Current affairs- July 24, 2016
India home to 12% of world’s
bird species
A group of
ornithologists have come up with the first definitive checklist of Indian
birds, putting the number of species across the country at 1,263. With that
figure, India accounts for 12 per cent of the total number of bird species in
the world, amounting to 10,135.
- “A Checklist of the birds of India”, authored by Praveen J, Rajah Jayapal and
Aasheesh Pittie and published this month by the journal Indian
BIRDS.
S H Raza Passed away:
Modern
Indian artist Syed Haider Raza, touted as one of Indian modern art's greatest
painter, passed away.
Awards:
- Padma Shri in 1981,
- Padma Bhushan in 2007
- Padma Vibhushan in 2013.
- He was also conferred with the highest French civilian honour, the Commandeur de la Legion d'honneur (Legion of Honour) in 2015.
NGOs have to register
with NITI Aayog for grants
Stepping up its scrutiny of NGOs, especially their financial dealings, the Centre has made obtaining unique
identification numbers and registering them on the NITI Aayog portal, including
the details of the Aadhaar and PAN numbers of all their trustees and office-
bearers, mandatory for them to apply for grants from any ministry.
R.K. Narayan
memorial and museum:
Resurrected
from the ruins and reconstructed and restored to reflect the original
structure, the house of author R.K. Narayan in Mysuru has been converted into a
memorial and museum complete with display of his memorabilia and personal
belongings.
- The
structure houses the writer’s memorabilia complete with various awards,
citations, university doctorates, besides his personal belongings, like
his collection of books, coats, watch and spectacles.
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan decided to constitute a
permanent committee, headed by Advocate General C.P. Sudhakara Prasad, to
resolve disputes arising in future between lawyers and media persons in the
State.
- The committee
would have three representatives each from the Kerala Union of Working
Journalists (KUWJ) and the Kerala High Court Advocates’ Association,
besides a member from the Bar Council of Kerala.
- If the committee
wanted to discus any issues involving the police, the State Police Chief
could be called to the meeting.
- The committee
would discuss and find a solution to the issues even before they led to
protests and agitations.
MyGov platform — a social network built around governance
issues.
The platform, launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in July
2014, functions under the aegis of the Union Communications and Information
Technology Ministry.
Review:
At present, MyGov has around 35 lakh registered users. In the two
years of its existence, there have been 582 discussions posts on the platform,
garnering around 34 lakh comments.
Of the 582 posts on the MyGov website, 32 posts account for 72 per
cent of all comments on the platform. Half the posts got fewer than 500
comments. In fact, 30 per cent of the posts have fewer than 100.
ISRO’s experiment on supersonic combustion
ramjet (scramjet) engine for demonstrating air-breathing propulsion technology
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is looking forward
to performing “an experiment” before July-end aboard its RH-560 rocket fitted
with a supersonic combustion ramjet (scramjet) engine for demonstrating
air-breathing propulsion technology.
About:
- At three tonnes,
the two-stage RH-560, christened Advanced Technology Vehicle (ATV), is the
heaviest sounding rocket built by the ISRO.
- It will lift off
from a launch pad built for sounding rockets at Sriharikota.
Benefits:
- If the
experiment is successful, it will be a stepping stone for the ISRO to
achieve low-cost access to space.
- It means
reducing the cost per kg of payload when a launch vehicle is used to put a
satellite into orbit.
- The cost now is
in the range of $15,000-$25,000 for a kg of a satellite.
India and the U.S. will jointly train troops from African
countries in the entire gamut of the United Nations Peace Keeping (UNPK)
operations, in yet another joint effort as part of the growing bilateral
relations.
About the Project:
- The three-week
programme will be undertaken from July 25 to August 12 in New Delhi. It
will be jointly undertaken by India’s Centre for United Nations Peace
Keeping (CUNPK) and the Global Peace Operations Initiative of the US.
- It is a pilot
project between India, the U.S. and Africa. It is a three dimensional one
concerning India’s long standing ties with Africa, growing India-U.S.
cooperation and India’s commitment to peacekeeping.
Brazilian scientists have
identified another type of Zika-transmitting mosquito.
The public Brazilian
laboratory “Fundacion Oswaldo Cruz (Fiocruz)” announced that researchers
found the presence of the Culex quinquefasciatus (Common
House Mosquito) infected by the Zika virus in three out of 80 groups of
mosquitoes analysed up until now.
