Daily Current affairs - September 8th, 2017 for all competitive exams
The 51st International Literacy
Day is being celebrated on 8th September, 2017 and the
theme announced by UNESCO is `Literacy in a digital world’.
- On this day, in the year 1965 the World
Congress of Ministers of Education met in Tehran for the first time to
discuss the programme of education at the international level.
- The UNESCO in its 14th Session in November, 1966,
declared 8th September as the International Literacy Day.
- As per Educational Statistics for 2015-16, the
literacy rate in India increased to 69.3% in 2011.
Rajasthan malnutrition scheme
to be based on micro-planning
The second phase of the
Community-based Management of Acute Malnutrition (CMAM) programme will be implemented
in Rajasthan on micro-planning basis at the district level.
- Sixty-two blocks of 13 districts which were covered
in the first phase will not be included.
- Launched in December 2015, the first phase of the
programme provided treatment to 9,117 children, aged below five years, by
giving them vitamin-enriched and ready-to-use therapeutic food. UNICEF,
Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition, and Action Against Hunger were the
project partners.
Andhra Pradesh to get India’s first Hyperloop
The government of Andhra Pradesh has signed a Memorandum of Understanding
(MoU) with California-based Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT) to
develop India’s first Hyperloop route in the state.
- The proposed route for the Hyperloop between
the city centers of Vijaywada and Amaravati could potentially
turn a trip of more than one hour into a 6 minute ride.
The project will use a Public Private Partnership (PPP) model with funding
primarily from private investors.
U.S. backs sale of fighters to
India
The Trump administration has
told the U.S. Congress that it “strongly supports” the sale of F-18 and F-16
fighter planes to India, built by American companies Boeing and Lockheed Martin
respectively.
- Both companies have offered to assemble these planes
in India, should New Delhi decide to buy them.
Hurricane Irma turns Caribbean
islands into rubble
Powerful Hurricane Irma cut
a swathe of deadly destruction as it roared through the Caribbean.
- One of the most powerful Atlantic storms on record,
the rare Category 5 hurricane churned westward off the northern coast of
Puerto Rico on a potential collision course with south Florida, where
at-risk areas were evacuated.
India refuses to join declaration of international meet
against Myanmar
A delegation of Indian MPs, led by Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan,
to the World Parliamentary
Forum in Indonesia has disassociated itself from the
adoption of the Bali Declaration as it referred to the violence in the Rakhine
state of Myanmar and emphasised that any mention of country-specific issues was
not appropriate.
- The Bali Declaration, adopted at the World Parliamentary
Forum on Sustainable Development in Indonesia, called on all parties
to contribute to restoring stability and security in the region.
- It urged everyone to “exercise maximum
self-restraint from using violent means, respect the human rights of all
people in Rakhine state regardless of their faith and ethnicity, as well
as facilitate and guarantee safe access for humanitarian assistance”.
NASA captures images of strong
solar flares
Two high-intensity solar
flares were emitted on September 6, the second of which was the most intense
recorded since the start of this sun cycle in December 2008.
These radiation flares,
which can disrupt communications satellites, GPS and power grids by reaching
the upper earth atmosphere, were detected and captured by the US Space Agency’s
Solar Dynamics Observatory.
- According to the Space Weather Prediction Center
(SWPC), these so-called category X eruptions disrupted high-frequency
radio communications for one hour on the earth’s side facing the sun and
low-frequency communications used in navigation. The two eruptions
occurred in an active region of the sun where an eruption of average
intensity occurred on September 4.
- The current cycle of the sun, which began in
December 2008, saw the intensity of solar activity decline sharply,
opening the way to the “solar minimum”.
Solar cycles last on average
eleven years.
Centre okays sugar import at
25% duty
The government allowed
import of 3 lakh tonnes of raw sugar at concessional duty of 25% to augment
domestic supplies ahead of the festive season.
- It had hiked import duty on sugar in July to 50%
from 40% to curb dumping of the commodity in India as international prices
fell.
DIPP to move cabinet note on guarantee fund for startups
Keen to ease the flow of loans to startups, the Department of Industrial
Policy and Promotion (DIPP) will move a cabinet note on a credit guarantee fund
for budding entrepreneurs.
- The fund was announced by Prime Minister Narendra
Modi as part of the Startup India action plan in January 2016.
- The fund managed by the DIPP has a corpus of Rs 2,000 crore and will enable greater
financial support to startups.
- The government will use the fund to stand
guarantee for loans given to startups.
- A credit guarantee mechanism will help startups
raise debt funding through the formal banking system.
SEBI slaps Rs. 2,423 crore
fine on PACL
Regulator SEBI imposed Rs.
2,423 crore fine on PACL Ltd. and its four directors for illegal fund
mobilisation through various schemes that were used by the group to garner over
Rs. 49,000 crore from the public.
- The markets regulator has passed a fresh order to
impose a monetary penalty for violation of SEBI’s Prevention of Fraudulent
and Unfair Trade Practices Regulations.
Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2018
The Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2018 of top 1,000
universities in the world has been released.
- UK led the rankings with University of Oxford
retaining first position. The
University of Cambridge climbed two places to second, overtaking
California Institute of Technology and Stanford University, both joint
third. The United States continued to dominate the rankings.
- Indian Institute of Science (IISc) has been placed
in 251-300 category. The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay has
been listed 351-400 category.
Viveck Goenka elected PTI
Chairman
Viveck Goenka, Chairman and
Managing Director of the Express Group, and N. Ravi, former Editor-in-Chief
of The Hindu , were unanimously elected Chairman and Vice-Chairman
respectively of Press Trust of India.
- Mr. Goenka, succeeds Riyad Mathew. Mr. Ravi, succeeds
Mr. Goenka as Vice-Chairman.
- The election took place at a meeting of the Board of
Directors, following the Company’s 69th annual general meeting
Feminist author Kate Millet
dies at 82
Kate Millett, the activist,
artist and educator whose best-selling Sexual Politicswas a landmark of
cultural criticism and a manifesto for the modern feminist movement, has died
at 82.
- Sexual Politics was published in 1970, in the midst of feminism’s so-called “second wave”. Millett’s book was among the most talked-about works of its time and remains a founding text for cultural and gender studies programs.
