Current affairs Sept 29, 2016

1. India will host the 2017 FIFA U-17 World Cup in October 2017, which is first-ever FIFA tournament in India. It is in news because the Local Organising Committee (LOC) of the FIFA U-17 World Cup India 2017 has recently launched the official emblem for the world cup at Margao, Goa.

2. The 2016 Asian Ministerial Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (AMCDRR) will be hosted by the Government of India (GoI) in New Delhi on November 2016. The conference will be held in collaboration with the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR).

3. Mumbai is the wealthiest city in the country followed by Delhi and Bengaluru according to the New World Wealth Report.

4. India's unemployment rate reached 5 years high at the end of 5% in 2015-16 as per Labor Bureau's annual survey on employment. Females had the Highest unemployment rate of 8.7% against 4 % for males and 4.3% for transgenders. Tripura 19.7 registers highest unemployment rate followed by Sikkim and Lakshadweep whereas   Daman and Diu 0.3% registers lowest unemployment rate followed by Gujarat and Karnataka.

5. China tops WHO list for deadliest air pollution with over one million people dying in the country from dirty air. China is followed by India and Russia. Notably WHO claims that air pollution kills 30 lakh people worldwide every year.

6. After serving for 29 years under Indian Navy, the world’s oldest aircraft carrier INS Viraat will be decommissioned later this year. The ship had arrived in Kochi shipyard earlier in July for Essential Repairs and Dry Docking (ERDD) and it was finished on September 4, 2016.

INS Viraat will now be moved back to Mumbai from Kochi for the decommissioning ceremony. Prior to being commissioned in Indian Navy on May 12, 1987, the aircraft career had also served with UK’s Royal Navy for 27 years.

7. India has carried out surgical strikes targeting “launch pads” for terrorists across the Line of Control (LoC)
Information that terrorists planning to attack some towns and important places prompted Army to act

   Context: The attack comes in the wake of the September 18 terror strike in Uri that claimed the lives     of 18 Indian soldiers

     What do we mean by military surgical strike?

     A surgical strike is defined as a military attack intended to inflict damage on a specific target, with      little or no collateral damage to surrounding areas

     Neutralisation of targets with surgical strikes also prevents escalation to a full blown war.

8. Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has approved ‘Project SAKSHAM’. The Project SAKSHAM is a New Indirect Tax Network (Systems Integration) of the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC). It seeks to bolster the information technology network for the new Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime that the Union Government intends to roll out from 1st April 2017. The Project SAKSHAM will help in Integration of CBEC IT systems with the Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN). Extension of Indian Customs Single Window Interface for Facilitating Trade (SWIFT) Other taxpayer-friendly initiatives under Digital India and Ease of Doing Business of CBEC.

9. India is going to invest 2 billion dollars in Sri Lanka in the next three-four years. It was announced by Union Minister for State (MoS) Commerce and Industry Nirmala Sitharaman during her visit to Sri Lanka. She had visited Sri Lanka for talks on the Economic and Technological Cooperation Agreement (ETCA) to discuss the terms of the agreement. About Economic and Technological Cooperation Agreement (ETCA) ETCA agreement seeks to boost cooperation in scientific expertise, technical areas and research amongst institutions between India and Sri Lanka.

10. Telangana government has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to promote education. The MoU was inked between Department of Information Technology, Electronics & Communication of Telangana and ISRO’s Development & Educational Communication Unit (DECU). Key Facts Under the MoU, ISRO will help to improve services of Telangana’s educational channel ‘Mana TV’ by using Satcom.

11. The World Health Organisation (WHO) declared the Region of the Americas as Measles free. The declaration came during the 55th Directing Council of the Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization (PAHO/WHO) . With this, the Americas became the first in the world to have eliminated measles, a viral disease that can cause severe health problems, including pneumonia, blindness, brain swelling and even death.