Today's Current Affairs - 15th October 2022

NATIONAL 

Kurdish politician Abdul Latif Rashid elected as new president of Iraq

• The Iraqi Parliament chose Kurdish politician, Abdul Latif Rashid to lead the country. Rashid won more than 160 votes against 99 for the incumbent Saleh. Rashid, 78, is a British-educated engineer and was the Iraqi minister of water resources from 2003-2010. Outgoing President Saleh reportedly walked out of the parliament building as the votes were tallied.
• Rashid was born in 1944 in the northeastern Sulaymaniyah region of Iraq. He graduated as a civil engineer from the University of Liverpool in 1968. He went on to complete his engineering doctorate in 1976 from the University of Manchester.
• Rashid has a long history in Iraqi politics. He served as the minister of water resources from 2003 to 2010 and then as the senior adviser to the President. He can speak speaks Kurdish, Arabic and English.
• Rashid is a member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) party. He was also the former spokesperson for the PUK in Britain.

About Iraq:

Capital: Baghdad

Currency: Dinar

President: Abdul Latif Rashid

Prime Minister: Mohammed Shia’ Al Sudani

 SPORTS

Rudrankksh Patil wins 10m air rifle gold at Worlds, secures Paris Olympics quota

• Rudrankksh Patil won gold in men's 10m air rifle event in the ISSF World Championship in Cairo on Friday. He is only the second Indian to achieve the feat after Olympic champion Abhinav Bindra, who had won gold in this event in 2006 in Zagreb, Croatia. This was Rurankksh's maiden appearance at a World Championship.
• Patil also secured a 2024 Paris Olympics quota for the country in the process. This was India's second Olympic quota. India had earned their first quota at the Shotgun World Championship in Croatia recently through Bhowneesh Mendiratta in the men's trap event.
• The 18-year-old Rudrankksh beat Italy's Danilo Dennis Sollazzo 17-13 in the gold medal match after a brilliant come-from-behind effort that saw him overcome a 4-10 deficit in the gold medal match. The The Italian shooter had maintained the lead for the majority of the final and had looked in control till Rurankksh's late comeback.
• The new format sees a ranking round consisting of the eight best shooters from the qualification round, after which which the top two then compete in the gold medal match. Rudrankksh had earlier topped the qualification with a score of 633.9 and was assured of the quota after he entered the gold medal match in second place in the ranking round with a score of 261.9

 SCIENCE & TEHNOLOGY

INS Arihant carries out successful launch of submarine launched ballistic missile

• INS Arihant carried out a successful launch of a Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile (SLBM) on October 14, 2022. The missile was tested to a predetermined range and impacted the target area in the Bay of Bengal with very high accuracy. All operational and technological parameters of the weapon system have been validated.
• The successful user training launch of the SLBM by INS Arihant is significant to prove crew competency and validate the SSBN programme, a key element of India’s nuclear deterrence capability. A robust, survivable and assured retaliatory capability is in keeping with India’s policy to have ‘Credible Minimum Deterrence‘ that underpins its ‘No First Use’ commitment.

 IMPORTANT DAYS

World Student’s Day 2022:15^th October

• October 15 is celebrated as World Students’ Day to commemorate the birth anniversary of Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, a celebrated Aerospace scientist and former President of India. The day is marked to acknowledge his efforts toward students and education. Dr Kalam was born on October 15, 1931. He served as an inspiration to many students to achieve and do something remarkable. After his tenure as the President came to an end, he became a visiting faculty at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) in Shillong, IIM-Indore and IIM- Ahmedabad.
• Dr APJ Abdul Kalam was a dedicated student with a deep passion to learn. Despite financial constraints, he completed his graduation in Physics and later studied Aerospace Engineering at the Madras Institute of Technology.
• He became India’s most famous nuclear scientist and was known as the ‘Missile Man of India’. He played a crucial role in the Pokhran-II nuclear tests in 1998.

 Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam Birth Anniversary:

• Avul Pakir Jainuladbeen Abdul Kalam born on 15th October 1931 was an Indian aerospace scientist and the 11th president of India. He served as the President of India from 2002 to 2007. He was known as the Missile Man of India for his works and development of ballistic missiles and launch vehicle technology.
• He has spent more than four decades serving as a scientist and science administrator at Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO) and Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). He was constantly involved in the civil space program of India and military missile development. He was also the recipient of several prestigious awards which includes Bharat Ratna.
• APJ Abdul Kalam was a man of many talents and has served the nation throughout his life. He has made efforts to improve and develop society. Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam’s contribution has pushed society to achieve its progress. Here are a few significant contributions of Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam.

 RANKING

Several IITs boycott Times Higher Education World University Rankings, IISc only entry in top 300

• Times Higher Education Rankings 2023 has been announced. This year, the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore has secured the top place among Indian universities. Five Indian universities made it into the world’s top 500 varsities. IISc has been placed under the 251-300 bracket. The complete list of the top 10 Indian Universities is enlisted below.
• In total, 22 Indian universities made it below rank 800 – three of which were debutant entries. DTU, Graphic Era University, IIT Indore, IIIT, Delhi, Jamia Hamdard University, JNU, Kalasalingam Academy of Research and Education, and KIIT University also have been put under the 601-800 bracket.

