27 October 2018 - Daily Current Affairs

27 October 2018 - Daily Current Affairs

1. Sahle-Work Zewde becomes Ethiopia's first female president

• Ethiopian members of parliament have elected Sahle-Work Zewde as the country's first female president.
• She will replace Mulatu Teshome who resigned in unclear circumstances.
• After being sworn in, President Sahle-Work promised to work hard to make gender equality a reality in Ethiopia.
• Prior to her appointment, Sahle-Work served as both the special representative of the United Nations' secretary-general and the head of the UN office to the African Union.
• Born in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, Sahle-Work studied in France and is fluent in English, French, and Amharic - Ethiopia's main language.

Source: Aljazeera

2. Mahinda Rajapaksa becomes new Prime Minister of Sri Lanka

• In Sri Lanka, the political turmoil continues after President Maithripala Sirisena appointed former President Mahinda Rajapaksa as new Prime minister.
• President Maithripala Sirisena sacked premier Ranil Wickremesinghe who termed the move as “unconstitutional” and vowed to prove his majority in Parliament.
• After Rajapaksa took an oath, Sirisena wrote to Wickremesinghe, saying he had been removed.
• In a related development, the United States and Britain have urged Sri Lanka to act according to the Constitution and also and follow due process.

Source: DD News

3. IRS officer Sanjay Kumar Mishra appointed as ED chief

• The government has appointed Indian Revenue Service officer Sanjay Kumar Mishra as Enforcement Directorate chief.
• He will replace current ED director Karnal Singh’s whose term ended on 25^th Oct 2018.
• Singh, a 1984-batch IPS officer of Union Territories cadre, will complete an over three-year tenure as the ED Director.
• The ED enforces two major laws in the country to check black money — the criminal Prevention of Money Laundering Act and the Foreign Exchange Management Act.

Source: The Hindu Business line  

Honors & Awards

4. Corp Bank bags MSME award

• Corporation Bank has bagged the ‘Best MSME Bank - Winner 2018’ award instituted by the Assocham.
• The ‘6th Assocham SMEs Excellence Award – 2018’ was held in New Delhi.
• Shivanand Hebbar, DGM, received the award from Chief Minister of Meghalaya Conrad K Sangma.
• The award was conferred based on the bank’s performance in SME (small and medium enterprise) segment.

Source: The Hindu

5. Pak lawyer Asma Jahangir wins UN Human Rights Prize posthumously

• Pakistan's human rights activist and lawyer Asma Jahangir has been posthumously awarded the UN Prize along with three other winners.
• Rebeca Gyumi of Tanzania, Brazil's first indigenous lawyer Joenia Wapichana and Ireland's human rights organization Front Line Defenders are the other winners of the prize.
• The United Nations Prize in the Field of Human Rights is an honorary award given for outstanding achievement in human rights.
• The award ceremony will take place on December 10 on World Human Rights Day in New York.
• Before Jahangir three Pakistani women, Begum Ra'ana Liaquat Ali Khan, Benazir Bhutto and Malala Yousufzai have been accorded the honor.

Source: DD News

6. Malayalam author Benyamin’s 'Jasmine Days' wins first JCB Prize for literature

• Malayalam author Benyamin has bagged the inaugural JCB Prize for literature for his book 'Jasmine Days', which explores the lives of South Asians in the Middle East.
• 'Jasmine Days', his second book, tells the story of a young woman in a city where the promise of revolution turns into destruction and division.
• It revolves around the Jasmine Revolution that sprang up in December 2010 and was quelled by January 2011.
• Benyamin was awarded a cash prize of ₹25 lakh, along with a magnificent trophy.

Source: The Hindu

7. Young Indian scientist wins World Health Summit Startup award in Berlin

• Roopam Sharma, a 23-year old Indian scientist, won the World Health Summit Startup award, 2018 for his invention, Manovue – the world’s first intelligent personal assisting system for the visually impaired.
• He was awarded at an annual event of the health summit in Berlin.
• Manovue eliminates the need for Braille language to decipher a printed text and instead combines vision intelligence to help the visually impaired people read.
• Manovue was also awarded the Microsoft Imagine Cup 2015 and Yahoo Accenture Innovation Jockeys season 4.
• Roopam is also listed in the UNESCO Youth forum and Innovators under 35.
• He is known for his socially viable innovations that combine artificial intelligence.
• An engineering alumnus of Manav Rachna, Roopam was conferred with the National Youth Award by the President of India in January this year.

Source: The Indian Express

National Affairs

8. PM Modi embarks on a 3-day visit to Japan to attend Annual Bilateral Summit

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi today embarked on a three-day visit to Japan.
• PM Modi will attend the 13th India-Japan Annual summit with his counterpart Mr. Shinzo Abe.
• This will be the fifth Annual Summit meeting between Mr. Modi and Mr. Abe and their 12th meeting overall.
• Apart from attending the summit, Mr. Modi will visit the Robotics and Automation firm FANUC in Yamanashi and meet business leaders.
• He will be showcasing India as an attractive investment destination to the Japanese investors and address a “Make-in-India” event in Tokyo.

