GK and Current Affairs Updates

The 2016 International Day of the Girl Child (IDGC) was observed across the world on 11 October 2016 with the theme Girls' Progress = Goals' Progress: What Counts for Girls.
●    The theme for the 2016 IDGC asks for a call for action for increased investment in collecting and analyzing girl-focused, girl-relevant and sex-disaggregated data.
●    It was created by the United Nations through a resolution in 2011.
●    Its objective is to promote the rights of girls and address the unique challenges they face.
●    Today also it’s well established that many girls are being forced for child marriage. 
●    United nations approved this day as an official international girl child day in 2012 keeping in mind that the girls must also get equal opportunity in life.
●    It was held for the first time on 11 October 2012.
●    Globally, one in seven adolescent girls aged 15 - 19 are currently married or in union.

Hunger levels in developing countries may have fallen 29% since 2000, but India was still rated as a country with ‘serious’ hunger levels in the 2016, shows Global Hunger Index that was released on Tuesday.
●    Despite improvements in hunger and nutrition over the years, India still has a long way to go before it is able to achieve the United Nations goal to end hunger by 2030
●    If hunger declines at the same rate as the report finds it has since 1992, more than 45 countries—including India, Pakistan, Haiti, Yemen, and Afghanistan—will still have “moderate” to “alarming” hunger scores in the year 2030.
●    India was rated as “alarming” in 2013 and has experienced an improvement in its GHI score over recent years.
●    Since 2000, the country has reduced its GHI score by a quarter and has a score in 2016 of 28.5 (rank 97 of 118 countries). 
●    Recent data show that almost 40% of Indian children under five years of age are stunted compared to over 60% in the early 1990s.

India will host the 8th BRICS Summit, in Goa on 15-16 October 2016 during its Chairmanship of BRICS, which it assumed on 15 February 2016.
●    As the precursor the same, the 4th BRICS Science, Technology and Innovation Ministerial Meeting was convened on 8 October, 2016 at Jaipur to further strengthen the collaboration amongst the BRICS countries in the areas of Science, Technology and Innovation (STI).
●    The meeting was chaired by the Minister for Science & Technology and Earth Sciences, Dr. Harsh Vardhan. The Vice Minister for Science, Technology and Innovation of Brazil, Mr. Álvaro Toubes Prata; Deputy Minister of Federation of Russia, Mr. Alexey Lopatia; Vice Minister of S&T of Peoples Republic of China, H.E.Mr. Jiang Hua; Minister of Science and Technology of South Africa H.E. Madam Naledi Pandor led their respective country delegations.
●    While welcoming the BRICS country Ministerial delegates, Dr Harshvardhan elucidated; “During our Chairmanship we are adopting a five-pronged approach, viz. Institution Building, Implementation, Integration, Innovation and Continuity. Our emphasis is on institution building, implementation of previous commitments, tapping synergies of the existing BRICS cooperation mechanisms, exploring some new areas of cooperation and maintaining continuity in the existing areas.”
●    In alignment with the theme of India’s Chairmanship - Building, Responsive Inclusive and Collective Solutions, the Jaipur Declaration was unanimously adopted by all the BRICS countries. The member countries resolved to intensify, diversify and institutionalize STI cooperation through the BRICS research & innovation initiative.
●    During India’s Chairmanship, significant progress have been achieved in joint knowledge creation in the areas of Photonics; Material Science & Nanotechnology; Biotechnology & Biomedical Sciences; Energy; Geospatial Technology; Astronomy; Prevention & Mitigation of Natural Disaster, Water and Solid State Lighting.
●    In fulfillment of Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi’s special attention on engagement of youth, who comprises 65% of workforce of BRICS countries together, India hosted the 1st BRICS Young Scientists Conclave at Bengaluru and Hampi last week. More than 40 young scientists from BRICS countries participated in the event and discussed some exciting ideas in the field of affordable healthcare, energy solutions and computational intelligence. In order to stimulate and encourage young minds, BRICS Innovative Idea Prize for Young Scientists has been instituted.
●    In order to harness the innovativeness of the youth, India’s proposal to establish a BRICS Science and Technology driven Entrepreneurship and Innovation Partnership Programme was agreed by all the member countries.

Remaining in the negative for the second month in a row, industrial production contracted by 0.7 per cent in August due to slump in manufacturing, mining and capital goods segments.
●    The capital goods output registered a steep decline of 22.2 per cent in the month, against a growth rate of 21.3 per cent in last year.
●    This is being considered as the worst growth in decade.
●    The data revealed that mining activities shrunk by 5.6 per cent as in August this year as against a growth of 4.5 per cent in August 2015.
●    Power generation remained almost flat (0.1 per cent) in compared to an expansion of 5.6 per cent in the year ago period.
●    Output of consumer durables registered a growth of 2.3 per cent while growth in non-durables segment was almost flat.
●    Overall, consumer goods production recorded a growth 1.1 per cent in August compared to 6 per cent a year ago.
●    In terms of industries, seven out of 22 industry groups in the manufacturing sector have shown negative growth during August year-on-year.

