Top Current Affairs of the week (3 Feb - 9 Feb 2019)

1. World Cancer day being

• The world cancer day was observed on 4th February every year to raise awareness about cancer, its treatment and to encourage methods of its prevention.
• The primary goal of the day is to reduce the illness and related deaths by 2020.
• This year, Union for International Cancer Control (UICC) is launching a new three years (2019-2021) campaign with the theme: “I Am and I Will.”
• The Union Government has started AMRIT scheme in order to provide relief to poor people from the rising cost of Cancer drugs.

Related Information

Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body

2. 4th Feb: Sri Lanka celebrates 71st Independence Day

• Sri Lanka celebrated the 71st Independence Day in a grand ceremony at the Galle Face Green in Colombo.
• Maldives President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih attended the function as the guest of honour.

Related Information

• Ending 133 years of colonial rule, Sri Lanka, then Ceylon, gained independence from Great Britain on 4th February 1948.
• Sri Lanka (officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka) is an island country in South Asia, located southeast of India and northeast of the Maldives.

3. CJI Ranjan Gogoi inaugurates Andhra Pradesh High Court

• The Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogai has inaugurated the new two-storied building of Andhra Pradesh High Court at Nelapadu in Amaravathy.
• Amaravati region has 16 court halls and the building costing Rs 150 Crore houses a 2.70 lakh square feet office space.
• Now, Andhra Pradesh is getting its own court four and half years after the state bifurcation.

4. ISRO launches GSAT-31 from French Guiana

• India’s communication satellite GSAT-31 has been launched successfully on 6th Feb 2019 from Kourou Launch Base, French Guiana (at Indian time- 2:31 am).
• The Ariane-5 (VA 247) rocket placed it in the intended Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit in 42-minutes.
• It was immediately taken control by Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) scientists from its Hassan facility in Karnataka.
• GSAT-31 (India’s 40th communication satellite) will provide transponder capacity for DTH television and connectivity to services like VSATs for ATMs, stock-exchanges, Digital Satellite News Gathering DSNG and e-governance applications.
• GSAT-31 had a lift-off mass of 2536 kg and operational life of over fifteen years.
• The satellite will also be used for bulk data transfer for a host of emerging telecommunication applications.

5. 6th February: International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation

• International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is a United Nations-sponsored annual awareness day that takes place on 6th February as part of the UN's efforts to eradicate female genital mutilation.
• Female genital mutilation (FGM) comprises all procedures that involve altering or injuring the female genitalia for non-medical reasons.
• It is recognized internationally as a violation of the human rights of girls and women.

6. Indus River dolphin declared as state aquatic animal of Punjab

• Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh has declared the endangered Indus River dolphin as the state aquatic animal.
• Dolphin mostly found in the lower parts of the Indus River in Pakistan between Chashma and Kotri barrages in the Indus River.
• As per the WWF report, the number of dolphins presently is 1816.
• Punjab has Black Buck as its state animal and Baaj as the official state bird.

7. President Kovind to confer Sangeet Natak Akademi Awards

• President Ram Nath Kovind has given the prestigious Sangeet Natak Akademi Awards 2017 at Rashtrapati Bhawan.
• Forty-two artists from the fields of Music, Dance and Theatre has been awarded.
• In the field of Music, eleven eminent artists have been selected, while nine artists each from Dance and Theatre have been chosen for the award.
• Ten artists will be awarded in the category of Traditional, Folk and Tribal Music.
• Two people have also been selected for the award in the field of Overall Contribution in the Performing Arts.

Related Information

• The Akademi Award (established in 1952,) not only symbolizes the highest standards of excellence and achievements but also recognizes sustained individual work and contribution.
• The award carries a cash prize of one lakh rupees, a Tamrapatra and Angavastram.

8. RBI cuts repo rate by 25 basis points to 6.25%

• The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) decided to reduce the key policy rate or the repo rate by 25 bps to 6.25% in bimonthly policy review of 2018-19.
• The three-day policy review meeting by the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) began headed by RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das in Mumbai.
• Reduce the policy repo rate under the liquidity adjustment facility (LAF) by 25 basis points from 6.5% to 6.25% with immediate effect.
• The reverse repo rate under the LAF stands adjusted to 6.0 per cent.
• The marginal standing facility (MSF) rate and the Bank Rate to 6.5 per cent.

