Daily Current affairs - April 25th, 2018 for all competitive exams
World Malaria Day is
observed on April 25 every year to recognise the global effort to
control malaria and also to spread awareness about the around the world.
- The theme for this year’s Malaria Day is ‘Ready
to beat Malaria’.
- The theme emphasises the collective energy and
commitment of the global malaria community that is uniting all around the
world to curb the disease and working towards the common
goal to making the world malaria free.
Malaria is caused by
the Plasmodium parasites, which is spread to people through the
bite of an infected female Anopheles mosquito, also known as
malaria vectors.
According to the most recent World
Malaria Report, the global tally of malaria reached 429,000 malaria deaths
and 212 million new cases in 2015.
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m-Awas App for Allotment
of GPRA Through ASA Launched
Hardeep Puri, Minister of
State for Housing and Urban Affairs (I/C) launched a Mobile App,
m-Awas for allotment of Government accommodations in General Pool
Residential Accommodation (GPRA) in Delhi under the control of the Directorate
of Estates.
- The application has been developed
by NIC. A total number of 61,317 residential accommodations of
various types are available in Delhi which is allotted to the
eligible Central Government employees through Automated System of
Allotment (ASA), by using login Id and password.
India tying up with US and Finland for new system
to measure air quality
India is tying up with the United States and Finland to develop a pollution-forecast
system that will help anticipate particulate matter (PM) levels at least two
days in advance and at a greater resolution than what is possible now. The
Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) will be coordinating this exercise and the
plan is to have a system in place by winter.
- The new system, to be jointly developed with
expertise from the Finnish Meteorological Institute and the U.S.’ National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, will use a different modelling
approach as well as computational techniques from that employed in the
SAFAR model.
- Currently, the System of Air Quality and Weather
Forecasting and Research (SAFAR), run out of the Indian Institute of
Tropical Meteorology, Pune, serves as the apex forecaster of pollution
trends in Delhi, Mumbai, Pune and Ahmedabad. It generates a likely air
quality profile, a day in advance, for these cities.
Intelligent traffic
management solution is testing in Bengaluru
Bengaluru Smart City in
collaboration with the Electronics City Township Authority (ELCITA) is testing
prototype of an intelligent traffic management solution to improve traffic
management in the city.
- It aims to provide traffic information that is
currently unavailable and help improve management of commuter traffic.
- It involves capturing video streams from several
cameras and processing them using artificial intelligence.
J&K first state to
approve 7th pay commission
Jammu and Kashmir
became the first state to approve the implementation of the 7th pay commission.
- The cabinet decision will benefit around five lakh
employees and pensioners in the state.
- The financial implications will be Rs 4,201 crore
per year while one-time arrears would cost the government Rs 7,477 crore.
On 28 June 2017, Government accepted
the recommendation of 7th Pay Commission Report with meager increase in
salary of 14% after six month of intense evaluation and successive
discussions.
Chairman - Justice A.K Mathur
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India signs loan agreement
with World Bank for US$ 125million
A Loan agreement for IBRD
credit of US$ 125 (equivalent) for the “Innovate in India for
Inclusiveness Project” was signed with the World Bank in New Delhi.
- The Objectives of the project is to nurture
indigenous innovation, foster local product development and accelerate
commercialization process by bridging critical skill and infrastructure
gaps to promote affordable and innovative healthcare products generation
for inclusive development and increasing competitiveness in India.
- The project seeks to nurture indigenous innovation,
foster local product development and accelerate commercialization process
by bridging critical skill and infrastructure gaps to promote affordable
and innovative healthcare products generation for inclusive development
and increasing competitiveness in India.
The project would support consortia of public, private, and the academic
institutions to overcome the key market failures currently holding back the
development of an innovative biopharmaceutical and medical devices industry
in India.
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MoU between ICI and IGNTU
A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) has been signed between the Indian
Culinary Institute (ICI) an autonomous body under the Ministry of Tourism, and
Indira Gandhi National Tribal University (IGNTU), Amarkantak.
- The MOU was signed for imparting collaborative
degree programmes including research in the field of culinary arts.
ICI is an autonomous body under
the Ministry of Tourism. The main objective of setting up of the
ICI was to institutionalize a mechanism to support efforts intended to
preserve, document, promote and disseminate Indian Cuisine, meet the sectoral
requirement of specialists specific to Indian Cuisine, as also of promoting
Cuisine as a Niche Tourism product.
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Sagar Kavach: Coastal
security exercise held in Kerala
Two-day coastal security
exercise ‘Sagar Kavach’ to strengthen and assess the loopholes in the coastal
security mechanism was held along Kerala coast.
- The exercise saw participation of Indian Coast Guard
(ICG), Indian Navy, Coastal Police and Marine Enforcement wing and various
other security stakeholders.
- It saw participation of three ships of India Navy,
10 of ICG, four fishing boats, besides 20 coastal police stations from
Vizhinjam to Kasaragod.
The organisations participating in the exercise are Indian Navy, Indian
Coast Guard, Coastal Police, Police Special Branch, Intelligence Bureau,
Customs, Department of Port, Department of Fisheries, Director General of
Lighthouses and light ships and Fishing Community.
