Important Current Affairs 31st August 2019

NATIONAL:

Mumbai ranks 45th and Delhi 52nd in 2019 Worlds Safe Cities Index.

• Mumbai ranked as the 45th safest city on the Safe Cities Index (SCI). Delhi got at the 52nd position. The report was released by the Economist Intelligence Unit

The cities in the Asia-Pacific (Apac) region made up six of the top-10 safest cities with Tokyo taking the top spot.Tokyo, Apac cities dominated the SCI 2019. Singapore and Osaka got second and third while Sydney and Melbourne made it to the top-10 cities list.Hong Kong dropped out of this group since 2017.Seoul joined the top-10 cities' league taking eighth place with Copenhagen.

Safe Cities Index (SCI)

The Safe Cities Index (SCI) 2019 ranks 60 countries worldwide across five continents and measures the multi-faceted nature of urban safety with indicators categorised as digital, infrastructure, health and personal security.

The Tokyo, Singapore and Osaka to rank within the top-three cities in the Index. The region hosts some of the lowest-scoring cities in the world, with Yangon, Karachi, and Dhaka close to the bottom of the list.

The cities perform well across the categories of health security, infrastructure security and personal security their North American counterparts generally fare better in digital security, accounting for seven of the top-10 cities in this category.

AGREEMENTS AND MOUS:

GeM signs MoU with SIDBI to enable the growth of MSMEs.

• Government e-Marketplace (GeM), Department of Commerce, Ministry of Commerce and trade has signed an MoU with Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI). It aims to benefit Ministry of Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), ladies entrepreneurs, Self facilitate teams (SHGs), ladies Self facilitate teams and varied loan beneficiaries under MUDRA and Stand-up schemes. The MoU was signed in Delhi.

MoU Special steps:

The MoU will strengthen capability building through GeM-specific coaching programs of personnel from partner agencies. Special services through networking, workshops, promoting events, awards and recognition of MSMEs with special concentrate on SHGs, ladies entrepreneurs, artisans, NGOs.

GeM MOU with SIDBI:

The MoU of GeM with SIDBI is towards its growing partnership with money establishments to alter the growth of MSMEs and Start-ups within the country. GeM needs to empower through the payments by auto-debiting GeM Pool Account. The MoU signed with SIDBI will help to promote GeM's special initiatives like Womaniya and Start-up Runway.

APPOINTMENTS AND RESIGNATIONS:

Union Government appoints nine pvt sector experts as joint secretaries.

• The Union government appointed nineprivate sector specialists in various fields as joint secretaries in various ministries under its lateral recruitment policy. The appointments were cleared by the Appointment Committee of the Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.The nine joint secretaries from among the private sector experts appointed for a period of three years or till further orders.

The appointments were cleared by the Appointment Committee of the Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.The nine joint secretaries from among the private sector experts have been appointed for a period of three years or till further orders.They have been deputed to various ministries in Level 14 of the pay matrix as per the Seventh Central Pay Commission . They adding their appointments will be effective from the day they assume charges.

Dignitaries appointed are

Those who were appointed are: Kakoli Ghosh (Ministry of Agriculture), Amber Dubey (Civil Aviation), Arun Goel (Commerce), Rajeev Saksena (Economic Affairs), Sujit Kumar Bajpayee (Environment, Forests).

 The others are Saurabh Mishra (Financial Services), Dinesh Dayanand Jagdale (New and Renewable Energy), Suman Prasad Singh (Road Transport and Highways) and Bhushan Kumar (Shipping).

 The posts of joint secretaries are manned by officers of Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Indian Police Service (IPS), Indian Forest Service (IFoS)) and Indian Revenue Service (IRS) among others who are selected through a three-phased rigorous selection process undertaken by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC). The Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pension had invited applications for the posts of joint secretary-rank officers through lateral entry mode in June last year. The lateral entry mode, which relates to the appointment of specialists from the private sector in government organizations, is considered as an ambitious step of the Modi government to bring in fresh talent in bureaucracy.

AWARDS:

Aswatha Narayana won gold in he World Skills competition.

• Aswatha Narayana bagged a gold medal in the World Skills competition 2019 in Kazan, Russia. The event was held from 23-27 August. He won by beating 9 other competitors in the event. Along with him Lufeng Zeng from China also won Gold. He set a record by winning the title as this is the first time that an Indian contingent was participating in the tournament.

The other participants are from countries such as Iran, Belarus, Vietnam, Korea, Germany, Brazil, Russia and South Africa.

Narayana participated in the world skills tournament in the skill water technology.

Aswatha Narayana:

Aswatha Narayana is a B Tech graduate in Applied electronics from CV Raman Engineering College of Bhubaneswar. He had his first experience in a technical competition in 2017. He won a state-level automated robotics competition organized by International Institute of Information Technology, Bhubaneswar. In that event, he built a robot at a cost of Rs.950.

He then participated and won second in DrishTI, an Online Contest in Circuit Design & Digital Signal Processing held by Texas Instruments in 2017. In 2018, he won the State Skill Competition and then he participated in National Skill Competition which enabled him to participate in the World Skill Competition 2019.

Indian participants:

The other Indians who participated in the event are Pranav Nutalapati, Sanjoy Pramanik, and Shweta Ratanpura.

Other winners:

♦ Pranav Nutalapati won a silver medal in web technologies

♦ Sanjoy Pramanik won bronze medals in Jewellery

♦ Shweta Ratanpura won bronze medals in graphic design technology

World Skills Competition:

The World Skills Competition is a biennial event. More than 1,300 competitors from all over the world participated in the event. It gives youth the chance to compete, experience, and learn how to become an outstanding performer in their skill of choice. India has been participating in this event since 2007.