Current Policy Rates:

9. Macedonia signs accord to join NATO

• Macedonia formally signed an agreement to join NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization) to become the 30th member of the US-led alliance.
• According to Macedonia’s Foreign Minister Nikola Dimitrov, the country will never walk alone once in the alliance.
• The admittance of a new member highlighted that all European nations who meet the entrance criteria could join the regional alliance.
• The Macedonia-NATO accord follows a deal with Greece ending a 27-year-old dispute over Macedonia's name.
• The most recent member state to be added to NATO is Montenegro on 5th June 2017.

Related Information

• The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is an intergovernmental military alliance between 29 North American and European countries.
• NATO constitutes a system of collective defence for its independent members' states agree to mutual defence in response to an attack by any external party.
• NATO’s Headquarters located in Haren, Brussels Belgium.

10. Arunachal's Nyishi tribe celebrates Boori Boot Yollo festival

• The Nyishi tribe of Arunachal Pradesh is celebrating its Boori Boot Yollo festival (52nd) to welcome spring and a successful harvest.
• Boori Boot Yollo is observed every year in the month of February.
• The festival witnessed the grand display of Punu/Jajin and Boori Yapa dance.

11. Vidarbha grab second successive Ranji Trophy Title 2018

• Vidarbha defeated Saurashtra by 78 runs to retain the Ranji Trophy 2018-19 edition (85th season) at the Vidarbha Cricket Association in Nagpur.
• Left-arm spinner Aditya Sarwate (Vidarbha), with eleven wickets in the match to steer Vidarbha to domestic glory.
• The Ranji Trophy is a domestic first-class cricket championship played in India between teams representing regional and state cricket associations.

Here are the details of the scores:

• Vidarbha: 312-10 (120.2) & 200-10 (92.5).
• Saurashtra:  307-10 (117) & 127-10 (58.4)

Related Information

• The competition currently consists of 37 teams, with all 29 states in India and two of the seven union territories having at least one representation.
• The competition is named after first Indian cricketer who played international cricket, Ranjitsinhji, who was also known as 'Ranji'.

12. World Wetlands Day 2019: “Wetlands and Climate Change”

• World Wetlands Day was celebrated on February 2nd with the theme of “Wetlands and Climate Change”.
• It is celebrated on 2 February 1971 to commemorate the signing of the Convention on Wetlands, called the Ramsar Convention at the Iranian city of Ramsar on the shores of the Caspian Sea.
• The two-fold objectives of the Ramsar Convention are Conservation and sustainable utilization of wetlands and stop the encroachment and loss of wetlands.

Wetlands

• Wetlands are areas of marsh or peatland with water that is static or flowing, fresh, brackish or saline, including areas of marine water.
• These are transition zones between terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. E.g. Mangroves, lake littorals (marginal areas between highest and lowest water level of the lakes), floodplains (areas lying adjacent to the river channels beyond the natural levees and periodically flooded during high discharge in the river) and other marshy or swampy areas.
• Waterlogged soil, adapted plant life (hydrophytes) and hydric soils (not enough O2) are the chief characteristics of wetlands.
• India has totally 27,403 square km wetlands, of which 23,444 square km are inland wetlands and 3,959 square km are coastal wetlands.
• Wetlands occupy 18.4% of the country’s area of which 70% are under paddy cultivation.

13. Russia racing to develop new missile systems to counter the US by 2021

• Russia announced that it is planning to develop two new land-based missile launch systems in response to President Trump’s announcement that the U.S. will withdraw from a landmark nuclear weapons treaty.
• Moscow intends to develop the systems by 2021 in order to counter U.S. developments in its missile capabilities.
• The U.S. and others in the international community have accused Russia of violating the treaty, which prohibits nuclear and conventional ground-launched missiles with ranges between 300 to 3,400 miles from being deployed in Europe, since 2014.

