly with other cable systems and fibre networks to deliver direct access to all global markets.
Union Government lowers interest rate by 0.1 % on small saving schemes for July-Sep quarter
  • Union Government has lowered interest rate on small saving schemes by 0.1 percent for the July- September quarter.
  • The rates of small saving schemes like PPF, Kisan Vikas Patra and Sukanya Samriddhi have been lowered across the board compared to the April-June quarter.
  • The investment on 5-year Senior Citizens Savings Scheme will yield 8.3 per cent.
IMPORTANT DAYS OBSERVED
National Doctors Day: 1 July 2017
  • National Doctors day in India is a big awareness campaign offering great opportunities to all to get aware about the roles, importance and responsibilities of the doctors as well as promote medical professionals to come closer and follow the responsibilities of their profession very dedicatedly.
  • This day is celebrated in the memory of Dr Bidhan Chandra Roy in order to pay honour to the entire medical profession.
  • Doctor’s Day in India was established by the Government of India in 1991 to be recognised and celebrated every year on 1st of July as National Doctors day.
  • It is celebrated on 1st of July on the birth and death anniversary of the most famous physician of India Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy
International Day of Cooperatives 2017 is observed on July 1
  • The International Day of Cooperatives is observed on July 1 across the world.
  • The theme for the 2017 International Day of Cooperatives is ‘Co-operatives ensure no one is left behind’.
  • Cooperative enterprises are based on ethics, values, and a set of seven fundamental principles that keep people, rather than profit, at the centre of their businesses.
  • It is a self-help tool for people to create their own economic opportunities through the power of the collective and pull themselves out of poverty.
INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
China Is Building The World's 1st Vertical 'Forest City' To Help Clean Up Its Pollution Problem
  • After China’s Nanjing city became the first Asian city to be getting a vertical forest (by 2018), China is building a forest city – Liuzhou Forest City – which will boast urban settlements and vertical forests. And, this will help curb pollution by leaps and bounds.
  • Liuzhou Forest City will be built north of Liuzhou in the south and the mountainous province of Guangxi, an area of about 175 hectares along the Liujiang River.
  • The new city of 30,000 inhabitants will be able each year to absorb about 10,000 tons of CO2 and 57 tons of particulate matter and to produce about 900 tons of oxygen
NATIONAL AFFAIRS
Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurates Textiles India 2017
  • Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated Textiles India 2017.
  • India’s first ever mega textiles trade fair at Gandhinagar, Gujarat.
  • The three-day fair will showcase the nation as a global sourcing hub and investment destination for manufacturers worldwide.
  • It aims to explore opportunities and strengths of textiles and apparel manufacturing in India for global investors and forge collaboration with global players in the textiles segment.
Election Commission launches special drive to enroll left out voters
  • Election Commission (EC) launched the nationwide month-long special drive from 01st July 2017 for maximisation of registration of eligible electors with the focus on left out eligible young citizens in the age group of 18-19.
  • In the month of June, the election officials have completed preparatory work like identification of critical gaps in existing electoral rolls, strengthening of infrastructure and sensitization of ground level electoral machine.
  • The EC has also sent the communication to all recognised political parties seeking their cooperation for the success of the Special Drive.
President of India inaugurates an exhibition of art works at Academy of Fine Arts, Kolkata
  • The President of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee inaugurated an exhibition of artworks at Academy of Fine Arts, Kolkata.
  • He also received the first copies of two Coffee Table books‘Images and Impressions' Profile and Persona of Pranab Mukherjee’ and ‘Pranab Mukherjee 100 Frames’ from the Governor of West Bengal, Shri Keshari Nath Tripathi who formally released these books.
Union Government launches National Biopharma Mission
  • The Union Ministry of Science & Technology launchedNational Biopharma Mission, a first ever Industry-Academia mission to accelerate biopharmaceutical development in India.
  • Under this mission, the ministry also launched Innovate in India (i3) program to create an enabling ecosystem to promote entrepreneurship and indigenous manufacturing in the sector.
  • The i3 is a flagship program of the Government of India in collaboration with World Bank.
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY / DEFENCE AFFAIRS
NASA launches Rocket to produce Colourful Artificial Clouds
  • The National Aeronautics and Space Administration(NASA) successfully launched Terrier-Improved Malemute sounding rocket that created colourful artificial clouds visible in the skies of the United States Of America.
  • The rocket was launched from its Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.
  • The artificial clouds or vapour tracers will help in understanding the movement of the particles in the ionosphere. It will help to learn more about the movement of the air currents at that altitude.
SPORTS AFFAIRS
Van Niekerk breaks 300m World Record at Golden Spike Meet
  • Jaco Van Niekerk of South Africa Breaks 300m World Record at Golden Spike Meet recently.
  • He broke Michael Johnson’s previous world record in the300m of 30.85.
  • He was already the first ever sprinter to run sub-10 in the 100m, sub-20 in the 200m, and sub-44 in the 400m race.