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Sushma Swaraj attends
meeting of India-Mongolia joint committee
External Affairs Minister
Sushma Swaraj co-chaired the 6th round of India-Mongolia Joint
Consultative Committee meeting with her Mongolian counterpart Damdin
Tsogtbaatar in Ulaanbaatar.
- The meeting discussed trade, economic, cultural and
scientific co-operation. Mrs Swaraj became the first Indian External
Affairs Minister to visit the nation in 42 years.
Saudi Arabia privatization
programme targets $10 billion non-oil revenues by 2020
Saudi Arabia aims to
generate 35 billion to 40 billion riyals ($9 billion to $11 billion) in non-oil
revenues from its privatisation programme by 2020.
- The initiative targets 14 public-private partnership
investments worth 24 billion to 28 billion riyals.
- It includes the corporatisation of Saudi ports and
the privatisation of the production sector at the Saudi Saline Water
Conversion Corp (SWCC) and the Ras Al Khair desalination and power plant.
Western Ghats reveal
world’s smallest land fern
Indian researchers have
discovered the world’s smallest land fern hiding in the Ahwa forests of the
Western Ghats in Gujarat’s Dang district.
- According to a recent study in Scientific
Reports , an international journal that publishes multidisciplinary
research, the fingernail-sized fern belongs to a group known as the
adder’s-tongue ferns, named after their resemblance to a snake’s tongue.
- The fingernail-sized fern belongs to a group known
as the adder’s-tongue ferns, named after their resemblance to a snake’s
tongue.
- The ferns are seasonal and grow with the first
monsoon rains. They last only for a few months and new plants are born
through their spores next year.
Google introduces new
feature for jobseekers
Google introduced a new
search experience aimed at making it easier and quicker for jobseekers to find
relevant employment opportunities.
- Towards this end, the technology major has tied up
with popular job listing websites and online classifieds such as
QuikrJobs, Shine.com, Aasaanjobs, Freshersworld, Headhonchos, IBM Talent
Management Solutions, LinkedIn, Quezx, T-Jobs, TimesJobs and Wisdomjobs.
- Clicking on any job in this listing opens an
at-a-glance view that gives information such as job title, location and
whether it is full-time or part-time. From here, users can proceed to the
job listing page on the partner website and apply
ICICI Bank scraps plans to
sell home finance subsidiary
ICICI Bank has scrapped
plans to sell its home loan subsidiary ICICI Home Finance, and is now working
on a plan to boost its business by focusing on small loans in semi-urban and
rural centres.
- ICICI Home Finance, which has a capital of Rs. 1,600
crore and a loan book of Rs. 10,000 crore, now plans to ramp up its
business by spreading into newer territories.
- ICICI Home Finance targets loans with an average
size of Rs. 10 lakh to Rs. 12 lakh as compared with large banks and
mortgage players where the average ticket size is about Rs. 30 lakh.
- Anirudh Kamani, who was heading rural banking in
ICICI Bank, has been appointed as the CEO of the home finance arm.
Following the
introduction of the Prime Minister Awas Yogna, a credit linked subsidy
scheme, there has been a spurt in home loan demand as the effective interest
rate for small ticket home loans are as low as around 4.5%.
Private investment firm
TPG Capital was in talks with the bank for acquiring the home loan arm, which
is a non-banking finance company. But, the deal did not go through due to
stiff conditions set by the by the buyer. Among other conditions, TPG wanted
leads for loans to come from ICICI Bank and that the bank could not enter the
geographies where the home loan firm would be operating.
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India's 1st e-Commerce
Think Tank meet convened by Suresh Prabhu
Suresh Prabhu, the
commerce and industry minister, held the first e-commerce think tank
meeting in New Delhi.
- The minister chaired the meeting which aimed at
framing a national policy on e-commerce.
- The setting up of this e-commerce think tank and the
initiative taken by the ministry may well be interpreted as the government
and its allied bodies beginning to understand the growth potential of the
e-commerce industry in India.
U.S. Senate panel says
‘yes’ to Pompeo
Mike Pompeo won the
endorsement of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to be the U.S Secretary
of State after all the Republicans on the panel stayed united behind him.
- The full Senate will vote on his nomination later
this week. None of the 10 Democrats on the panel voted for Mr. Pompeo.
India to host Asian
weightlifting championship for the first time in 2019
India will host the
prestigious Asian Championships next year, which will also double up as a
qualifying event for the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo.
- A championship was awarded to India at the Executive
Board Meeting and Congress of the Asian Weightlifting Federation held on
April 22 at Urgench, Uzbekistan.
- The event is a shot in the arm for India in a sport
whose profile has been on the rise in recent years.
Shahzar Rizvi’s silver
opens India’s account at ISSF World Cup
World record holder
Shahzar Rizvi claimed India’s first medal at the ongoing World Cup organised by
the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) at Changwon, South Korea.
- He won the silver in the 10 meter air pistol event
on day three of the year’s second World Cup. Rizvi missed the gold by 0.2
points to Russia’s Artem Chernousov. Samuil Donkov of Bulgaria won the
Bronze.
