Important Current Affairs 19th September 2017

Important Current Affairs 19th September 2017

Current Affairs 19th September 2017: NATIONAL NEWS

Vice President releases Commemorative Coin on Dr. M.S. Subbulakshmi 

The Vice President of India Shri M. Venkaiah Naidu released a Commemorative Coin on Bharat Ratna Dr. M.S. Subbulakshmi and inaugurated an exhibition entitled “Kurai Onrum Illai-MS: Life in Music” on the occasion of Birth Centenary Commemoration of Dr. M.S. Subbulakshmi here today. 
●    Minister of State (Independent charge) for Culture Dr. Mahesh Sharma was the Guest of Honour.
●    Addressing on the occasion, the Vice President said that Dr. M.S. Subbulakshmi was a legendary and iconic figure who mesmerized everyone from Mahatma Gandhi to common man. 
●    India is a land of rich cultural heritage with music in diverse genres representing the truly myriad mosaic of plurality. 
●    He further said that what defines India is this rich heritage of music and its unifying role in bringing people together cutting across religions, regions, castes and communities.
●    He said that the roots of Indian music can be traced to Vedic literature, Sama Veda in particular and as such every note and cadence associated with our ancient music systems have to be preserved and propagated. 
●    He further said that this is our bounden duty to see such cultural heritage is preserved which is given to us by our forefathers and pass it on to the next generation.

Army takes Swachch Bharat Abhiyan to the Highest Battle Field

Siachen, the highest battlefield in the world, is a place where everything is ferried from the hinterland. 
●    It is a logistics challenge to move all types of waste out of the glacier so that these do not become environmental hazard.
●    Since October 2014, when Swachch Bharat Abhiyan commenced, Siachen troops have removed and sent back more than 63 tons of garbage to the Base. 
●    These loads of garbage include packing material, barrels and perishables. 
●    On arrival of the trash to disposal areas, these are buried in deep trenches dug mechanically in areas which are not on run of the rivers and where landmass is not fragile.
●    A huge amount of garbage has been brought back through man-pack loads, porters, ponies and sometimes returning helicopter ferries. 
●    Army continues to take steps to ensure hygiene at the highest battle field as hither to fore.

Dr Jitendra Singh to inaugurate first ‘Pension Adalat’ tomorrow 

The Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Development of North-Eastern Region (DoNER), MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh will inaugurate the first ‘Pension Adalat’ here tomorrow. 
●    He will also award the Pensioners for their outstanding contribution towards ‘Anubhav’ – a platform for retiring employees for sharing their experience of working with Government. 
●    Moving ahead from e-governance to m-governance, a Mobile App has been created to avail the services of Pensioners’ Portal which will also be launched by Dr Jitendra Singh tomorrow. 
●    As a measure of welfare to the pensioners of Government of India, a workshop on Pre-Retirement Counseling (PRC) of 300 retiring Central Government employees is also scheduled to be held. 
●    The event is being organized by Department of Pension & Pensioners’ Welfare, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Government of India. 
●    The objective of this workshop is to create awareness about the post-retirement entitlements as well as an advance planning for life after retirement. 

Petroleum Minister co-chair 13th Inter-Governmental Commission meeting at Astana, Kazakhstan 

Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas and Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, Shri Dharmendra Pradhan will be visiting Astana, Kazakhstan from 19 - 20 September 2017 to co-chair the 13th Meeting of Inter-Governmental Commission (IGC) with Kazakhstan. 
●    Mr Kanat Bozumbayev, Minister of Energy of Kazakhstan will co-chair the meeting from Kazakhstan side.
●    The IGC meeting aims to follow up on the agenda set between India and Kazakhstan during the two visits of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi to Kazakhstan in July 2015 and June 2017.
●    During his visit, Shri Pradhan is scheduled to discuss various issues and ideas for stepping up the cooperation in energy sector, trade, economic, investment, transport & connectivity, agriculture, information technology, space, health care and cultural spheres between the two countries with his counterpart. 
●    The two sides are also expected to finalize a strategy and roadmap for expanding trade, economic and investment cooperation between the two countries.

