GK and Current Affairs Updates

Former Jammu and Kashmir Governor Lt Gen Srinivas Kumar Sinha died on 17 November 2016 at the Army Research and Referral (R&R) hospital, New Delhi. He was 92.
●    Earlier on 1 November 2016, he was admitted to the hospital with a fracture in his femur bone and ribs. Later, he was shifted to R&R hospital after some complications.
●    He is survived by his wife, son YK Sinha who is an IFS officer and three daughters. At present, YK Sinha is Indian Ambassador to Sri Lanka and is moving for his new posting to the UK.
●    Lieutenant General (Retd.) Sinha was an Indian soldier, who led the first batch of Indian troops in J&K when Pakistan raiders invaded in 1947.
●    He joined Indian Army in 1943 and saw combat service during Second World War in Indonesia and Burma.
●    After Independence, he also served two tenures in Nagaland and Manipur by participating in counter insurgency operations.
●    He resigned from service after the government superseded him and appointed General A S Vaidya as the new army chief.
●    After retirement from Indian Army, he served as Governor of the states of Jammu and Kashmir and Assam.
●    He also served as India’s Ambassador to Nepal.

The Union Cabinet gave its approval for creation of a ‘special committee’ in accordance to an order passed by the Supreme Court in 2012 for inter-linking of Indian rivers.
●    The approval was given in a Cabinet council session headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 15 November 2016. According to the government, this move will help in monitoring the projects that are to be carried out under its National Perspective Plan, 1980. 
●    It is a proposed project that aims to link all Indian rivers by the creation of a network of canals and reservoirs in order to reduce the problem of continuous floods in some parts of India and water shortages in others. 
●    The project has been divided into three parts:
●    Northern Himalayan rivers inter-link component 
●    Southern Peninsular component 
●    Intrastate rivers linking component 
●    India’s National Water Development Agency (NWDA) under Ministry of Water Resources has been given the responsibility of managing the project. 
●    The project was proposed by NDA Government led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

Maharashtra on 15 November 2016 became the first Indian state to adopt Fly Ash Utilisation Policy. The policy will pave way for prosperity by creating wealth from waste, and environment protection.
●    The decision to implement the policy was taken at the weekly cabinet meeting chaired by state Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis.
●    As per the policy, 100 per cent of fly ash generated from thermal power plants and biogas plants will be used for construction activities.
●    This fly ash will be used to make bricks, blocks, tiles, wall panels, cement and other construction materials.
●    The policy also allows usage of fly ash within 300 kilometres of the power plant. Earlier, it was allowed to  be used within 100 kilometres radius.
●    The policy will create new employment opportunities in the power plant areas.
●    It will also make available raw material for construction at low cost to help Housing for All projects.
●    Fly ash is one of the coal combustion products.
●    It is composed of the fine particles that are driven out of the boiler with the flue gases.
●    In modern coal-fired power plants, fly ash is generally captured by electrostatic precipitators or other particle filtration equipment before the flue gases reach the chimneys.
●    Fly ash includes substantial amounts of silicon dioxide, aluminium oxide and calcium oxide.

New analysis of seemingly proves beneath the icy top layer of the planet lies a liquid ocean – one of the key ingredients for life.
●    Researchers analysed images from NASA’s New Horizon spacecraft which made a flyby of the tiny planet which hovers on the edge of the solar system in 2015.
●    It is believed that the water lies 93 to 124 miles beneath the surface and is 62 miles deep.
●    However, experts state that the water is slushy ice.
●    It shows that nature is more creative than we are able to imagine, which is why we go and explore. 
●    With Pluto being 40 times farther out from the sun than the Earth, the natural conclusion would be that any liquid there would be solidly frozen.
●    However, Francis Nimmo of the University of California explained that there was still enough radioactive heat left over from its formation 4.6 billion years ago that acts as a sort of radiator.
 

Reliance Industries and GE on Thursday announced the signing of a global partnership agreement in the Industrial Internet of Things (IIOT) space whereby the two will work together to build joint applications on GE’s Predix platform.
●    The first-of-its-kind partnership marks the coming together of two of the world’s largest industrial conglomerates to provide Industrial IOT solutions to customers in oil and gas, fertiliser, power, healthcare, telecom and other industries. 
●    The agreement was signed in the presence of Jeff Immelt, Chairman and CEO, GE, and Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director, Reliance Industries.
●    GE will provide its Predix cloud offering, Industrial Internet applications and data science expertise. 
●    RIL will develop solutions on Predix as an Independent Software Vendor (ISV), bringing to bear its over 30 years of data, process and operational expertise.
●    RIL will also offer nationwide connectivity infrastructure to customers through a 4G network powered by Jio. 
●    GE would offer the security, availability and monitoring aspects of the platform to RIL and its customers.
 

