Important Current Affairs 8th September 2019

NATIONAL:

The 6th India China SED was held in New Delhi

• The 6th round of India-China strategic economic dialogue is being held in New Delhi. The three day event will be held on 7-9 September 2019. The dialogue will discuss various issues, including infrastructure, energy and pharmaceuticals.

Event:

The dialogue includes events like round table meetings of joint working groups (JWG) on infrastructure, high-tech, energy, resource conservation, pharmaceuticals and policy coordination.

Participants:

In the dialogue, the Indian side will be led by NITI Aayog Vice-Chairman Rajiv Kumar and the Chinese side by Chairman of National Development and Reforms Commission (NDRC) He Lifeng. Senior representatives from industry, policymaking and academia from both countries are participating in the dialogue.

BUSINESS AND ECONOMY:

HAL to receive 45,000 crore orders for 83 LCA fighters

• The Indian Air Force (IAF) to place orders worth around Rs.45,000 crore with the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) to acquire 83 Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas fighters.

• The IAF issued a tender for 83 LCAs about two years ago and the project was stuck over the pricing issue as the government and the Air Force felt that the price offered by the HAL was slightly higher. The Defence Ministry determined the cost of the 83 LCA Mark 1A aircraft around Rs.45,000 crore and the Indian Air Force is now expected to place orders for these planes in the next few weeks.

• The LCAs have been designed and developed completely by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). The DRDO chief G Satheesh Reddy presented the Final Operational Clearance (IOC)

Coffee Day sells Global Village Tech Park for 2,800 cr to Blackstone

• Coffee Day Enterprises Ltd (CDEL) closed the deal to sell the Global Village Technology Park in Bengaluru to New York-based private equity giant Blackstone Group Llp.Two people familiar with the transaction confirmed the development. The sale of the 90-acre tech park was finalized at Rs.2,800 crore, according to the first person.

• The money will be credited to CDEL within the next week. The 2000 crore from the proceeds of the deal will be used to repay debts of CDEL and Rs.800 crore will go into the books of CDEL to meet its working capital requirements.

• CDEL owns Coffee Day Global Ltd (coffee business), Sical Logistics Ltd (integrated logistics), Tanglin Developments Ltd ,Way2Wealth (financial services), and Coffee Day Hotels and Resorts Ltd (hospitality)obligations of at least Rs.7,653 crore.

The debt come down after Siddhartha and two CDEL subsidiaries sold their entire stake in Mindtree Ltd to Larsen and Toubro Ltd for Rs.3,200 crore, and used a part of the money to repay debt.

AWARDS AND ACHIEVEMENTS:

Oscars of science awarded to Event Horizon Telescope Team

• The Event Horizon Telescope Team consists of 347 scientists produced the world first image of a black hole. They were felicitated with breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics. The prize is known as the Oscars of science with prize money $3 million. The team published the image of black hole circled by a flame-orange halo of white-hot plasma on the Messier 87 (M87) galaxy.

• Directed by Shep Doelman at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, the team spent over a decade simulating an Earth-sized computational telescope that combined the signals received by eight radio telescopes working in pairs around the world with their sights trained on the Messier 87 (M87) galaxy, 55 million light-years away.

Through this technique, they were able to achieve an unprecedented resolution and observe the black hole's silhouette for the first time in history, confirming theoretical predictions about these celestial objects.

The event horizon of a black hole is the point at which its gravitational effects are strong that light cannot escape its pull.

ENVIRONMENT:

Ministry of Information and Broadcasting decides to discontinue single use plastic

• The Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (I&B) has announced its plan to get rid of single-use plastic within the secretariat. The Ministry has encouraged the staffers to turn the recycled paper.

Aim:

The reason aims to implement the ban as it plans to have a clean and green environment with collective responsibility and endless methods toward achieving the goal of plastic-free surroundings. All the Ministry officials are requested to discontinue the single-use of plastic folders, plastic water bottles, and different such things forthwith and instead start/encourage the utilization of recycled paper.

Background:

On 4 July 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the people to avoid single-use plastic. Minister Prakash Javadekar advised that each one involved within secretariat and media units are ought to discontinue the utilization of single-use plastics.

DAYS:

World Literacy Day is celebrated on 8 September

• On 8th September every year, International Literacy Day is celebrated to make people to know the importance of Literacy for people, communities and societies.

Aim:

It aims to combat worldwide problems also to promote illiteracy. The theme for 2019 is Literacy and Multilingualism.

History and aim of International Literacy Day:

On 26th October in 1966, the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) declared 8th September as International Literacy Day.