Train passengers and tourists can now look forward to travelling in state-of-the-art luxurious coaches having glass ceiling and equipped with infotainment system, similar to that in Switzerland.
●    The basic objective behind such coaches is to promote tourism and woo upscale tourists from both India and abroad, IRCTC Chairman and Managing Director A K Manocha said.
●    Jointly designed by the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC); Research, Designs and Standards Organisation (RDSO), and Integral Coach Factory at Perambur, Glass ceiling coaches will be operational in December this year.
●    The trains having such luxurious coaches, giving an aerial view, would be decided later, Manocha added.
●    Work on the project started in 2015 with a series of meetings on the specification of the coach design. The first such coach is all set to roll out this month (October) itself. 
●    The coaches will be ultra luxurious with rotatable chairs to provide the passengers an aerial view through partly glass ceiling
 

Oliver Hart and Bengt Holmstrom were on 10 October 2016 awarded the 2016 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel for their contributions to contract theory.
●    They have developed a contract theory, a comprehensive framework for analysing many diverse issues in contractual design, like performance-based pay for top executives, deductibles and co-pays in insurance and the privatization of public-sector activities.
●    The new theoretical tools created by Hart and Holmstrom are valuable to the understanding of real-life contracts and institutions, as well as potential pitfalls in contract design.
●    In the late 1970s, Bengt Holmstrom demonstrated how a principal should design an optimal contract for an agent, whose action is partly unobserved by the principal. 
●    Holmström’s informativeness principle stated precisely how this contract should link the agent’s pay to performance-relevant information. 

Remaining in the negative for the second month in a row, industrial production contracted by 0.7 per cent in August due to slump in manufacturing, mining and capital goods segments.
●    The capital goods output registered a steep decline of 22.2 per cent in the month, against a growth rate of 21.3 per cent in last year.
●    The data revealed that mining activities shrunk by 5.6 per cent as in August this year as against a growth of 4.5 per cent in August 2015.
●    Power generation remained almost flat (0.1 per cent) in compared to an expansion of 5.6 per cent in the year ago period.
●    Output of consumer durables registered a growth of 2.3 per cent while growth in non-durables segment was almost flat.
●    Overall, consumer goods production recorded a growth 1.1 per cent in August compared to 6 per cent a year ago.
●    In terms of industries, seven out of 22 industry groups in the manufacturing sector have shown negative growth during August year-on-year.
 

A researcher from Pune’s Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) has successfully produced a stable, high-efficiency, all-inorganic perovskite nanocrystal solar cells. 
●    The new material has 10.77% efficiency to convert sunlight to electricity.
●    The results were published on October 7 in the journal Science.
●    Traditional research has been around a hybrid organic-inorganic halide perovskite material.
●    The researchers assembled the nanocrystals as a thin film. 
●    The thin film was used for making both solar cells and red LEDs. 
●    Solar cells made using the nanocrystal thin film has 10.77 per cent efficiency to convert sunlight to electricity and produce a high voltage of 1.23 volts.

Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu announced the decision to establish incubation centres in all the universities in Andhra Pradesh to undertake research based on space technologies following an understanding reached with the top scientists of Indian Space Research Organisation.
●    Disclosing this at the valedictory of World Space Week celebrations after talks with ISRO Chairman A.S. Kiran Kumar, Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SHAR) Director P. Kunhikrishnan and Vice-Chancellors of various universities,said they were the first to involve students in a big way to take up research to ensure inclusive development.
●    Mr. Naidu also announced the constitution of a committee comprising experts from various universities and ISRO in ensuring proper use of remote sensing and other data in conceiving innovative ideas into startups and subsequently commercial ventures.
●    The Chief Minister expressed satisfaction over enthusiasm shown by the students of Andhra University in photographing 5,000-odd toilets opened during Krishna Pushkarams for monitoring the cleanliness on real-time basis and said the government would sanction Rs.25 lakh initially for forming a startup at AU to monitor cleanliness at all public toilets.
●    Underlining the need for the students to innovate through out-of-the-box ideas, he said the time had come to use technologies to find out solutions to various problems faced by the people.
●    Mr. Naidu said the State was in the forefront of using technologies for e-governance and fixing responsibility at various levels for hassle-free administration.

The US space agency has successfully maneuvered its spacecraft on way to asteroid Bennu, fine-tuning its trajectory to reach it and bring back samples from a potentially dangerous asteroid that could collide with the Earth. 
●    The Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft is on a journey that could revolutionise our understanding of the early solar system.
●    The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft fired its Trajectory Correction Maneuver (TCM) thrusters for the first time last weekend in order to adjust its trajectory on the outbound journey. 
●    The $800 million mission’s main goal is to collect a small sample of rocks and surface soil from Bennu that finds a place in NASA’s list of Potentially Hazardous Asteroids. 
●    Asteroids like Bennu are remnants from the formation of our solar system more than 4.5 billion years ago. 
●    Scientists suspect that asteroids may have been a source of the water and organic molecules for the early Earth and other planetary bodies.