Current Affairs. 3rd September 2015.

Current Affairs. 3rd September 2015.

-Durban in South Africa confirmed as 2022 Commonwealth Games host.

- First time in the History of Haryana. Advocate General AG has been given the status of a Cabinet Minister. AG Baldev Raj Mahajan has accorded the status of a Cabinet Minister.

-  For the First time India, Oz to hold naval exercise from SEPTEMBER 11. India and Australia first time announced Navy to Navy bilateral Maritime exercise.
_Naval Exercise involve multiple ship visits and Maritime assets from both the countries. It will be a SUBMARINE HUNTING EXERCISE.
_India Conducts such high level bilateral exercise with US, RUSSIA, FRANCE AND THE UK.
_Both the countries are interested in keeping South China Sea for Navigation

- Snapdeal acquires Silicon Valley startup Reduce Data.

- Ericsson bags 3G,4G network contract from Bharti Airtel. It will be supply, install and manage services for WCDMA radio access networks and will provide multi standard radio equipment.

-US backs India's bid for UNSC seat.

- Number of trees halved to 3 trillion in the world . There are just 3.04 trillion trees in the world,in data from the first spatially continuous map of forest tree density suggests. The estimate of the ratio of trees per person is 422:1. Though 3.04 trillion trees is an “order of magnitude higher” than previous estimate,  the number of trees cut down each year is a staggering 15.3 billion and the global forest cover loss is approximately 192,000 sq. km per year. As a result, the global number of trees has reduced by as much as 46 per
cent since the start of human civilisation. These are some of the results of a study published today in the journal Nature .
_As per the study, a tree is defined as a “plant with woody stems larger than 10 cm diameter at breast height.
-Of the 3.04 trillion trees in the world, the tropical and subtropical forests have the highest number of trees at approximately 1.39 trillion (nearly 43 per cent), followed by boreal regions (0.74 trillion trees accounting for 24.2 per cent) and finally the temperate regions at 0.61 trillion trees (21.8 per cent).While the tropical forests have the highest number of trees, they have also witnessed
the highest rate of tree loss.
_Though the tropical forests have the highest number of trees, the tree density is highest in the forested regions of the Boreal and Tundra regions

- Kala Utsav initiative of MHRD to be launched on Teacher's Day,Dr Sarvepalli Radha Krishnan

- Kala Utsav is an initiative of Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) to promote arts in education by nurturing and showcasing the artistic talent of school students at the secondary stage in the country.
_At secondary stage for 4 areas, i.e, visual arts, music, dance and theatre.
_Kala Utsav website will be launched on Teacher's Day
Prime Minister will also release a commemorative coin of Rs. 125/-denomination and a circulation coin of Rs. 10/- denomination in the honour of Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, the great educationist, teacher and philosopher, on the eve of his birth anniversary.

-*Govt to invest more than Rs. 8 lakh crore for infrastructure development in Railways.

- LAPAN A2/Orari India will launch a second multi-spectral remote sensing Indonesian satellite.
_India will launch a second multi-spectral remote sensing Indonesian satellite that will help the country to monitor land-use, natural resource and in disaster mitigation.The satellite will be shipped to India tomorrow to be launched at the Satish Dhawan Space Center in Sriharikota.
_LAPAN A2/Orari will function as a tool to monitor land usage, ship movements, sea resources and fishing explorations. The satellite will orbit the Earth along the equator with an altitude of 650 kilometers, and travel at 7.5 kilometers per second - enabling it to circle the Earth 14 times a day.

- In Sri Lanka, the Tamil National Alliance leader R. Sampanthan has been elected unopposed as the leader of opposition in Parliament.
_This is a significant development for the country as the leader of the opposition plays an important role in Sri Lanka.

- China to reduce its military by 3 lakh out of its 20 lakh troops.

-Union Government notified the merger of commodities market
regulator Forward Markets Commission (FMC) with Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI) with an effect from 28 September 2015.
_In this regard, Union Finance Ministry has issued a notification mentioning that Regulation of Commodity Derivatives Market will shift to SEBI under Securities Contracts Regulation Act (SCRA) 1956.
_Forward Contracts Regulation Act (FCRA), 1952 gets repealed so does the FMC cease to exist.
_With this merger, all three national and six REGIONAL %%commodity exchanges will come under the ambit of national capital market regulator SEBI.
_Implication: This merger will create a unified regulator for commodities and capital markets which in turn will help streamline monitoring of commodity futures trading and curb wild speculations in the market.
_Earlier during budget it was announced, Financial Sector Legislative Reforms Commission (FSLRC) had recommended merger of SEBI, IRDA, FMC and PFRDA into a single entity called Unified Financial Agency (UFA).

-*The West-Central Railway (WCR) zone headquartered in Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh has become the first Railway Zone in Indian Railways to eliminate all unmanned level crossings.

- Tokyo 2020 Olympics Games logo was scrapped by Games Organising Committee after there were allegations by a Belgian graphic designer Olivier Debie that it was plagiarised from his work. Designer claimed that this logo was similar to his 2013 logo for the Theatre de Liege.

- Russia rejected the proposal of France asking United Nations Security Council (UNSC) permanent members to limit the use of the veto power at least in cases involving mass atrocities that demands action.

- Union Government recognizes Yoga as Sports discipline.
_Union Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports has decided to recognize Yoga as a sports discipline and place it in the Priority category.

-  Canada entered first technical recession in six years
_Pulled by falling energy prices and economic troubles in China, Canadian economy entered into the first technical recession in six years. This was revealed by Canada's national statistical agency Statistics Canada on 1 September 2015.
_Technical recession means negative economic growth by a country's gross domestic product (GDP) for two consecutive quarters.

- Union Government launched Indian Wind Resource Atlas as an online GIS tool
_Union Government on 2 September 2015 launched the Indian Wind Resource Atlas at 100 metre level. The Atlas will help policy makers at Centre and State Governments to deal with issues related to tariff fixation, transmission, grade frequency, etc.
_The Indian Wind Atlas is an important online GIS (Geographic Information System) tool for identification of the regional and local wind energy potential in India.