GK and Current Affairs Updates

The observation increases the possibility that missions to Europa may be able to sample Europa's ocean without having to drill through miles of ice.
•    The plumes are estimated to rise about 200 kilometres before raining material back down onto Europa's surface.
•    Europa has a huge global ocean containing twice as much water as Earth's oceans, but it is protected by a layer of extremely cold and hard ice of unknown thickness.
•    The plumes provide a tantalizing opportunity to gather samples originating from under the surface without having to land or drill through the ice, Nasa said.
•    The team, led by William Sparks of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in the US, observed these finger-like projections while viewing Europa's limb as the moon passed in front of Jupiter.
•    The original goal of the team's observing proposal was to determine whether Europa has a thin, extended atmosphere or exosphere.

Senior IAS officer Arun Goyal has been appointed Additional Secretary in the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council. 
•    He will be the first Additional Secretary of GST Council Secretariat. The GST Council headed by Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. 
•    It is mandated to decide on tax rate exempted goods and the threshold limit. Arun Goyal is IAS officer of 1985 batch of Union Territory cadre. 
•    Prior to this appointment he was working as Additional Secretary, Project Monitoring Group in Union Cabinet Secretariat. 
•    The GST Council was constituted as per the Article 279A of the Constitution after the Constitution (One Hundred and First Amendment) Act, 2016 was notified. 
•    The Union Cabinet had recently approved appointment of the Secretary (Revenue) as the ex-officio Secretary to the GST council. 

India’s Pinky Balhara has won bronze medal at the 5th Asian Beach Games held at Da Nang, Vietnam. 
•    She won the medal in women’s 52kg category after she lost to Nguyen Thi Thanh Thuy of Vietnam in the semifinals. 
•    Vietnam’s Nguyen Thi Thanh Thuy won the gold medal in this event while another Vietnamese Nguyen Thi Quynh won the silver medal. 
•    To participate in the 5th Asian Beach Games, India had sent a contingent of 208 members.
•    The athletes will participate in 13 sporting disciplines which include Kabaddi, Swimming, Handball, Pencak Silat, Kurash, Woodball, Sambo, Ju-Jitsu, Pentaque, Sepaktakraw, Shuttlecock, Voninam and Muay Thai. 
•    Kurash is a form of wrestling that had originated from Uzbekistan. In this game, two opponents wear a green and a blue jacket. 
•    The participants try to throw the other on the ground. 

India's emerging player Velavan Senthilkumar came from two games down to beat Jordan's Mohammad Al-Sarraj 12-14, 9-11, 11-6, 11-8, 11-7 and bag the U-19 Asian Junior Individual squash championship title on Saturday.
•    The Chennai lad, who trains at the Indian Squash Academy (ISA), is the second Indian to win the title after Ravi Dixit in 2010.
•    According to coach Bala Murugan, Velavan took time to settle down but once he got into the rhythm there was no looking back.
•    From among 31 Indian players in various age categories at the tournament, there were two more medal winners in Tushar Shahani, who claimed a silver in boys' U-17, and Yash Fadte who earned a bronze in boys' U-15 section
•    In Chennai, a delighted national coach Cyrus Poncha said that the success was a great moment for Indian squash.
 

Google on 21 September 2016 launched its latest mobile chat application, Allo, along with Google Assistant that can be used in online conversations with friends.
•    Allo's ‘Smart reply’ function uses Google's machine learning technology to suggest a reply to the last message, which can be selected from a few options.
•    The feature also analyses images sent to the user in order to suggest responses.
•    Similar to the smart reply feature seen in Google's Inbox app, it learns from the user's behaviour to adapt its suggestions over time.
•    It supports Google Assistant, a conversational virtual assistant.
•    A feature ‘Whisper Shout’ allows the user to increase or decrease the size of a message to represent volume.
•    Allo also lets users draw on photos before sending them.
•    Incognito mode is an optional mode that includes expiring chats, private notifications, and end-to-end encryption.
•    For encryption, the app uses the Signal Protocol.

Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) on 26 September 2016 successfully launched eight satellites in two different orbits in a single mission. 
•    Three smaller payloads from Algeria: Alsat-1B 103 kg, Alsat-2B 110 kg and Alsat Nano 7 kg.
•    One from US: Pathfinder-1 of 44 kg. It is a high resolution imaging microsatellite and is owned by BlackSky.
•    One from Canada: NLS-19 of 8 kg developed at University of Toronto, Canada. It is a nano-satellite to experiment reduction of space debris.
•    The other two satellites are from India and they are
•    Pratham: A student-satellite of the IIT, Bombay. 
•    PISAT: It is developed by a consortium-led by the PES University in Bengaluru. 
•    The two Universities/Academic Institute Satellites and the five foreign satellites were placed into a 670 km polar orbit. 
•    This was the first mission of PSLV in which launched its payloads into two different orbits. 

The eighth edition of India-Russia Joint Military Exercise ‘INDRA-2016’ begun in the Ussiriysk District in Vladivostok, Russia. 
•    The main focus of this edition of the joint exercise is on Counter-Terrorism Operations in semi mountainous and jungle terrain under United Nations Mandate.
•    To achieve interoperability in joint operations, troops from both sides would acquaint themselves with the respective approach to such operations. 
•    A comprehensive training programme spanning eleven days has been drawn up for the purpose.
•    Brigadier Sukrit Chadah is leading the Indian contingent of 250 soldiers from the Kumaon Regiment while the Russian army is being represented by 250 soldiers from the 59th Motorised Infantry Brigade.
•    Indra series of bilateral exercises is one of the major bilateral defence cooperation initiatives between India and Russia since 2003. 
•    The Indian contingent is scheduled to return to India on termination of the Exercise in the first week of October 2016.

The first meeting of Goods & Services Tax (GST) Council has decided to exempt businesses with annual turnover below Rs.20 lakh out of the GST net. 
•    The meeting was presided by Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in New Delhi and was attended by Finance ministers of states. 
•    Threshold for exemption for businesses in Northeastern and hill states will be for annual turnover below Rs.10 lakh and rest of India it will below Rs.20 lakh. 
•    Consensus was reached on the contentious issue of administrative control over indirect tax assesses.
•    The existing 11 lakh service tax assesses will continue to be under the jurisdiction of the Centre. 
•    The compensation that Central Government will pay to states for losses of revenue because of the transition to GST regime will be routinely, quarterly or bi-monthly.
•    The GST Council also agreed to settle 2015-16 as the base year for calculating the compensation.

The UN Security Council on 23 September 2016 approved a resolution urging quick global implementation of Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban treaty that would ban tests of nuclear weapons.
•    With 14 votes in favour and one abstention (Egypt), the resolution welcomed progress made towards universalization of the Treaty, noting that 183 States have signed the Treaty and 166 States have deposited their instruments of ratification.
•    The UN's Comprehensive Test Ban Organization already has a network of monitoring stations. But it still cannot go on site to inspect for tests until the treaty enters into force. 
•    For that, the holdouts among the 44 countries that are designated nuclear capable, the United States, China, Egypt, India, Iran, Israel, North Korea and Pakistan must ratify.
•    The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty bans all nuclear explosions for both civilian and military purposes. 
•    Adopted by the UN General Assembly under resolution 50 (1996), the Treaty will enter into force 180 days after the date of deposit of the instruments of ratification by all.

India held the second Meeting of the High Level Group of Eminent Experts to strengthen the SAARC Anti-Terrorism Mechanism from September 22-23, 2016 in New Delhi.
•    Meeting of a High Level Group of Eminent Experts to strengthen the SAARC Anti-Terrorism Mechanism was recommended by the SAARC Ministerial Declaration on Cooperation in Combating Terrorism (adopted by the 31st Meeting of SAARC Council of Ministers in Colombo, February 2009). India had hosted its first meeting in New Delhi from 9-10 February 2012.
•    Hosting the meeting for the second time, it is in line with the high priority India attaches for regional cooperation in Anti-Terrorism activities and given that terrorism remains the single biggest threat to peace, stability and progress in the region and beyond. The meeting provides a platform for discussing and identifying measures to tackle this menace threatening our societies.
•    As in the previous meeting, Indian delegation is led by Director, Intelligence Bureau, who is also the Chairperson of the Meeting. Senior officials from Ministry of Home Affairs, Ministry of External Affairs and related agencies also participateded in the meeting.