Important Current Affairs 21st August 2018

Important Current Affairs 21st August 2018

                                                                                                                                                                                                                    INTERNATIONAL NEWS

US 'Legion Of Merit' Award To Former Army Chief General Dalbir Singh 
 
Former Army chief Genral Dalbir Singh has been awarded with United States (US) 'Legion of Merit'.

The President of the United States of America POTUS, authorised by Act of Congress, July 20, 1942, awarded the LegionOfMerit (Degree of Commander) to Gen Dalbir Singh (Retired), IndianArmy, for exceptionally meritorious service as COAS from August 2014 to 31 Dec 2016.

Dalbir Singh Suhag
Dalbir Singh Suhag, PVSM, UYSM, AVSM, VSM, ADC who was born on 28 December 1954 was the 26th Chief of the Army Staff (COAS) of the Indian Army, who assumed office on 31 July 2014, following the retirement of General Bikram Singh. He served as the Vice Chief of the Army Staff (VCOAS) before taking charge as Chief of the Army Staff. He retired on 31 December 2016.

President to inaugurate “International Buddhist Conclave 2018”

 
The President of India Shri Ram Nath Kovind will inaugurate the “International Buddhist Conclave (IBC), 2018” in Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi on 23rd August, 2018. 
The Ministerial level delegation from Bangladesh, Indonesia, Myanmar and Sri Lanka will participate in the conclave. The delegates from the following 29 countries are participating in the International Buddhist Conclave.
The Conclave is being organized by the Ministry of Tourism in collaboration with the State Governments of Maharashtra, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh from 23rd – 26th August, 2018 at New Delhi and Ajanta (Maharashtra), followed by site visits to Rajgir, Nalanda and Bodhgaya (Bihar) and Sarnath (Uttar Pradesh).
International Buddhist Conclave 2018 will have a religious / spiritual dimension, an academic theme and a diplomatic and business component. 
Background:
The Ministry of Tourism, Government of India, has been organizing the International Buddhist Conclave biennially. The earlier International Buddhist Conclaves were organized in New Delhi and Bodhgaya (February 2004), Nalanda and Bodhgaya (February 2010), Varanasi and Bodhgaya (September 2012), Bodhgaya and Varanasi (September 2014) and in Sarnath/Varanasi and Bodhgaya (October 2016).

NATIONAL NEWS

Cyclone Warning Centre to be set up in Thiruvananthapuram 
 
With several incidents of tropical cyclones and severe weather events striking over Kerala and Karnataka coasts in the recent times, the Union Ministry of Earth Sciences is proposing to set up a Cyclone Warning Centre in Thiruvananthapuram. 
The Ministry is planning to set up the Centre in another one month. At present, IMD has cyclone warning centres only at Chennai, Vishakhapatnam, Bhubaneswar, Kolkata, Ahmedabad and Mumbai.
The Ministry is also planning to set up another C-Band Doppler Weather Radar at Mangalore by end of 2019, which will cover the northern parts of Kerala. At present, there are two Doppler Weather Radars in the state, at Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram. 

Gopalkrishna Gandhi conferred with Rajiv Sadbhavana Award
 
Former West Bengal Governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi was honoured with this year's Rajiv Gandhi Sadbhavna Award for promoting communal harmony and peace. The award was presented on the birth anniversary of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.
Gopalkrishna Devdas Gandhi 
Gopalkrishna Devdas Gandhi was born on 22 April 1945 is a retired IAS officer and diplomat, who was the 22nd Governor of West Bengal serving from 2004 to 2009. He is the grandson of Mahatma Gandhi. As a former IAS officer he served as Secretary to the President of India and as High Commissioner to South Africa and Sri Lanka, among other administrative and diplomatic posts. He was the United Progressive Alliance nominee for Vice President of India 2017 elections  and lost with 244 votes against NDA candidate Venkaiah Naidu, who got 516 votes.
Rajiv Gandhi National Sadbhavana Award
Rajiv Gandhi National Sadbhavana Award is an Indian award given for outstanding contribution towards promotion of communal harmony, national integration and peace. The award was instituted by All India Congress Committee of the Indian National Congress Party (INC), in 1992 to commemorate the lasting contribution made by the former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, carries a citation and a cash award of Rs. ten lakhs. It is given on 20 August, the birth anniversary of Rajiv Gandhi, which is celebrated as Sadbhavna Diwas (Harmony Day).

