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India, Myanmar Sign Three Agreements


India and Myanmar on 19 October 2016 signed three agreements to boost the bilateral relations between the two nations. 
●    Keeping in view the sensitivity of each other’s strategic interests, the two nations also agreed for close security coordination in border areas.
●    The MoUs were inked in New Delhi after delegation level talks with the visiting State Counsellor of Myanmar Aung San Suu Kyi. Suu Kyi was on a three day visit to India. Agreements inked includes
●    MoU for designing an academic and professional building programme for insurance industry of Myanmar. 
●    MoU on Cooperation in the field of Power Sector: India has also offered to enhance power supply from Moreh in Manipur to Tamu in Myanmar.
●    MoU on Banking Supervision between RBI and Central Bank of Mya

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India Rises to Best Fifa Ranking in 6 Years


The Indian football team on 20 October 2016 achieved its best FIFA ranking in over six years. The team jumped 11 placed to be 137th in the latest list.
●    India, who defeated 114th ranked Puerto Rico in an International Friendly in Mumbai in September 2016, garnered 230 points for the month.
●    In August 2010, India were ranked 137th which stayed India’s best ever FIFA Ranking since then.
●    The Indian team was ranked 171st in February 2015 and slipped to 173rd in March 2015.
●    At present, Argentina tops the FIFA World Rankings, followed by Germany and Brazil.
●    The FIFA World Ranking is a ranking system for men's national teams in association football.
●    The teams of the member nations of FIFA are ranked based on their game results with the most successful teams being ranked highest.


 

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Next Tranche of Sovereign Gold Bonds from Oct 24


The government will launch on October 24 a sixth tranche of the Sovereign Gold Bonds (SGB) scheme, in which people can buy securities worth up to 500 grams.
●    The Sovereign Gold Bonds scheme, an alternative mode of investment to physical gold, was launched in November last year. 
●    It provides investors a choice to diversify their portfolios without the need to buy the metal in physical form. 
●    So far, the government has come out with five tranches of the Sovereign Gold Bonds. 
●    There were more than 2 lakh applications for the fifth tranche.
●    The bonds will be sold through banks, Stock Holding Corporation of India Limited, designated post offices and recognised stock exchanges NSE and BSE.
●    The Reserve Bank of India had earlier this week said that five tranches of Sovereign Gold Bonds for a total value of Rs. 3,060 crore have been issued till date. 

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Implementation of Sustainable Tourism Criteria for India Launched

Shri Vinod Zutshi, Secretary Ministry of Tourism, launched the Implementation  of the Sustainable Tourism Criteria for India in association with Ecotourism Society of India. 
●    Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Steve Borgia, the President of ESOI hailed the commitment shown by  Ministry of Tourism. 
●    India is one of the few countries in the world to have a criteria of its own. 
●    Mr C.B.Ramkumar, Board member ,Global Sustainable Tourism Criteria presented the  global picture and also suggested the direction which India could go in this regard. 
●    The Sustainable Tourism Criteria for India had been developed for the accommodation, tour operators and beaches, backwaters and lakes sectors of the tourism industry after thorough discussions with the stakeholders. 
●    The STCI follow the guidelines set by the Global Sustainable Tourism Criteria that has been evolved under the guidance of the United Nations’ agencies viz. UNEP and UNWTO. 
●    After much deliberations, the STCI were finally launched on 26th August 2014.

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Central Govt. to open Krishi Vigyan Kendra in all Districts of the Country

Union Government in October 2016 decided to establish at least one Krishi Vigyan Kendra in each of the districts in country. 
●    These Kendra’s will be developed to provide technical assistance to farmers.
●    The decision was announced by the Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh while interacting via video conference with all the Krishi Vigyan Kendra experts, district level officers associated with agriculture development and progressive farmers of 12 States.
●    Besides, he Singh also called upon the farmers to use the residual husk after paddy farming to make organic fertilizer, in paper making and card-board industry and as animal feed. 
●    The Minister said this will prevent the adverse effect of husk burning on the environment.
 