Related Information

Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty

• The INF Treaty was signed in 1987 between US President Ronald Reagan and USSR President Mikhail Gorbachev.
• The treaty aimed to end arms race between USA and USSR during the cold war and to ensure some strategic stability in Europe.
• The INF treaty banned the development, testing and possession of short and medium-range ground-launched nuclear missiles having ranger between 500-5,000 km.
• And also, all the nuclear and conventional missiles, as well as their launchers, with ranges of 500–1,000 km or (short-range) and 1,000–5,500 km (intermediate-range) were banned under this treaty.
• The Treaty proved to be a potent deterrent against any full-scale nuclear war in Europe.

New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty)

• It is a nuclear arms reduction treaty between the United States and the Russian Federation with the formal name of Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms.
• It was signed on 8 April 2010 in Prague, and, after ratification, entered into force on 5 February 2011.
• It is expected to last at least until 2021.
• New START replaced the Treaty of Moscow (SORT), which was due to expire in December 2012.
• Under terms of the treaty, the number of strategic nuclear missile launchers will be reduced by half.
• A new inspection and verification regime will be established, replacing the SORT mechanism.
• It does not limit the number of operationally inactive stockpiled nuclear warheads that remain in the high thousands in both the Russian and American inventories.

14. NASA Discovers Dwarf Galaxy

• NASA’s Hubble telescope has discovered a dwarf galaxy in the neighbourhood of Milky Way galaxy.
• The dwarf galaxy has been nicknamed as ‘Bedin 1’ by the astronomers.
• It is a modestly sized, elongated galaxy.
• It measures only around 3000 light-years at its greatest extent which is a fraction of the size of the Milky Way.
• “Dwarf galaxies” is a general term for galaxies that are faint and small in size and have low-luminosity, lack of dust and old stellar populations.
• The dwarf galaxy is discovered only 30 million light years away within the globular cluster NGC 6752.

Significance

• From the properties of its stars, scientists are able to infer that the galaxy is around 13 billion years old — nearly as old as the Universe itself.
• Due to its isolation, Bedin 1 is will be helpful in understanding the early Universe.

Globular Cluster:

• A Globular cluster is a large group of old stars that are closely packed in a symmetrical and somewhat spherical form.
• Globular clusters are extremely luminous objects and may contain thousands to millions of stars.

Related Information

NASA's Great Observatories

(a) Hubble Space Telescope

• The first element of the program - and arguably the best known -- is the Hubble Space Telescope (HST).
• The Hubble telescope was deployed by a NASA Space Shuttle in 1990.
• It was built by NASA, with contributions from the European Space Agency.

(b) The Compton Gamma Ray Observatory (CGRO)

• It was the second of NASA's Great Observatories.
• This mission collected data on some of the most violent physical processes in the Universe, characterized by their extremely high energies.

(c) Chandra X-ray Observatory

• The third member of the Great Observatory family.
• This observatory is observing such objects as black holes, quasars, and high-temperature gases throughout the x-ray portion of the EM spectrum.

(d) Spitzer Space Telescope

• The Spitzer Space Telescope represents the fourth and final element in NASA's Great Observatory program.
• Spitzer fills in an important gap in wavelength coverage not available from the ground-the thermal infrared.

15. MoU between India and Norway on India-Norway Ocean Dialogue

• The Union Cabinet has approved the MoU between India and Norway on India-Norway Ocean Dialogue.

Benefits:

• The MoU will promote cooperation in the areas of mutual interest pertaining to the development of blue economy.
• Norway is a global leader in the area of Blue Economy and has cutting-edge technologies and expertise in areas such as fisheries, hydrocarbons, renewable energy, sustainable harnessing of ocean resources and maritime transport.
• The proposed MoU will contribute in:
  (a) Creating opportunities for collaboration in areas such as exploitation of hydrocarbons and other marine resources,
  (b) Management of ports
  (c) Tourism development
  (d) contribute to the objective of Food Security through the infusion of new technologies in fisheries and aquaculture.

16. First career portal for students launched in Rajasthan

• India’s first “career portal”, addressing the needs of secondary and higher secondary students for information on scholarships and career choices, was launched with the support of the United Nations Children’s Fund.

Benefit

• The portal would promote employment-oriented education in the State and provide information on 200 vocational and 237 professional careers, 455 employment avenues, 960 scholarships, 955 competitive examinations and 10,000 institutions of higher education to the students from Classes IX to XII.
• It will also help to reveal substantial progress in terms of gender equality among the students.
• It will serve the needs in the educational stream, enabling the students to choose their career path matching with their aspirations, interest, inclination and aptitude.

