Important Current Affairs 15th August 2018 

                                                      National News

Unnat Bharat Abhiyan 2.0
Higher Education Institutions of Human Resource Development Ministry under its flagship program – Unnat Bharat Abhiyan (UBA) 2.0 will participate in Gram Sabhas to be organised on the occasion of Independence Day tomorrow. 688 institutions are selected on a Challenge Mode (426 technical and 262 non- technical) which are reputed Higher Educational Institutes (both public and private) of the country, which have adopted 3555 villages for their development through UBA. IIT Delhi is also organizing 5 Gram Sabhas in its adopted village Panchayats.
Israel Opens Visa Application Centre In Kolkata

Film festival to be held on theme of “Freedom Struggle and Freedom Fighters”
 

Films Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting will hold film festival on occasion of 72nd Independence Day on the theme, “Freedom Struggle and Freedom Fighters”, on 15th August, 2018.
The festival will be inaugurated by Smt. Rama Khandwala, nonagenarian freedom fighter and Indian National Army (INA) veteran.During the festival, noteworthy documentary films on freedom struggle and freedom fighters will be screened from 10:30AM.
Nepal-India Literature Festival 2018 Begins in Birgunj 


Exim Bank Signs MoU With BRIC Development Banks

Exim Bank of India has signed a multilateral cooperation agreement with member development banks of BRICS to undertake “collaborative research” in distributed ledger/blockchain technology. The MoU signed by Exim Bank Managing Director David Rasquinha was an outcome of the discussions the member development banks had during their annual meeting, with the objective of strengthening the cooperation under the BRICS Interbank Cooperation Mechanism.

Rain water harvesting system provided by CPWD
To address the problem of depleting ground water resources, CPWD had decided for storage of the rain  water and artificial recharge of the ground water by providing rain water harvesting systems in its campuses and works to conserve and use the rain water and augment ground water resources to save it from further depletion.
CPWD played a pioneering role in promoting adoption of the Rain water harvesting/artificial recharge to ground water in the country. CPWD has so far provided about 1100 rain water harvesting systems in different locations/ areas under its jurisdiction in the country. 

Meeting Of Senior Officials Of BIMSTEC Held
I. A special meeting of Senior Officials of the Bay of Bengal Initiatives for Multi-Sectoral, Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) was held in Kathmandu today.
II. The meeting also agreed to recommend a theme "Towards a peaceful, Prosperous and Sustainable Bay of Bengal Region" for the Summit.

Nepal-India Literature Festival 2018 Begins in Birgunj 
I. Nepal-India Literature Festival 2018 has begun in Birgunj, Nepal. The festival was inaugurated by Chief Minister of Province 2 Mohammad Lalbabu Raut. The festival is aimed at strengthening Indo-Nepal ties. 
II. On this occasion, eminent writers from both the countries were also felicitated. Around 250 participants from India and Nepal attending the two-day festival.

Science and Technology

India To Launch 2nd Lunar Mission 'Chandrayaan-2'
 

India will launch its second lunar mission “Chandrayaan-2” on January 3, 2019, to land on the moon with a lander and rover. According to Indian Space Research Organisation Chairman K. Sivan, ISRO is aiming to launch the mission but the window to land on the lunar surface is open till March 2019. The 800-crore rupees is the cost of lunar mission named “Chandrayaan-2”. The 3,890-kg Chandrayaan-2, which will be launched onboard the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mk-3.

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