Check the top 10 Indian universities:

 Bracket Name of the Institute

1. 251-300 IISc
2. 351-400 JSS Academy of Higher Education and Research
3. 351-400 Shoolini University of Biotechnology and Management Sciences
4. 401-500 Alagappa University
5. 401-500 Mahatma Gandhi University
6. 501-600 IIT Ropar
7. 501-600 International Institute of Information Technology Hyderabad
8. 501-600 Jamia Millia Islamia
9. 501-600 Saveetha Institute of Medical and Technical Sciences
10. 601-800 Banaras Hindu University (BHU)

Global Hunger Index 2022: India slips six places, ranked 107 of 121 countries

• India ranks 107 out of 121 countries on the Global Hunger Index in which it fares worse than all countries in South Asia barring war-torn Afghanistan. India’s score of 29.1 places it in the ‘serious’ category. India also ranks below Sri Lanka (64), Nepal (81), Bangladesh (84), and Pakistan (99). Afghanistan (109) is the only country in South Asia that performs worse than India on the index.
• China is among the countries collectively ranked between 1 and 17 having a score of less than five. India’s child wasting rate (low weight for height), at 19.3%, is worse than the levels recorded in 2014 (15.1%) and even 2000 (17.15%), and is the highest for any country in the world and drives up the region’s average owing to India’s large population.
• India’s GHI score has decreased from a 2000 GHI score of 38.8 points, considered alarming, to a 2022 GHI score of 29.1, considered serious.
• India’s proportion of undernourished in the population is considered to be at a medium level, and its under-five child mortality rate is considered low.

 

Rank in 2022       Country                    Score

1-17                      Belarus                        <5

1-17            Bosnia & Herzegovina           <5

1-17                       Chile                           <5

1-17                      China                           <5

1-17                     Croatia                          <5

1-17                      Estonia                         <5

1-17                      Hungary                       <5

1-17                      Kuwait                         <5

1-17                     Latvia                            <5

1-17                     Lithuania                       <5

 

69% drop in wildlife population globally in 50 years: Living Planet Report 2022

• There has been a 69 per cent decline in the wildlife populations of mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and fish, across the globe in the last 50 years, according to the latest Living Planet Report by World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).
• Biodiversity loss and climate crisis should be dealt with as one instead of two different issues as they are intertwined, the international wildlife conservation organisation said in the report, highlighting the link between the two issues for the first time. The highest decline (94 per cent) was in the Latin America and the Caribbean region, the report released October 13, 2022 showed. Africa recorded a 66 per cent fall in its wildlife populations from 1970-2018 and the Asia Pacific 55 per cent, according to the WWF report. Freshwater species populations globally reduced by 83 per cent, confirming that the planet is experiencing a “biodiversity and climate crisis”, the organisation found. Habitat loss and barriers to migration routes were responsible for about half of the threats to monitored migratory fish species, it noted.
• WWF identified six key threats to biodiversity — agriculture, hunting, logging, pollution, invasive species and climate change — to highlight ‘threat hotspots’ for terrestrial vertebrates.
• The Living Planet Index (LPI), featuring about 32,000 populations of 5,230 species across the world, showed that vertebrate wildlife populations are plummeting at a particularly staggering rate in tropical regions of the world. Mangroves continue to be lost to aquaculture, agriculture and coastal development at a rate of 0.13 per cent per year, according to the findings.

 BANKING AND ECONOMY

Sebi issues guidelines for inter-operable regulatory sandbox

• Financial products or service providers whose business models fall within the remit of more than one financial sector regulator such as Reserve Bank of India (RBI), Sebi, IRDAI (Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India), PFRDA (Pension Fund Regulatory & Development Authority) and IFSCA (International Financial Services Centres Authority) will be considered for the testing under Inter-operable Regulatory Sandbox (IoRS).
• “To obviate the need of innovators, to engage with different regulators regarding their hybrid product, a common window has been made available,” the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) said in a press release.
• IoRS has been prepared by the Inter-Regulatory Technical Group (IRTG) on FinTech. The group was constituted under the aegis of the Financial Stability and Development Council-Sub Committee (FSDC-SC). The group, in addition to the members from financial sector regulators, has representation from the Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.

IIP witnesses contraction of 0.8% in August against growth of 2.4% in July

• India’s industrial production slipped to an 18-month low, contracting by 0.8 per cent in August, mainly due to a decline in output of the manufacturing and mining sectors, according to official data. The data showed that the previous low in industrial output growth was a contraction of 3.2 per cent in February 2021.
• Index of Industrial Production (IIP) is an index which details out the growth of various sectors in the economy. The Eight Core Industries comprise more than 40 percent of the weight of items included in IIP. These are Electricity, steel, refinery products, crude oil, coal, cement, natural gas and fertilisers.
• It is compiled and published monthly by the National Statistical Office (NSO), Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation.
• The previous low in industrial output growth was a contraction of 3.2 per cent in February 2021. Factory output, measured in terms of the IIP, had expanded by 13 per cent in August 2021. The IIP grew by 2.2 per cent in July this year. The data released by the Statistics and Programme Implementation Ministry showed that for the month of August 2022.
• Capital goods output, which is a barometer of investments, rose five per cent in August 2022 compared to 20 per cent growth in the year-ago month.