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3.2 million Debit Cards Compromised

A virus or malware infection at Hitachi Payments Services led to over 32 lakh debit cards in India being compromised. 
●    Hitachi is one of the companies that operate ATMs in India. 
●    The compromised debit cards were used in ATMs that are suspected to have exposed details of the cards to the malware.
●    A senior official at the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), an umbrella organisation for all retail payment systems, said the breach occurred a month ago. 
●    However, the loss is minute and banks will have to individually deal with it.
●    Of the debit cards affected, 2.6 million are on Visa and MasterCard platforms, while 600,000 are on the RuPay platform. 
●    The worst-hit of the card-issuing banks are State Bank of India, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Yes Bank and Axis Bank.


 

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NASA Probe Spots Possible Clouds on Pluto

NASA's New Horizons space probe has spotted possible clouds hovering over Pluto, indicating that the weather on the icy dwarf planet is more complex than thought.
●    Pluto's complex and layered atmosphere is hazy and appears to be mostly free of clouds, but the team has spied a handful of potential clouds in images.
●    While Pluto shows many kinds of activity, one surface process apparently missing is landslides. 
●    Hubble Space Telescope data suggests that 2014 MU69, a small Kuiper Belt object (KBO) about 1.6 billion kilometres beyond Pluto, is as red, if not redder, than Pluto.
●    The data confirms that on New Year's Day 2019, New Horizons will be looking at one of the ancient building blocks of the planets.
●    The New Horizons spacecraft is currently 5.5 billion kilometres from Earth and about 540 million kilometres beyond Pluto, speeding away from the sun at about 14 km every second.

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First Round-The-World Exploration to measure Climate Change

The impact of climate change is extremely evident and the entire world is worried about how it will affect our future.
Scientists have been relentlessly monitoring the freezing Antarctic region to gauge the damage caused due to climate change. 
●    Because things on that front aren't showing many positive signs, 50 researchers from 30 countries are going to come together and attempt the first full circumnavigation of Antarctica to measure pollution and climate change.
●    The report further mentions the projects of this round-the-world scientific expedition, which includes mapping whales, penguins, and albatrosses in the Southern Ocean; measuring the effect of plastic pollution on the food chain; and logging the extent of phytoplankton – the base of the food chain – and its role in regulating climate.
●    To get an insight into conditions as they were before the Industrial Revolution, scientists will also take ice-core samples and study biodiversity on the continent.


 

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Kochi Gets First Nod for U-17 World Cup

Kochi on 19 October 2016 became the first Indian city to be officially declared as one of the venues for hosting the 2017 FIFA U-17 World Cup. 
●    The tournament will be hosted in the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium of the city.
●    A 23-member high-level delegation comprising experts from FIFA and Local Organising Committee (LOC) ratified Kochi as the venue for next year's mega event. 
●    Earlier, the delegation visited the Jawarharlal Nehru International Stadium.
●    The FIFA U-17 World Cup 2017 will be held in India.
●    Indian football team took part on the 1948 London Olympics, their first major international tournament.
●    The nation qualified regularly for the Olympics until 1960.

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Railway Stations and Surrounding Areas to be redeveloped under Smart Cities Plan

In a major initiative, railway stations and adjoining areas will be redeveloped on Smart City lines for enhancing passenger amenities, easy access to stations, enabling optimal utilization of land at railway stations, as a part of Smart City development. 
●    A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed today in this regard by the Ministries of Urban Development and Railways in the presence of Shri M.Venkaiah Naidu and Shri Suresh Prabhu. 
●    Dr.Sameer Sharma, Mission Director, Smart City Mission and Shri Rajiv Chaudhary, Advisor, Ministry of Railways signed the MoU. 
●    Smart City Plans of some cities have already included area based development surrounding railway stations. 
●    These include; Bhubaneswar, Thane and Solapur (Maharashtra), Kakinada (Andhra Pradesh), Ahmedabad, Ajmer, Hubli-Dharwad (Karnataka). 

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