9 July

International News Affairs

• Speaking at the G20 summit,French President Emmanuel Macron has announced that Paris will host a summit on December 12 to address financing issues on the 2015 Paris climate agreement.
  • The summit would aim to mobilise private and public financing for the projects committed to in the Paris agreement.
• Indiais going to invite the 10 leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as Chief Guests for 2018 Republic Day celebrations.
  • If this happens, theRepublic Day 2018 would be the first Republic Day event that will have so many leaders as the chief guests.
  • Note: 10 Member Countries of ASEAN areBrunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
• TheUnited Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)  has voted to leave Australia’s Great Barrier Reef off its “List of World Heritage in Danger” despite several reports claiming major coral bleaching at the 2,300-km-long ecosystem.
  • However, the UN body expressed “serious concern” about the reef’s health.
  • The reef, which is also the largest living thing on Earth, was recently valued for the first time, at $42 billion.

National News Affairs

• Ahmadabadhas become India’s first World Heritage City after the UNESCO World Heritage Committee accepted India’s official entry at a meeting in Poland today.
  • Nearly 20 nations supported its entry, citing its architecture and secular co-existence of Jain, Islamic, and Hindu communities.
• TheUttar Pradesh government has decided to introduce an ‘Anti-Copying’ Bill in the upcoming assembly session to check for cheating in the state examinations.
• Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC)has notified of a new rule under which consumers will be compensated by power distribution companies if they don’t restore an outage for more than two to three hours.
  • The consumers will get a compensation of₹10 per kW per hour from the power distribution companies under this scheme, which comes into effect from September.
• “JIGYASA”, a student- scientist connect programme was officially launched in Delhi today.
  • Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), has joined hands with Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan (KVS) to implement this programme.
  • The main focus of this programme is on connecting school students and scientists so as to extend student’s classroom learning with that of a very well planned research laboratory based learning.

New Appointments

• Mongolia’s opposition candidate and ex-martial arts starKhaltmaa Battulga has won the country’s first-ever presidential runoff elections with around 50.6% vote.

Obituary

• Bollywood ActressSumita Sanyal (71), who worked in the 1971 Amitabh Bachchan-Rajesh Khanna starrer ‘Anand’, passed away.
  • Born as Manjula Sanyal, Sumita acted in over 50 Bengali movies and Hindi films like Guddi (1971), Aashirwad (1968), among others.

Science & Technology News

• H-Bots Robotics, a startup from Telangana’s T-Hub incubator, is developing ‘police robots’ priced at about ₹3.5 lakh.
  • The first set ofH-Bots’ robots could be deployed to manage traffic by December in Hyderabad.
  • The robots will be able to register complaints, detect bombs, and recognise missing persons.

Current Sports Affairs

Thailand’s Atthaya Thitikul has become the youngest known winner of a professional golf tour event after claiming the Ladies European Thailand Championship at the age of 14 years, 4 months and 19 days.

• Thitikul, who ended the championship with a score of -5 at the final hole, replaced Canada’s Brooke Henderson as the youngest winner in ladies’ professional golf.

• Indian athleteSudha Singh bagged Gold in women’s 3000m steeplechase event on the third day of the Asian Athletics Championships.
  • Note:India are on top of the medal tally with 7 gold, 4 silver and 9 bronze medals.
• The Indian Polo team clinched a Polo World Cup spot after defeating Pakistan 8-7 in a qualifying match in Tehran today.
  • Note: The Federation of International Polo (FIP) conducts the World Cup Polo championship, a 14-goal tournament every three years.