Daily Current affairs - September 10th, 2017 for all competitive exams
World Suicide Prevention
Day is an awareness day observed on 10 September every year, in order to
provide worldwide commitment and action to prevent suicides, with various
activities around the world since 2003.
- The International Association for Suicide
Prevention (IASP), collaborates with the World Health
Organization (WHO) and the World Federation for Mental Health,
to host World Suicide Prevention Day.
- Theme: Take a Minute,
Change a Life
Recommendations made by the
GST Council in the 21st meeting at Hyderabad on 9th September, 2017
The
GST Council, in its 21st meeting held at Hyderabad on 9th September
2017, has recommended the following measures to facilitate taxpayers:
- In view of the difficulties being faced by taxpayers
in filing returns, revised schedule has been approved:
- The GST Council has decided to set up a committee
consisting of officers from both the Centre and the States under the
chairmanship of the Revenue Secretary to examine the issues related to
exports.
- The GST Council has also decided to constitute a
Group of Ministers to monitor and resolve the IT challenges faced during
GST implementation.
MoS DoNER Dr Jitendra Singh
inaugurates two-day “North East Calling” festival
The Union Minister of State
(Independent Charge) of the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region
(DoNER), MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions, Atomic Energy
and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh inaugurated the “North East Calling” festival.
- The “North East Calling” event is being organised by
the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), Government of
India under its ‘Destination North East’ series of this year. The purpose
of the event is to promote the art, culture, heritage, cuisine,
handicrafts, business and tourism of North East India.
West Bengal settles for Bangla
as new name
A year after the West Bengal
Assembly passed a resolution to change the name of the State, the government
was compelled to have one name for the State after the Centre rejected the
earlier proposal of having three names in three different languages.
- On August 29, 2016, the Assembly had passed a
resolution changing the name of West Bengal to Bengal in English, Bangla
in Bengali and Bangal in Hindi.
India’s first online
transgender channel launched
The Hyderabad-based
transwoman activist Rachana Mudraboyina has decided to launch the first
YouTube channel in India conceptualised and actualised by transgender
individuals.
- The channel, according to its makers, will provide
accurate and scientific socio-cultural, religious, economic and political
information relevant to them. Trans-vision will produce its web series in
three languages — Telugu, Kannada and Dakhni, an Urdu dialect spoken in
certain parts of the Deccan Plateau, including Hyderabad.
Government unveils rules to tackle on-board disruptive
and unruly behaviour by passengers
The Ministry of Civil Aviation has unveiled rules to tackle on-board
disruptive and unruly behaviour by passengers. The DGCA has revised the
relevant sections of the Civil Aviation Requirement to bring in a deterrent for
passengers who engage in unruly behaviour on board aircrafts. The revision has
been done in accordance with the provisions of Tokyo Convention 1963.
- The focus has been on ensuring on board safety while
maintaining an element of balance and safeguarding the interest of
passengers, cabin crew and the airlines.
- The new rules will allow for the formation of a
national, No Fly List of unruly passengers. The promulgation of the No –
Fly List in India is unique and first-of-its-kind in the world. The
concept of the No-Fly List is based on the concern for safety of passengers,
crew and the aircraft, and not just on security threat.
- The revised CAR defines three categories of unruly
behavior – Level 1 refers to behaviour that is verbally unruly, and calls
for debarment upto 3 months; Level 2 indicates physical unruliness and can
lead to the passenger being debarred from flying for upto 6 months and
Level 3 indicates life-threatening behaviour where the debarment would be
for a minimum of 2 years.
India, Sri Lanka talk on
bilateral issues
Continuing the discussion on
crucial bilateral projects, a delegation-level meeting was held in New Delhi
between the newly appointed Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Tilak Marapana and
India’s External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj.
- The two sides discussed the entire gamut of
bilateral relations and ways to further deepen the historically close and
friendly relations between the two countries
First 3D Sanskrit feature film
to hit festival circuit
Anurakthi , which is
billed to be the maiden 3D feature film in Sanskrit.
- Anurakthi , he argues, pairs the best of both
worlds — the old and the new — as a modern narrative is developed against
the backdrop of the ancient Koodiyattom theatre.
Army to induct women into military police soon to probe
gender crimes
The government has decided to recruit women jawans into the Army’s Corps of
Military Police (CMP) for investigating gender specific crimes.