Why Rajasthan?

• UNICEF had selected Rajasthan for launching the portal because of its track record in employment-oriented education.
• UNICEF’s studies in Rajasthan have highlighted that two largest sources of career information for students are teachers and family members.
• About 69% of students mentioned that they were using the Internet for their career-related queries, which indicates that the adolescents will quickly learn to use the career portal.

17. Cabinet approves unified regulator for IFSCs

• The Cabinet has approved the setting up of a unified authority that would regulate all the financial services in International Financial Services Centres (IFSC), such as the Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT) in Gandhinagar.
• This is to be done through the International Financial Services Centres Authority Bill, 2019.
• Currently, the banking, capital markets and insurance sectors in IFSCs are regulated by multiple regulators, i.e. RBI, SEBI and IRDAI.

Related Information

What is an IFSC?

• An IFSC is aimed at encouraging Indian companies that are conducting business in foreign financial centres such as London and Singapore, to bring that business to India by providing them with a global-standard regulatory and business environment.
• An IFSC caters to customers outside the jurisdiction of the domestic economy. Such centres deal with flows of finance, financial products and services across borders.
• IFSC would also complement and promote further development of financial markets in India.

18. RBI unlikely to transfer contingency fund to govt.

• RBI is unlikely to give in to the government’s demand for transferring funds that were set aside for contingency reserves in 2016-17 and 2017-18.
• A total of ₹27,330 crore — ₹13,140 crore in FY17 and ₹14,190 crore in FY18 — was set aside by the RBI for the contingency fund.
• The government has requested the RBI for providing an interim surplus for the financial year 2018-19 on the analogy of previous financial year and transfer of the amount withheld from the surplus of 2016-17 and 2017-18.

Related Information

Contingency fund

• A contingencies fund or contingency fund is a fund for emergencies or unexpected outflows, mainly economic crises.

Contingency fund with respect to India

• The Constitution of India authorized the parliament to establish a contingency fund of India.
• The Contingency Fund of India is established under Article 267 of the Indian Constitution.
• It is in the nature of an imprest (money maintained for a specific purpose). Accordingly, Parliament enacted the contingency fund of India Act 1950.
• The fund is held by the Finance Secretary (Department of Economic Affairs) on behalf of the President of India and it can be operated by executive action.
• The Contingency Fund of India exists for disasters and related unforeseen expenditures.

Contingency fund for States

• Contingency Fund of each State Government is established under Article 266 of the Constitution.
• This is in the nature of an imprest placed at the disposal of the Governor to enable him/her to make advances to meet urgent unforeseen expenditure, pending authorization by the State Legislature.
• Approval of the Legislature for such expenditure and for withdrawal of an equivalent amount from the Consolidated Fund is subsequently obtained, whereupon the advances from the Contingency Fund are recouped to the Fund.

19. Disaster Resilience Exercise: EXERCISE RAHAT

• ‘EXERCISE RAHAT’ is Joint Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief Exercise.
• The Joint exercise in coordination with NDMA is being conducted to synergise efforts for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief operations.
• Representatives from Armed Forces, National Disaster Management Response Mechanism (NDMRM), and SDMA Rajasthan will be participating in the exercise.

20. Britain, France and UK create a firm "Instex" to trade with Iran

• Three major European allies introduced a financial mechanism a new company, called Instex, for Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges, would essentially allow goods to be bartered between Iranian companies and foreign ones without direct financial transactions or using the dollar.
• Instex, which was registered in France and is known technically as a special-purpose vehicle, will be financed jointly by the three countries and run by a German banker.

Related Information

• After President Trump pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal and reimposed punitive banking sanctions last year, European leaders vowed to find a way to enable Tehran to keep doing business with the rest of the world.
• The European countries- Britain, France and Germany- were all signatories to the Iran deal in 2015, as was the US under President Obama. The Europeans, along with Russia and China, who were also signatories, have all vowed to keep to the terms of the agreement, which was intended to ensure that Iran could not build a nuclear weapon.

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