At the initiative of the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, as an unprecedented milestone mega exercise, involving the entire organization at all levels, Indian Railways is organizing a 3 day Rail Vikas Shivir (Rail Development Camp) at Surajkund near New Delhi, from 18th November 2016 to 20th November 2016 with a view to generate numerous innovative yet practical ideas across most critical areas of Railway Operations for substantial progress of this sector. This is for the first time in the 163 year of Indian Railways that such a Brainstorming and planning exercise with multistage and multidimensional dialogue at this large scale is taking place involving all Railway Employees from gangmen to Railway Board Chairman, cutting across hierarchies. This Shivir is significantly different from other Railway conferences in the sense that here not only external speakers are sharing what Railways should do but rather Railway Employees belonging to all levels themselves are also being encouraged to contribute to present new ideas and to be part of the decision making process. This Shivir will help in creating a vision for Indian Railways that every employee relates to and will reflect business aspirations and societal commitments of Indian Railways. 
●    The Shivir is being hailed as a watershed in the history of Indian Railways and its outcome are likely to take Indian Railways on the rapid path of rejuvenation, transformation, modernization, efficiency and productivity not seen before with a view to make Indian Railways a world class Railway system. 
●    The high point of the Shivir will be when the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi himself will speak up his mind on the rail sector for country’s economic growth on the first day of the Shivir and give his directions and guidance setting the agenda for this mega event. The address of the Prime Minister will be done through video conferencing between PMO New Delhi and the Shivir venue at Surajkund. Prime Minister will be present personally again to have a detailed interaction with the participants on the concluding day of the Shivir. 
●    Minister of Railways Shri Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu, who has in the last two and half years undertaken slew of major reforms, restructuring, initiatives, innovations and paradigm system improvement to fulfill the Prime Minister’s vision on Railways, is spearheading and guiding the organizing of this momentous Shivir along with his colleagues, Minister of State for Railways & Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Communications Shri Manoj Sinha and Minister of State for Railways Shri Rajen Gohain. 
●    Many from the Union Council of Ministers have also been invited on the concluding day of the Shivir. The other invitees on the concluding day include some select Secretaries to Government of India, senior officials from Prime Minister’s Office & Cabinet Secretariat and senior officials of NITI Aayog. The Vikas Shivir is aiming at the following aspects
 

Haryana sprinter Dharambir Singh in the third week of November 2016 was handed an eight-year ban by the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA).
●    The 25-year old runner was earlier stripped of his gold medal won in the 100m race during the National inter-State Championships in 2012 for eluding a mandatory dope test.
●    Dharambir Singh is an Indian male sprinter.
●    In July 2016, he set a new national record for India when he won the 200 metres race at the Indian Grand Prix in Bengaluru. 
●    His time of 20.45 seconds was under the 20.50 seconds qualifying threshold for the 200 metres race in the 2016 Summer Olympics. 
●    With this, he became the first competitor for India to qualify for the 200 metres at the Olympics in 36 years.
●    On 2 August 2016, he failed to board his flight to Rio de Janeiro, and was reported to have failed a drug test.
 

Iran overtook political rival Saudi Arabia as India’s top oil supplier in October, shipping data showed, just ahead of a producers’ meeting this month to hammer out the details on output cuts aimed at reining in a global glut.
●    Iran used to be India’s second-biggest oil supplier.
●    Over the whole January to October period, though, Saudi Arabia still holds India’s top supply spot, at an average of 8,30,000 bpd versus Iraq’s 7,84,000 bpd and Iran’s 4,56,400 bpd.
●    The surge is also thanks to Iranian price discounts, which attracted purchases from India’s programme to build up its strategic petroleum reserves (SPR). 
●    Last month, India took in 2 million barrels of Iranian crude for the SPR stocks, and another 4 million barrels is expected to be shipped in November.
●    In the first seven months of its fiscal year, between April and October, India imported 5,23,200 bpd from Iran, compared to 2,49,100 bpd for the same period a year ago.
 

India are to host the T20 Cricket World Cup for the Blind at nine different centres from January 31 to February 12 and Pakistan is among the competing teams.
●    The opening game between hosts India and the West Indies is to be held at Delhi.
●    The final is to be conducted in Bengaluru.
●    The tournament, to be organised by the Cricket Association for the Blind in India, is budgeted to cost Rs 24.5 crore.
●    Vengsarkar, invited the organisers to conduct all the matches in Mumbai to be hosted by the Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA), of which he is the vice president.
●    Asked about the presence of Pakistan, Mahantesh said that they will land in Delhi, play matches there and play their remaining matches only in Bengaluru.
●    The other teams in the fray are England, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal.
●    Matches would be held in Delhi, Mumbai, Faridabad, Gujarat, Kochi, Bhubaneswar, Andhra Pradesh and Bengaluru.
 

Vladimir Putin, President of Russia signed an order on 16 November 2016 withdrawing Russia’s signature from the International Criminal Court treaty (ICC).
●    This move came on the opening day of the general assembly of member states. 
●    On 14 November 2016, ICC passed a ruling calling Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 an international armed conflict. This action angered Moscow, as it claims Crimea joined Russia after a popular vote. 
●    Russia is facing a lot of criticism for its airstrikes in Syria in support of current Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
●    The court is also looking into allegations of war crimes committed by forces of Russia and Georgia during their conflict in 2008. 
●    Russia does not see ICC as a genuine independent authoritative organ of international justice. 
●    Russia claims that in 14 years, the ICC has just given four verdicts and spent nearly 1 billion US Dollars.