GK and Current Affairs Updates

Adani Green Energy, part of the Adani Group, Wednesday said it has dedicated to the nation the world's largest 648-mw solar power plant in Tamil Nadu entailing an investment of Rs 4,550 crore. 
•    The solar power plant, producing 648 mw at a single location, was formally dedicated to the nation, a company statement said.
•    The plant is set up at Kamuthi, Ramanathapuram, in Tamil Nadu with an investment of Rs 4,550 crore. 
•    It is part of the state government's ambitious target of generating 3,000 mw as per the solar energy policy unveiled by the government in 2012.
•    The entire 648-mw plant is now connected with Kamuthi 400 kv sub-station of Tantransco, making it the world's largest solar unit at a single location, it said.
•    The plant consists of 3.80 lakh foundations, 25 lakh solar modules, 27,000 mt of structure, 576 inverters, 154 transformers along with 6,000-km cables.
•    About 8,500 personnel worked for an average about 11 mw of installation in a day to set up the plant in the stipulated time, it said.
 

The 2016 Right Livelihood Award widely referred as the Alternative Nobel Prize was announced on 22 September 2016 in Stockholm, Sweden. The laureates of this year’s Right Livelihood Award include Right Livelihood Award - Syria Civil Defence (The White Helmets), Egypt’s Mozn Hassan and Nazra for Feminist Studies, Russia’s Svetlana Gannushkina,Turkish daily Cumhuriyet
•    The laureates will share the 3.0-million-kronor (350000 dollar) prize.
•    The White Helmets of Syria was awarded for their outstanding bravery, compassion and humanitarian engagement in rescuing civilians from the destruction of the Syrian civil war’. 
•    It is the first time that a Right Livelihood Award goes to a Laureate from Syria.
•    Mozn Hassan and Nazra for Feminist Studies from Egypt were awarded for asserting the equality and rights of women in circumstances where they are subject to ongoing violence, abuse and discrimination.
•    Russia’s Svetlana Gannushkina was awarded for her decades-long commitment to promoting human rights and justice for refugees and forced migrants, and tolerance among different ethnic groups.
•    The Turkish newspaper, Cumhuriyet was awarded for their fearless investigative journalism and commitment to freedom of expression in the face of oppression, censorship, imprisonment and death threats’

India and France on 23 September 2016 inked the 7.8-billion Euro deal for 36 Rafale fighter jets. 
•    As per the deal, the aircraft will be equipped with latest missiles and weapon system like Meteor and Scalp.
•    The 7.8 billion Euro deal is crucial for the Indian Air Force and is expected to give India the dominant status in the air. 
•    The deal was signed in New Delhi by Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and his French counterpart Jean Yves Le Drian.
•    The features that make the Rafale a strategic weapon is its Beyond Visual Range (BVR) Meteor air-to-air missile with a range in excess of 150 kilometre.
•    During the Kargil war, India had used a BVR having 50 kilometre range. 
•    The delivery of this aircraft will start in 36 months and will be completed in 66 months from the date the contract is inked.
•    As per reports, the deal comes with a saving of nearly 750 million Euros than the one struck during the previous UPA government, which was scrapped by the Narendra Modi government.

The Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) on 21 September 2016 signed a contract with DST, Germany to design vessels, especially suited to navigate the 1620 km stretch of National Waterway-1 (NW-1). 
•    DST will develop a combination of standardised vessels to meet the requirement of various types of cargo.
•    One of the most important navigational challenges for NW-1 is the kind of vessels that will play on the Ganga-Bhagirathi-Hooghly stretch.
•    Keeping in view the difficult hydro-morphological characteristics of the river in the upper reaches between Patna and Varanasi, it is important to have vessels which can ply on low draft, with high carrying capacity, and are economically viable and environment friendly.
•    Union Government is developing the National Waterway-1 under the Jal Marg Vikas Project, with assistance from the World Bank at an estimated cost of 4200 crore rupees.

A global study on a range of health indicators released on Thursday has ranked India 143rd among 188 countries, citing various challenges, including mortality rates, malaria, and hygiene and air pollution.
•    India was placed just ahead of Pakistan and Bangladesh, which were ranked 149th and 151st respectively.
•    India's poor performance on hygiene, air pollution mortality are among factors that place it lower than countries like Bhutan, Botswana, Syria and Sri Lanka. 
•    For malaria, which was one of the health indicators assessed, India scored only 10 points and remained in the red zone. 
•    Similarly for hygiene, the study gave India just eight points while for PM2.5 (particulate matter), it scored just 18 points.
•    For under-five mortality India scored 39 points while for Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR) it scored 28 points.
•    India, however, scored above 80 points for performing well in areas like Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTD), which are a diverse group of communicable diseases, overweight and harmful alcohol consumption.

