International News Affairs
- Today (8th June) is World Oceans Day.
- This is a global day of ocean celebration and collaboration for a better future.
- This day was officially recognized by the United Nations in late 2008.
- The 2017 World Oceans Day will coincide with the The United Nations Ocean Conference.
- Theme of World Oceans Day 2017 : “Our Oceans, Our Future
- Today is World Brain Tumor Day.
- This day was initiated by German Brain Tumor Association in the year 2000.
- Aim of this Day : To spread awareness about this lethal disease.
- Voting in UK’s general election began today with Conservative Party’s Theresa May and Labour Party’s Jeremy Corbyn contesting to become Britain’s next PM.
- The vote will determine who gets to negotiate Britain’s departure from the EU over the next two years.
- The BRICS grouping has established a1 million dollar fund for boosting media cooperation.
- BRICS – Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa
National News Affairs
- The government is planning to introduce “Digital Unique Identification”, such as Aadhaar, PAN, or passport number for air travel, Union Minister Jayant Sinha announced today.
- Air travellers are already required to carry a copy of their identity while entering an airport.
- The Centre has drafted a proposal to allow mercy killing of wild animals in order to control their population and also to save crops.
- Mercy killing involves killing animals for reasons of space, lack of proper centres, resources and personnel, according to the draft of the policy.
- The plan also recommends identifying the relevant procedures for mercy killing.
- Health Secretary C K Mishra has inaugurated the ‘Vatsalya – Maatri Amrit Kosh’, a National Human Milk Bank and Lactation Counselling Centre at the Lady Hardinge Medical College (LHMC) in New Delhi.
- This centre would be the largest public sector human milk bank and lactation counselling centre available in North India
- The government has directed all colleges and universities to stop accepting students’ fees in cash and resort to digital modes from the next academic session.
- Campus canteens were “encouraged” to use the government’s BHIM payments app for all transactions.
- The Union Ministry of Law and Justice has cleared the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Karnataka Amendment) Bill 2017, and thus legalising Kambala. The bill will now be sent to the President for getting his assent.
- Kambala : This is the traditional slush track buffalo race that is held annually in coastal districts of Karnataka to entertain rural people of the area.
New Appointments
- US Air Force’s Lt Col Raja Chari has been selected by NASA from over 18,300 applicants for its 2017 Astronaut Class.
- The 39-year-old, whose father hails from India, is the 3rd Indian-origin NASA astronautafter Sunita Williams and late Kalpana Chawla.
- Flipkart-owned fashion e-tailer Myntra has appointed former Amazon and Snapdeal executive Jeyandran Venugopal as its Chief Technology Officer (CTO).
- Note : Venugopal would be Myntra’s third CTO in less than a year.
- He will replace Ajit Narayanan, who held the responsibility since September last year.
Banking, Business & Economic Affairs
- Retail giant Walmart has topped Fortune’s annual list of America’s top 500 companies for the fifth consecutive year with a revenue of $485.8 billion.
- Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway emerged at the second position on the list followed by tech giant Apple.
- Oil marketing companies will extend the new pricing mechanism for fuel across India from June 16.
- Under the new system, companies won’t wait for 15 days to adjust prices, and instead change them everyday based on crude price movements.
- This will move India to an international fuel pricing standard and prevent losses due to crude movements over a 15-day period.
- India ranked 15thin the global 4G availability list, according to OpenSignal’s State of LTE report, up nine places from its November 2016 rank of 24.
Awards & Honours
- A minor planet in the Milky Way galaxy would be named after 16-year-old Sahithi Pingalifrom Bengaluru.
- The class 12 student represented India and finished second at ISEF, world’s largest international pre-college science competition, following which MIT decided to name a planet after her.
- She had developed a mobile application which obtains data by crowdsourcing to measure pollution in lakes.
- Union Minister of Health and Family WelfareJ P Nadda has been conferred the WHO Director-General’s Special Recognition Award for global tobacco control.
- The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi has surpassed the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore, to become the top-ranked Indian institute according to Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings.
- Note : With rankings of 172 (IIT-Delhi), 179 (IIT-Bombay) and 190 (IISc), three universities have found a place in the top 200 for the first time.
Current Sports Affairs
- Indian professional tennis player Rohan Bopanna has become the 4th Indian to win a Grand Slam, winning the French Open mixed doubles along with Canadian partner Gabriela Dabrowski today.
- Forbes’ world’s highest-paid athletes list of 2017
- Footballer Cristiano Ronaldo topped the list followed by American basketball player LeBron James and Argentine footballer Lionel Messi.
- Virat Kohli (89th Spot) is the only Indian and lone cricketer in Forbes’ world’s highest-paid athletes list of 2017.
- Tennis player Serena Williams is the only woman in Forbes’ 2017 list of world’s 100 highest paid athletes.
- Top 10 in the List :
- Cristiano Ronaldo
- LeBron James
- Lionel Messi
- Roger Federer
- Kevin Durant
- Andrew Luck
- Rory McIlroy
- Stephen Curry
- James Harden
- Lewis Hamilton