- The proposal is very significant as women will be
inducted in the military’s non-officer cadre for the first time, although they will be in a non-combat role.
- Women were required in the Corps of Military Police
(CMP) to investigate gender-specific allegations and crime.
- The women will be inducted as junior commissioned
officers and jawans.
IGIB team discovers skin
bacterium with antimicrobial activity
Bacteria found on the skin
are known to harbour a large repertoire of antimicrobial agents.
- A new bacterial strain of Staphylococcus capitis identified by
scientists at Delhi’s CSIR-Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology
(CSIR-IGIB) has a strong antibacterial activity against Gram-positive
bacteria, including Staphylococcus
aureus.
- The work reconfirms the growing understanding that
bacteria found on the skin may be a “rich source” of novel antimicrobial
molecules.
- The results of the study were published in the
journal Scientific Reports.
Successful Flight Test of 3rd
Generation Anti Tank Guided Missile – NAG
India’s indigenously
developed 3rd generation Anti Tank Guided Missile (ATGM), Nag has been
successfully flight tested twice by DRDO on 8-9-2017 against two different
targets in the ranges of Rajasthan.
- The ATGM Nag missile has
successfully hit both the targets under different ranges and conditions
with very high accuracy as desired by the Armed Forces.
India could embrace CO2
capture technology
The country’s Coal Secretary
Susheel Kumar has said, India will explore the possibility of introducing
technologies for capturing carbon dioxide emitted while burning coal and other
fossil fuels.
- lot of advanced research in the area, of late, has
been focussing on capturing carbon dioxide emissions from sources like
coal-fired power plants, to either reuse or store it so it will not enter
the atmosphere. CO2 has commercial and industrial uses, particularly for
Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) in depleting oil fields. Carbon dioxide has
the ability to change the properties of oil and make it easier to extract.
- The International Energy Agency’s Green House Gas
Research and Development initiative organises the annual Post Combustion
Carbon Conference, which is currently in session in Birmingham, in the
State of Alabama.
Google unveils ‘feed’ feature
in its app
Google is rolling out feed
feature in its app to enhance the search experience.
- The update, available on Google’s Android platform
and Apple’s mobile operating system iOS, will help users to better tune
the flow of news and information from the Web to their phone. It would
enable them to dig deeper into topics they are passionate about.
- The feed would be available in English and Hindi. It
said that the feed will enable users to see cards containing the very
latest sports highlights, top news, videos and music.
Scientists make fuel from oxygen in air
Scientists have found a way to produce methanol — an important chemical often
used as fuel in vehicles — using oxygen in the air, an advance that may lead to
cleaner, greener industrial processes worldwide.
- Methanol was produced using nanoparticles of gold to
initiate a chemical reaction between methane, oxygen and hydrogen
peroxide. It can be done in one stage and at temperatures no higher than
50C (122F).
- It could become an alternative to petrol. It is also
believed the new system of creating methanol could be used to create
chemicals and plastics.
- The discovery promises to be not only cheaper, but
much more environmentally friendly, as it both reduces energy consumption
and conserves dwindling stocks of natural gas.
Sun and sea water powers vegetable farms in Jordan
A new project named “Sahara Forest Project” has been launched in Jordan. It aims to turn Jordan’s sand dunes
into farming land to produce food using sun and sea water.
- In the first stage, the project aims to produce up
to 130 tonnes of organic vegetables per year from an area the size of four
football pitches. It also produces fresh water.
- It will use solar panels to provide power and
include outdoor planting space, two saltwater-cooled greenhouses, a water
desalination unit and salt ponds for salt production.
- The project, whose funders include Norway and the
European Union, is to be expanded from three hectares to around 200
hectares of desert.
Pluto mountains named after Tenzing Norgay, Edmund
Hillary
Two mountain ranges on Pluto have been named after Tenzing Norgay and
Edmund Hillaryrespectively by the International Astronomical Union, which for the first time, has officially approved the naming of
14 features on the icy dwarf planet.
- These are the first geological features on the
planet to be named following the close flyby by the New Horizons
spacecraft in July 2015.
- Tenzing Montes and Hillary Montes are mountain ranges honouring Tenzing Norgay (1914-1986) and Sir Edmund Hillary (1919-2008), the Indian/Nepali Sherpa and New Zealand mountaineer who were the first to reach the summit of Mount Everest and return safely.
