Current Affairs

 Union Minister Nityanand Rai has launched a Government Railway Police’s website “railways.delhipolice.gov.in” and a mobile application “Sahyatri”. The database of criminals, including their photographs, active in railways’ jurisdiction all over India would be uploaded on the Railway police’s website. It will also have the facility to scan and read QR codes and make an emergency call. The Sahyatri app will help railway passengers find out the jurisdiction of a police station and the details of GRP officials by geo-tagging with Google Maps. It will also help the railway police in addressing complaints of passengers from across India and crime detection by integrating the criminal database online.
Source: The Hindu

  The 38th India Carpet Expo will be held in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh. The expo will be organized by the Carpet Export Promotion Council (CEPC). The India Carpet Expo aims to promote the cultural heritage and weaving skills of Indian hand-made carpets and other floor coverings for the visiting overseas carpet buyers. India carpet expo also acts as a platform for international carpet buyers, buying houses, buying agents, architects and Indian carpet manufacturers and exporters to meet and establish business relationship.
Source: The Press Information Bureau

   SARAS Aajeevika Mela has begun at India Gate Lawns, in New Delhi. It has been organized by the Ministry of Rural Development under the initiative of the Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana-National Rural Livelihoods Mission. It aims to bring the rural women Self Help Groups (SHGs) formed with support of DAY-NRLM, under one platform to show-case their skills, sell their products and help them build linkages with bulk buyers. Over 200 stalls have been set-up at the Mela venue, where nearly 500 rural SHG craftswomen from 29 States and UTs will show-case varied range of products like handicrafts, handlooms, natural food products and a food court with regional cuisines at India Gate Lawns.
Source: The Press Information Bureau

  The Reserve Bank of India has rejected the merger proposal of Indiabulls Housing Finance and Lakshmi Vilas Bank. RBI has rejected the application for voluntary amalgamation of Indiabulls Housing Finance Ltd. and Indiabulls Commercial Credit Ltd. with the Lakshmi Vilas Bank Ltd. The merger was crucial for Lakshmi Vilas Bank as it is now under the prompt corrective action framework of the RBI due to a high level of bad loans and insufficient capital.
Source: The Hindu

  A team of astronomers has discovered a haul of 20 new moons orbiting the ringed planet, Saturn. This discovery has brought its total to 82 moons, while Jupiter, by contrast, has 79 natural satellites. The moons were discovered using the Subaru telescope on Maunakea, Hawaii. Each of the newly discovered objects in orbit around Saturn is about 5 km in diameter and 17 of them orbit the planet “backwards” i.e. retrograde direction. The other three moons orbit in a prograde direction i.e. the same direction as Saturn rotates. Dr Scott Sheppard of the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington DC led the team of astronomers including David Jewitt of University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and Jan Kleyna of the University of Hawaii.
Source: The BBC

  GEMINI is a portable receiver developed to avoid communication blackouts. It linked to ISRO-satellites and is “fail-proof” and warn fishermen of danger. The Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services collaborated with Accord, a private company, to develop a box-shaped receiver that has an antenna and in-built battery that can last 3 to 4 days. GEMINI works on GAGAN, developed by ISRO and the Airports Authority of India and is an India-made global positioning system and relies on the positioning system by ISRO’s GSAT satellites. When GEMINI is connected to an app, it also lets fishermen know the probability of fish-catch in the surrounding seas.
Source: The Hindu

  Vishnu Nandan, polar researcher from Kerala will join largest ever Arctic expedition “MOSAiC Expedition“. He will be the only Indian aboard among the 300 researchers for multidisciplinary drifting observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate expedition. Vishnu Nandan will aboard the German research vessel Polarstern, anchored on a large sheet of sea ice in the Central Arctic, drifting along with it during the pitch-black Polar winter. Led by the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany, MOSAiC, the largest ever Arctic expedition in history, will be the first to conduct a study of this scale at the North Pole for an entire year. The expedition will help the researchers better understand the impact of climate change and aid in improved weather projections.
Source: The Hindu

  German World Cup champion Bastian Schweinsteiger has announced his retirement from soccer. Schweinsteiger spent a major part of his career with European giants Bayern Munich, where he won 8 Bundesliga titles and 7 German cups as well as the Champions league in 2013. He made over 300 appearances for the Bavarian side, scoring 45 goals from 2002-2015.
Source: The DD News

 The Central government has increased the Dearness Allowance (DA) of Central government employees and pensioners. The government has hiked DA by 5%, which means the dearness allowance has been increased from 12% to 17%. The decision was approved in a cabinet meet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The hike would be effective from July 2019. The cost to the exchequer will be Rs 16,000 crore. The cabinet also approved inclusion of 5,300 families under the development package of Jammu & Kashmir, who initially opted to move outside the state, but later returned and settled in the Jammu & Kashmir. This will enable such development package families to become eligible to get one-time financial assistance of Rs 5.5 lakh under the existing scheme. Cabinet has also relaxed the mandatory requirement of Aadhaar-seeded data as a pre-condition for release of funds to the beneficiaries under the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi scheme. The relaxation will be till 30th November 2019. It will enable immediate release of benefits to a large number of farmers who are not able to avail the same due this requirement.
Source: The Economic Times

  “DHRUV” a Pradhan Mantri Innovation Learning Programme has commenced from Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) in Bengaluru and will conclude at IIT, Delhi. The programme aims to further sharpen innovative imagination, skills and knowledge of the students who are expected to contribute to bringing solutions to socio-economic, political and environmental issues in the country. 60 brightest and talented students from Science, Mathematics and Performing Arts have been chosen for the programme.
Source: The DD News


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