First ever National Conference on “Mission Mode to address Under-Nutrition” held in New Delhi

The first ever National Conference on "Mission Mode to address Under-Nutrition" was successfully held in New Delhi today. 
●    The conference was inaugurated by the Minster of Women & Child Development, Smt Maneka Sanjay Gandhi in the presence of Minister of State for Women & Child Development, Dr. Virendra Kuamr. 
●    The CEO, NITI Aayog, Shri Amitabh Kant, Secretary, Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation, Shri Parameswaran Iyer; Secretary, Ministry of Women and Child Development, Shri Rakesh Srivastava and Additional Secretary, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Shri Manoj Jhalani also addressed the participants. 
●    The conference was organized by the Ministry of Women & Child Development in collaboration with Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation and Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, keeping in mind the goal of “Mission Malnutrition Free India-2022”.
●    Speaking on the occasion, Smt Maneka Sanjay Gandhi said that after the resounding success of Prime Minister Narendra Modi Ji’s Beti Bachao Beti Padhao programme, the WCD Ministry is now targeting malnutrition. 
●    For this, there is urgent need to improve the quality of supplementary nutrition and also make the delivery system efficient, she added. 
●    Smt Maneka Gandhi said that we must provide 1000 calories to women and 600 calories to children under ICDS. 
●    The focus of the entire programme should be to administer nutrition rather than feeding beneficiaries by giving "Nutrient Dense Food". 
●    A change in policy is required to implement this, the Minister said. 

Sixth India Minerals and Metals Forum focuses on Indian Steel Industry Roadmap upto 2025 and mining, production demand and delivery

The sixth India Minerals and Metals Forum organised by the Indian Chamber of Commerce (ICC) of Kolkata gets underway in New Delhi tomorrow. 
●    The Steel Minister Chaudhary Birender Singh will inaugurate it.
●    The discussion in the seminar focuses on Indian steel industry looking up to 2025; mining, production demand and delivery; Innovative applications for a future ready non- ferrous ecosystem; and Metals industry outlook– present challenges and future prospects. 
●    The Indian steel sector has grown rapidly over the past few years and presently it is the third largest steel producer globally, contributing to about 2% of the country's GDP. India has also crossed 100 MT mark for production for sale.
●    India is seen as a “bright spot” for the global steel production growth on account of the government’s push to augment capacity and demand from the construction, automotive and infrastructure sectors. 
●    The government has been spearheading growth in steel production capacity, with upgrades being made to existing steel manufacturing units and state-owned companies stepping in to build new steel plants.
●    The Cabinet approved the National steel policy 2017 that envisages Rs. 10 lakh crore investment to create more capacity in the steel sector. 

TRAI reduced IUC fee 

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) on Tuesday more than halved the so-called interconnect usage charge (IUC) to six paise with effect from 1 October and abolished it altogether for all local calls starting 1 January 2020, dealing a big blow to older telecom firms, such as Bharti Airtel Ltd, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular ltd, and a potential boost to newcomer Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd.
●    The 57% cut in interconnection usage charges (IUC) to 6 paise/minute will drag Idea Cellular deeper into the red, and can result in losses for Airtel as well. 
●    The change could push some older telecom operators into losses. 
●    Previously, analysts had estimated that a reduction in IUC from 14 paise to 6 paise would mean a gain of around Rs3,800 crore for Reliance Jio and a corresponding loss for incumbents.
●    Trai believes that the reduction of the IUC, levied by a telecom operator for terminating a call from another telecom firm (the second telecom firm pays) will benefit consumers and boost competition.
On its website, the regulator said that the move to the so-called Bill And Keep regime (where no interconnect charge is paid by a telecom firm to another) would “encourage flat rate billing and time differentiated charges, both of which will improve capacity utilization and will be in theinterest of consumers”.
 

Current Affairs 19th September 2017: INTERNATIONAL NEWS

Singapore to set up Skill Center in Northeast: Dr Jitendra Singh

The Government of Singapore will set up a Skill Center at Guwahati which will cater to the entire North-Eastern region. 
●    This was stated here by Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) of the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh after a meeting with a high-level delegation represented by the High Commissioner of Singapore, Mr Lim Thuan Kuan here yesterday. 
●    The Indian side led by Dr Jitendra Singh, consisted of senior officers from the Ministry of DoNER, Department of Space and Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions, which are the three main areas where Singapore has expressed its keenness to collaborate with India. 
●    As far as Skill Centre at Guwahati, it was stated that an MoU has already been formalized between Singapore and the State Government of Assam. 
●    As a follow-up to this, a Skill Center is proposed to be set up at Guwahati by the year 2019 and the Ministry of DoNER will coordinate in this initiative. 
●    The Singapore delegation also expressed its preference to engage with India in the area of Space Technology for collaboration in “peaceful uses of Outer Space”. 
●    To this, Dr Jitendra Singh said that the issue will be followed up in an appropriate manner.