International News Affairs
- Canada today celebrated the 150th anniversary of the day it officially became a country and the self-governing dominion of Britain.
- Prime Minister Justin Trudeau launched the celebrations outside the Parliament.
- These celebrations were joined by Prince Charles, whose mother and UK’s Queen, Elizabeth II, is Canada’s head of state.
- The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the end of the most recent outbreak of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
- The announcement comes 42 days (two 21-day incubation cycles of the virus) after the last confirmed Ebola patient in the affected Bas-Uélé province of DRC tested negative for the disease for the second time.
National News Affairs
- Prime Minister Narendra Modiis going to adopt Kakrahia, a village in Varanasi under the Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojana.
- Important Points to Note :
- Kakrahia is known for its wrestlers and wrestling arenas.
- In the past two years, Modi has adopted Jayapur and Nagepur in his Lok Sabha constituency of Varanasi.
- Former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s name from the scheme Indira Priyadarshini Puruskar Yojana, given to meritorious girls of Class 10 and 12 from Rajasthan Board, has been removed.
- From now, this scheme will be called ‘Padmakshi Puruskar Yojana‘, based on the name of Goddess ‘Saraswati’.
- The Assam government is going to raise a new Special Rhino Protection Force (SRPF) for better protection of the one-horned rhinos in Assam.
- The cadre for the force will selected from local youths hailing from the fringe areas of the Kaziranga national park.
- The Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) hastoday announced that it will waive off the fees for transgender students, in all the courses that it offers.
- The Goa government has today announced that it is discontinuing the Goa Yuva Samwad Yojana, a scheme through which people between 16 and 30 could avail free voice calls and internet data.
- The decision was taken as the scheme would have resulted in an annual loss of ₹24 crore for the state government.
- The scheme was supposed to operate till December 2019.
Banking, Business & Economic News
- Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has appeared for the first time on the country’s currencysince taking office, with his portrait printed on a new 2,000-pound banknote that went into circulation today.
- The note was delayed “due to the circumstances of the war” which caused Syria’s currency to plunge in value from £47/$ in 2010 to over £200/$ at present.
- Fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) major ITC became the 4th Indian company to cross market capitalisation of ₹4 trillion.
- ITC’s stock gained as much as 9.06% in intraday trade owing to the company’s positive outlook from GST.
- Important Note : Earlier, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Reliance Industries and HDFC Bank have achieved this milestone with TCS being the most valued company with market capitalisation of ₹4.64 trillion.
- Punjab National Bank (PNB)Maestro debit card holders will face card blockage if they fail to replace it with a more secure EMV chip based card by July 31.
- New replacement cards will be provided free of cost to the customers.
- Note : Earlier, RBI had directed all banks are to migrate to EMV chip based cards by December 31, 2018.
- National Multi Commodity Exchange (NMCE), India’s first demutualised online national multi-commodities exchange will merge with Indian Commodity Exchange (ICEX).
- The merged entity will create India’s third biggest commodity exchange.
- Important Note: The largest commodity exchange by volume is the Multi Commodity Exchange (MCX) followed by National Commodity and Derivatives Exchange (NCDEX).
Awards & Honours
- The CISF security cover at the Delhi Airport has been rated the best service in the world by quality rating agency World Quality Congress (WQC).
- The WQC will hand over the award to CISF later this week in Mumbai.
Science & Technology
- India successfully test-fired it’s indigenously developed Quick Reaction Surface-to-Air short range Missile (QR-SAM).
- This was the second successful developmental trial of the state-of-the-art missile with an aerial target.
- The first test launch of the missile was conducted in June 2017.
- The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is developingDouble Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), the first-ever mission that will deflect a near-Earth asteroid.
- The mission will help to test the systems that will allow mankind to protect the planet from potential cosmic body impacts in the future.
MOUs & Agreements
- French oil and gas companyTotal S.A has signed an agreement of $4.8-billion (over ₹31,000 crore) with Iran to develop one of the world’s largest natural gas fields, Iran’s oil ministry announced today.
- This is Iran’s biggest foreign deal since sanctions were eased last year.
- The deal is to develop a gas field in Persian Gulf alongside China’s CNPC and Iran’s Petropars.
New Appointments
- Syndicate Bank has today appointed Melwyn Rego as its new Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Managing Director (MD).
- Rego, who assumed charge on July 1, was previously the Chief Executive Officer of Bank of India.
- Serbian Parliament today elected Ana Brnabic as the country’s Prime Minister.
- With this, Ana became Serbia’s first female and first openly gay Prime Minister.
- Carrie Lam was sworn in as the 1st female Chief Executive (CE) of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR),an autonomous territory of China on the Pearl River Delta.
- The CE of Hong Kong is the head and representative of the Hong Kong and also head of the Government of Hong Kong.
Current Sports Affairs
- Mumbai-based 18-year-old racing driver Jehan Daruvala has become the 1st Indian to win the FIA Formula 3 European Championship after winning the third race at the Nuremberg circuit today.
- Four-time FIFA World Cup winner Germany won it’s maiden FIFA Confederation Cup Football title by defeating Copa America Champion Chile by 1-0 goals in the final match held at St Petersburg, Russia.