Source: DD News

9. Virtusa partners with BIAN to develop API exchange

• Nasdaq listed Virtusa, a global provider of digital strategy, digital engineering, and IT outsourcing services announced its collaboration with the Banking Industry Architecture Network (BIAN) to launch API Exchange.
• The exchange currently features over 65 standardized API definitions that allow banks to reduce the complexity of building and delivering open banking capabilities by providing clear guidance on how to implement innovative and intuitive digital services across both back-end and customer-facing functions.
• The BIAN API Exchange was built on Virtusa’s Open Innovation Platform and features gamification to boost the right community behaviors.
• Further, the API Exchange will allow banks to modernize their critical legacy infrastructure and adopt standardized frameworks to facilitate more open and easy collaboration with FinTechs and RegTechs.

Source: The Hindu Business line

10. Hyundai tops in after-sales customer satisfaction survey: Study

• Hyundai Motor India has topped the after-sales customer satisfaction survey among mass market brands, according to global market research firm JD Power.
• Hyundai, the country's second-largest car seller, scored the highest 912 points in after-sales customer satisfaction survey, the JD Power 2018 India Customer Service Index (Mass Market) Study said.
• Tata Motors was ranked second with a score of 874 points followed by Mahindra & Mahindra at the third position with a score of 865.
• Ford with a score of 829 points was placed fourth followed by Toyota at fifth with 827 points. Car market leader Maruti Suzuki India stood at the eight positions with a score of 804.
• The study measures overall satisfaction in five factors service quality, vehicle pick-up, service advisor, service facility and service initiation.

Source: The Economic Times  

Conference & Meeting

11. Dr. Jitendra Singh inaugurates 10th Nuclear Energy Conclave in New Delhi

• The Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER) inaugurated 10th Nuclear Energy Conclave in New Delhi.
• He said that the Cabinet has given its approval for construction of 10 units of India’s indigenous Pressurized Heavy Water Reactors (PHWR).
• He also informed the audience about the “Hall of Nuclear Power”- India’s first permanent exhibition on nuclear power has been built in the national capital.
• He announced that the Kaiga Atomic Power Station (KAPS) has set a new world record among pressurized heavy water reactors (PHWRs) with one of its units operating uninterrupted for 895 days

Source: PIB

12. President of India inaugurates International Arya Mahasammelan-2018 in Delhi

• The President of India, Shri Ram Nath Kovind, inaugurated the International Arya Mahasammelan – 2018 in Delhi.
• The President noted that around 10,000 units of Arya Samaj are engaged in welfare activities across the world.
• The President said that we will be celebrating a 200th birth anniversary of Swami Dayanand Saraswati in 2024. We will also celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Arya Samaj in 2025.
• Swami Dayanand Saraswati had worked for the eradication of discrimination in society on the basis of caste, creed, and sect and motivated everyone to become Arya – that is - the best. It is our duty to take the work of Swami Dayanand Saraswati further.

Source: PIB

Schemes

13. Union HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar launched a web portal of ‘IMPRESS’ scheme

• With an aim to build a research ecosystem in educational institutions, Union HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar launched the web portal of ‘IMPRESS’ scheme.
• IMPRESS stands for - Impactful Policy Research in Social Sciences.
• The aim of the scheme is to identify and fund research proposals in social sciences with maximum impact on the governance and society.
• The scheme will be implemented at a total cost of Rs. 414 crore by March 2021.
• Under IMPRESS, 1,500 research projects will be awarded for two years to support social science research in higher educational institutions.
• The Indian Council of Social Science and Research (ICSSR) will be the project implementing agency.

Source: PIB

Important Dates

14. World Day for Audiovisual Heritage Observed today

• The World Day for Audiovisual Heritage, observed by the United Nations on October 27, recognizes the need to preserve audio-visual links to the past.
• The General Conference of UNESCO approved the commemoration of a World Day for Audiovisual Heritage in 2005 as a mechanism to raise general awareness of the need to preserve and safeguard important audiovisual material for future generations.
• Audiovisual documents, such as films, radio and television programmes, are our common heritage and contain the primary records of the history of the 20th and 21st centuries.

Source: UN

Sports

15. Sourav Kothari wins World Billiards C’ship

• India's Sourav Kothari defeated Peter Gilchrist of Singapore by 1134-944 to clinch the 2018 World Billiards Championship title at Leeds in UK.
• The former national and Asian Billiards champion Kothari was pipped at the post for the coveted World Billiards crown on two occasions in the last two years, including a loss to Gilchrist in 2016 final in Bengaluru.

Source: DD News