The Incredible India Tourism Investors Summit (IITIS) 2016 has begun in New Delhi after it was inaugurated by Union Finance Minster Arun Jaitley. 
•    Summit has been organized by the Union Ministry of Tourism in association with Tourism Finance Corporation of India (TFCI). 
•    IITIS will provide a common platform for domestic and international investors. 
•    It will host presentations of investible properties, session on why invest in India, Micro of Small and Micro Enterprises (MSME) in tourism sector. 
•    It will also host panel discussions on core infrastructure for tourism, session on start-ups, digital India, Swadesh Darshan, PRASAD and niche tourism products, B2B meetings. 
•    Summit will also have dedicated space for seminars, business to business (B2B) meetings and roundtables around focus themes. 
•    It will also see domestic investors, entertainment companies, global investors, helicopter services, infrastructure-developers, hoteliers, international associations, restaurateurs, tour and travel operators, venture capitalists, urban developers and civic amenity providers.

The Union Cabinet under the Chairmanship of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has given its approval for raising a total of Rs. 31,300 crore in the financial year 2016-17 and to service the principal and interest against the Extra Budgetary Resources (EBR) of Rs. 16,300 crore by Government of India to augment infrastructure spending.
•    Out of the EBR of Rs.31,300 crore, it is proposed to finance the funds to be raised by Power Finance Corporation (PFC), Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency (IREDA), Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI), and National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) by Government of India. 
•    This implies that the principal and the interest in respect of the EBR of Rs.16,300 crore to be raised by PFC, IREDA, IWAI, and NABARD shall be financed by Government of India by making suitable budget provisions in the Demand of respective Ministries/Departments.
•    The move is intended to supplement the efforts of the Government to improve infrastructure spending and to improve the revenue-capital mix of the expenditure for a more sustainable growth.
•    Infrastructure spending is one of the key parameters to judge the sustainability of growth in a country. 
•    The proportion of Capital expenditure to the total expenditure is the yardstick to measure this. In line with this approach, an announcement was made in the Budget Speech 2016-17 that in order to augment infrastructure spending further, Government will permit mobilisation of additional finances to the extent of 31,300 crore by NHAI, PFC, REC, IREDA, NABARD and Inland Water Authority through raising of Bonds during 2016-17.

Justice Mohan M Shantanagoudar was sworn in as Chief Justice of Kerala High Court as per Article 219 of the Constitution. 
•    He was administered oath to office by the Governor Justice (Retd) P. Sathasivam at a function held at Raj Bhavan. 
•    He was born on 5 May 1958 in Chikkerur, Haveri District, Karnataka.
•    Initially, he had practiced at the Karnataka High Court as an advocate, later appointed as the Additional Judge in 2003. 
•    Justice G C Gupta has sworn-in as Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court. 
•    He was administered oath by West Bengal governor Kesari Nath Tripathi as per Article 219 of Constitution. 
•    Justice G C Gupta was born on December one, 1954. He was enrolled as an Advocate in September, 1982. 
•    He had practiced in the Calcutta High Court for 17 years in civil, constitutional, company, arbitration and commercial matters.

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) on 21 September 2016 approved the partial capital grant of 5176 crore rupees to GAIL (India) Limited for development of 2539 km long Jagdishpur-Haidia and Bokaro-Dhamra Gas Pipeline (JHBDPL) project.
•    This grant is 40 percent of the total estimated capital cost of 12940 crore rupees.
•    JHBDPL project will connect Eastern part of the country with National Gas Grid.
•    This Capital Grant will encourage the supply of eco-friendly fuel at affordable tariffs to industries and will encourage industrial development in these states.
•    The CCEA also approved the simultaneous development of City Gas Distribution (CGD) networks in cities namely Varanasi, Patna, Ranchi, Jamshedpur, Bhubaneswar, Kolkata, Cuttack etc. en-route of JHBDPL project. 
•    These distribution networks will be developed by GAIL in collaboration with the concerned State Governments. 
•    It will bring clean cooking fuel at the door step of Domestic households as well as provide clean fuel to transport sector in the eastern region.
 

Yahoo reported the largest data breach in history - affecting at least 500 million user accounts - months after first detecting signs of an intrusion that the company blamed on "state-sponsored" hackers.
•    The Web giant called on customers to change their passwords and institute other protective measures, but the largest fallout could be for Yahoo itself. 
•    The long-faltering company this summer agreed to sell its core business for $4.8 billion to telecommunications giant Verizon in a deal now clouded by news of the massive breach. 
•    Verizon said it learned of the incident only "within the last two days."
•    Yahoo learned of the incident in July, the same month it announced its deal with Verizon, a person familiar with the matter said, speaking on condition of anonymity to freely discuss the issue.