IIT Kharagpur to set up Re-Water Research Center
 
The IIT Kharagpur will set up a Re-Water Research Center, seed-funded by two alumni members named Aneesh Reddy & Aditya Choubey to replenish and rejuvenate water resources, a statement issued by the institute.
Objective:-
The move is to tackle the challenge of resolving two burning issues faced by urban India sewage disposal and access to clean potable water, it said on the 68th Foundation Day of the premier institution.
It is named as 'Aditya Choubey Center for Re-Water Research' that would be networking with government bodies to take up this technology and the process and meet the water challenge in various cities. The pilot plant is expected to be ready by March 2019.
The institute is setting up an on-campus plant which will convert 1.35 million litre of sewage water from the hostels to 1.2 million litre of potable water, on a daily basis.

New set of warnings on tobacco products
 

The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has notified a new set of specified health warnings for all tobacco products manufactured or imported or packaged on or after September 1 to be displayed on the packets.
The new set of specified health warning for all tobacco product packs has been brought in by making an amendment in the Cigarettes and other Tobacco Products (Packaging and Labelling) Rules, 2008 vide GSR 331(E) dated April 3, 2018, “Cigarettes and other Tobacco Products [Packaging and Labelling] Second Amendment Rules, 2018”.

SPORTS

Wrestler Vinesh Phogat clinches Gold at Asian Games 2018
 
Vinesh Phogat created history by becoming the first Indian woman wrestler to win a gold medal at the Asian Games, brushing aside her rival from Japan’s Yuki Irie with remarkable ease in the 50 kg category.
About Vinesh Phogat
Vinesh Phogat was born on 25 August 1994 who is an Indian wrestler who comes from a successful background of wrestling with her cousins Geeta Phogat and Babita Kumari, both international wrestlers and Commonwealth Games medalists as well.
She became the first Indian woman wrestler to win gold in both Commonwealth and Asian games.

Saurabh Chaudhary clinches Gold in the 10m air pistol: Asian Games
 
Saurabh Chaudhary, 16 year old became only the fifth Indian shooter to claim gold in the Asian Games history, beating a field of multiple world and Olympic champions in the 10m air pistol finals to snatch the lead from 2010 World Champion Tomoyuki Matsuda on the penultimate shot in the 24-shot final. 
Shooter Abhishek Verma settled for the bronze in the same event. 29-year-old Rohtak-based Abhishek, also making his international debut, shot 219.3 to secure bronze. 

Indian women’s team was crowned champions of the SAFF U-15 Championship
 
The Indian women’s team was crowned champions of the SAFF U-15 Championship after defeating defending champions Bangladesh by a solitary goal in the final at the Changlimithang Stadium in Thimphu, Bhutan.
The 2017 SAFF U-15 Women's Championship was 1st ever edition of the SAFF U-15 Women's Championship, an international football competition for women's under-15 national teams organized by SAFF. 
South Asian Football Federation (SAFF)
South Asian Football Federation (SAFF), founded in 1997, is an association of the football playing nations in South Asia and is part of the larger Asian Football Confederation. 
Its founding members are Bangladesh, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. 
Bhutan joined the federation in 2000 and Afghanistan in 2005. In February 2015, Afghanistan had officially left the SAFF for the new Central Asian Football Association.

INTERNATIONAL RELATION

India, Japan agree to expand maritime co-operation in Indo-Pacific region
 
India and Japan have resolved to expand their maritime cooperation and work together to ensure peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region. 
Important:
Defence Minister of India is Nirmala Sitharaman and Defence Minister of Japan is Itsunori Onodera. 
Indo-Pacific region:
The Indo-Pacific, sometimes known as the Indo-West Pacific, is a biogeographic region of Earth's seas, comprising the tropical waters of the Indian Ocean, the western and central Pacific Ocean, and the seas connecting the two in the general area of Indonesia.
The term is especially useful in marine biology, ichthyology, and similar fields, since many marine habitats are continuously connected from Madagascar to Japan and Oceania, and a number of species occur over that range, but are not found in the Atlantic Ocean.
 

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 

Chandrayaan-I data confirms presence of ice on Moon
 

Using data from the Chandrayaan-I space craft, that was launched by India 10 years ago, NASA said that scientists have found frozen water deposits in the darkest and coldest parts of the Moon's polar regions. 
Scientists used data from NASA's Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) instrument aboard the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, launched in 2008 by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), to identify three specific signatures that definitively prove there is water ice at the surface of the Moon. 
What this study says?
The study says with enough ice sitting at the surface within the top few millimetres water would possibly be accessible as a resource for future expeditions to explore and even stay on the Moon. 

Most of the new found water ice lies in the shadows of craters near the poles, where the warmest temperatures never reach above minus 156 degrees Celsius.   

Due to the very small tilt of the Moon's rotation axis, sunlight never reaches these regions.
Chandrayaan-1
Chandrayaan-1, India's first mission to Moon, was launched successfully on October 22, 2008 from SDSC SHAR, Sriharikota. The spacecraft was orbiting around the Moon at a height of 100 km from the lunar surface for chemical, mineralogical and photo-geologic mapping of the Moon.