Daily Current affairs - June 20th, 2017 for all competitive exams
World Refugee Day is observed every year by the people on 20th of June in order to raise the public
awareness about refugee’s situations throughout the world.
- The World Refugee Day celebration of 2001 has marked
as the 50th anniversary of 1951 Convention Refugees status by the United
Nations General Assembly.
- It has been started celebrating in several countries all around the world from 2000. It is celebrated on different dates and weeks in many countries.
BJP’s Presidential candidate
announced
BJP president Amit Shah
declared Bihar Governor Ram Nath Kovind, as the party’s candidate for the
presidential polls, taking the Opposition by surprise. Mr. Kovind would also be
the joint candidate of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), headed by the
BJP.
- The decision was taken at the party’s parliamentary
board, presided over by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and attended by Mr.
Shah and senior Ministers of the Union government.
- Mr. Kovind, set to be India’s second Dalit President (after K.R.Narayanan in 1977), was born in a village in Kanpur in 1945, in the Koli (weaver community). His advocacy of the rights of this community, as the chief of the All India Koli Samaj, is well known.
National Mission on Cultural Mapping of India
The implementation of the ‘‘National Mission on Cultural Mapping of India’ was recently launched at
Goverdhan Block, Mathura District, Uttar Pradesh. This Mission is
part of the ‘Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat’umbrella.
- Ministry of Culture launched it in the year of
commemoration of the birth centenary of Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyay, who hailed from Mathura.
- The mission aims at converting the vast and
widespread cultural canvas of India into an objective cultural map, designing a mechanism to fulfil the aspirations of the
whole artist community of the nation and preserving the rich cultural
heritage of this country in the form of a cultural repository of artists
and art forms.
Final raising of Sardar Sarovar Dam cleared by Narmada
Control Authority
Narmada Control Authority (NCA) has cleared the final
raising of Sardar Sarovar Dam (SSD) in Gujarat by lowering of gates and
impounding of water in the reservoir upto its Full Reservoir Level (FRL) of EL
138.68 mts.
- With lowering of gates of SSD, the live storage
capacity would increase from 1565 to 5740 MCM i.e. by 4175 MCM (267%).
- The clean (hydro-power generation) would increase by present 1300 MW to 1450 MW with increase in annual generation by about 1100 Million Units (i.e. about Rs.400/- crore per annum).
8,387 children attempt longest
yoga chain with an eye on Guinness record
Mysuru is hopeful of etching its name in the record books as 8,387
schoolchildren formed the “longest yoga chain” in front of the iconic Mysuru
palace for the Guinness World Records.
- Mysuru has broken the previous record for the
longest yoga chain achieved at Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu on November 14,
2014, 3,849 students had created the yoga chain performing
three asanas .
Burrowing frogs add to
diversity of Western Ghats
Opening another window into
the fascinating world of amphibian diversity in the Western Ghats, a research
student at the Delhi University has reported the discovery of four new species
of burrowing frogs.
- The finding, published in the international
journal Zootaxa , is the result of five years of extensive
explorations in the Western Ghats forests. The four new species belong to
the genus Fejervarya , but unlike other members of the family,
they possess the ability to burrow.
India, Afghanistan open air
freight route
India and Afghanistan inaugurated a dedicated air freight corridor service
on June 19. The corridor which passes through the airspace of Pakistan was
launched with a cargo aircraft flight flagged off by Afghanistan President Dr.
Ashraf Ghani.
- The dedicated air corridor was planned during the meeting of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Ghani in Kabul in September 2016.
CIC says BCCI should come under the RTI Act
In its latest order, the Central Information Commission (CIC) has urged the
Committee of Administrators (CoA) running the Board of Control for Cricket in
India (BCCI) to bring the organisation under the RTI Act. Previously, the CIC
had elaborately explained the need for making BCCI a public authority.
- BCCI is a National Sports Federation for cricket,
which received thousands of crores towards tax concessions.
- The government had declared all the National Sports Federations (NSF)s receiving a grant of Rs. 10 lakh or more as a Public Authority under Section 2(h) of the RTI, 2005. Thus, it has to come under the RTI in order to remain accountable to the public.
National Council of Senior Citizens (NCSrC):
Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment chaired the recently held
‘Second Meeting of National Council of Senior Citizens (NCSrC)’ organized by
the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment.
- In pursuance of the National Policy for Older Persons (NPOP), a National Council for Older Persons (NCOP) was constituted in 1999 under the Chairpersonship of the Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment to oversee implementation of the Policy.
Environmental Impact Survey:
India has been placed at a lowly 75th rank in the environmental impact
survey.
The study by UK-based
MoneySuperMarket highlights the individual contribution to the world’s climate
while also highlighting areas for improvement for each country.
- Mozambique, the southern African country rated as one of the poorest, has topped. Mozambique topped the list because almost all its energy use comes from green sources.
Shashi Shanker to be next ONGC
chief
Shashi Shanker will be the
next chairman and managing director of India’s biggest oil and gas producer,
ONGC.
- Government headhunter, Public Enterprise Selection
Board (PESB), selected Mr. Shanker to head Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC)
from October 1.
- Mr. Shanker is currently director (technical and field services), ONGC. He will replace Dinesh K. Sarraf, who retires on September 30 upon attaining superannuation.
Ramakrishna Mission president
passes away
Swami Atmasthanandaji, president of the Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna
Mission, passed away.
- Born in May 1919 at Sabajpur near Dhaka, he received “mantra diksha” (spiritual initiation) in 1938 and joined the Ramakrishna Order at Belur Math in Howrah district on January 3,1941, when he was 22 years old.
