International News Affairs
- Malabar Naval Exercise 2017, a week long trilateral joint naval exercise involving the United States, Japan and India has started today at Chennai coast.
- Aim of this Exercise: To achieve deeper military ties between the three nations.
- Running from July 7-17, Malabar 2017 is the latest in a series of yearly exercises that have grown in scope and complexity in recent years to confront potential threats in the Indo-Asian maritime theatre.
- This is the 21st edition of the Malabar exercise.
- Malabar 2017 involves both shore exchanges on naval doctrine and interoperability between the three navies, including operating with carrier strike groups and coordinating communications.
- 16 ships, 95 aircraft and two submarines are taking part in the exercise.
- The 2017 G20 summit in Germany concluded on Saturday with the world leaders pledging to keep markets open, focus on reciprocity and non-discrimination, and fight protectionism and unfair trade practices.
- All G20 member countries, except the US, also reaffirmed the 2015 Paris climate accord as “irreversible” to fight the climate change.
- The UN Human Rights Council has today announced that it will undertake a two-day review of Pakistan’s human rights record in light of the deteriorating human rights situation, particularly in the country’s Sindh province.
- This comes after the World Sindhi Congress protested in front of the UN body’s Geneva office against enforced disappearances, systematic violence, and marginalisation of Sindhi minorities.
National News Affairs
- The Karnataka government has announced a 3-day global conference on social justicefrom July 21-23 at the University of Agricultural Sciences in Bengaluru.
- It is aimed at commemorating the 126th birth anniversary of BR Ambedkar.
- As many as 83 international and 149 national speakers are expected to address 2,000 participants in this conference.
- Theme of this conference: ‘Reclaiming Social Justice, Revisiting Ambedkar’.
- Mother Teresa‘s Blue-bordered Sari was recognised as an Intellectual Property of the Missionaries of Charity after she was cannonised last year.
- The charity made the trademark public recently after it witnessed “unfair usage of the design across the globe.”
- Note: It is the first time that a uniform has been protected under the Intellectual Property rights.
- Expanding its outreach to the Arab world, External Affairs Ministry is going to make its website available in Arabic.
- The portal will include speeches, briefings and other documents of the ministry, and articles written in Arabic on India and its foreign relations.
- Note: After French and Spanish, Arabic will be the third foreign language that will be available on the ministry’s website.
People in News
- UK’s first pregnant man, Hayden Cross, has given birth to a girl after putting his sex transition on hold to get pregnant by a sperm donor.
- Cross had been living legally as a man for three years and has undergone hormone treatment to transform from a woman to a man.
- Note: Cross is UK’s first transgender man to give birth.
- Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II has appointed her first black equerry, a senior staff member in charge of assisting the royal household.
- The Ghana-born Afghan war veteran, Major Nana Kofi Twumasi-Ankrah, had moved to the UK in 1982.
- Earlier, he was an escort commander for the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Prince William and Kate Middleton, in 2011.
Banking, Business & Economic News
- President Pranab Mukherjee on the occasion of Guru Purnima launched4 major digital initiatives in to push e-education.
- They are :
- Swayam
- Swayam Prabha
- National Academic Depository
- National Digital Library
- The Gujarat High Court has asked the Reserve Bank of India (RBI)to drop a line from its directive to send 12 large accounts for immediate action under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code.
- It had earlier asked RBI to explain the part that read “such cases will be accorded priority by the National Company Law Tribunal”.
- RBI has now been asked to drop this line.
- The Income Tax Department has started sending text messages to people who have made big investments in the past two years, but have neither paid income tax nor filed I-T returns.
- Around 10,000 people, including those who have bought properties worth over ₹50 lakh, have been sent the messages, and have been asked to pay the tax and file returns.
- The Railways is going to install automatic flap-gates with barcode scanners at stations in order to check tickets faster and ease the pressure on ticket collectors.
- The new system will first be made operational at Delhi’s Brar Square station as a pilot project.
- Venezuela’s state-owned oil firm Petroleos de Venezuela has offered a 9% stake in an oil field to ONGC Videsh, the international arm of India’s state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation.
- This comes as Venezuela seeks to support its energy industry, which has been hit by falling oil prices and is struggling to maintain its investment in oilfields.
- India will soon join Global Foreign Exchange Committee (GFXC), a newly-constituted forum of central bankers and experts working towards promotion of a robust and transparent foreign exchange (Forex) market.
- Note”The committee has been set up under guidance of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), an international financial organisation.
- They are :
Places in News
- Okinoshima, sacred Japanese island where women are banned and men must strip naked was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
- Once the site of prayer rituals, Okinoshima houses a huge collection of artefacts.
- It allows visitors only on a single day every year, May 27, and bars them from taking souvenirs and disclosing details of their visit.
Current Sports Affairs
- Mercedes’ Formula One driver Valtteri Bottas has won the Austrian Grand Prix
- India bagged a total of 29 medalsincluding 12 golds to top the medals tally at the Asian Athletics Championships for the first time ever.
- China, who have dominated the event from 1983 up until the last edition, finished second with overall 20 medals including 8 golds.
- India’s 29 medals is also their highest-ever medal haul in the event’s history.