Current Affairs Notes on 08/06/2018

1.NITI Aayog has launched a new course on 'Urban Analytics - Evaluating and Measuring Sustainability of Cities' at IIT, Roorkee. The course was launched under Global Initiative on Academic Network (GIAN). The course will provide an understanding and analysis on the urbanisation and its impacts that would help in evaluating the conditions of sustainability in Indian cities.

2.The Union Cabinet apprised the MoU signed between India and Denmark. The objective of this MoU is to promote bilateral cooperation in the field of sustainable and smart urban development on the basis of reciprocity and mutual benefit through an exchange of knowledge, institutional cooperation, research. 

3.The World Oceans Day was observed across the world on June 8, 2018, to highlight the major role of the oceans in everyday life. The action focus for the 2018 World Oceans Day was 'preventing plastic pollution and encouraging solutions for a healthy ocean'. Around 80 percent of all pollution in the ocean comes from people on land.

4.The West Bengal Government decided to invest 107 crore rupees to check erosion at vulnerable areas along the banks of the Ganga and the Padma. A stretch of 15 kilometers will be concretized, to prevent erosion. The work will be completed by March next year. It will protect hundreds of homes and the river bank close to outposts of the Border Security Force on the Indo-Bangladesh border from being washed away by the strong currents.

5.Andhra Pradesh will become the first Indian state to use auto-disable syringes for all clinical purposes to prevent infection. The move will be enforced from the World Hepatitis Day (WHD-2018) when the state government will declare itself as “Safety Injection Use State”. 

6.President Ram Nath Kovind has recently declared the ‘Queen’ variety of pineapple as the state fruit of Tripura. The famous ‘Queen’ variety is spiny, golden yellow in color and emits pleasant aroma and flavor at the ripen stage.Tripura is one of the largest pineapple growing states in the country and there are more than 100 commercial scale pineapple plantations in the state.

7.Mithali Raj has become the first Indian cricketer to score 2,000 runs in T20 International Cricket. She achieved the landmark during India’s 7-wicket win over Sri Lanka in the Women’s Asia Cup T20 at Kaula Lumpur on June 7, 2018.

8.Punjab government has launched a “Business First Portal” to give a big push towards the ease of doing business in the state.The online portal will facilitate the industrialists for Regulatory Clearances and Fiscal Approvals, real-time tracking of applications at common platform.

9.The Mandela-Gandhi Youth Conference was held at Pietermaritzburg in South Africa on June 8, 2018. The conference was part of a 3-day commemoration of the historic incident 125 years ago when on June 7, 1893, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, a young lawyer then, was thrown off a train compartment reserved for whites only.

10.Virat Kohli will receive the Polly Umrigar Award for the best international cricketer (2016-17 and 2017-18 seasons) at the BCCI awards, to be held in Bengaluru on June 15, 2018. Harmanpreet Kaur and Smriti Mandhana are set to be maiden recipients of the award for best international cricketer (women) for the 2016-17 and 2017-18 seasons respectively.

11.The Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) has approved procurement of high powered radars for the Indian Air Force and air cushion vehicles for the Army and the Coast Guard together worth over ₹5,500 crore. The 12 high power radars will be procured indigenously under the ‘Buy (Indian) IDDM’ category.Under the new category, indigenously designed equipment with 40% indigenous content (IC), or equipment not necessarily designed in-house but having a 60% IC, is intended for procurement from the local industry.

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