GK and Current Affairs Updates

DESPITE pressure from the US and China, the final G20 communiqué has skipped any mention of the December 2016 deadline for member-countries to ratify the Paris Agreement on climate change. 
•    It has also avoided specifying a date for ending fossil fuel subsidies.
•    Both the moves were strongly opposed by India during the three-day meetings of negotiators before the leaders’ summit on September 4-5.
•    In his intervention on the summit’s concluding day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi acknowledged that climate change was one of the foremost challenges, with the Paris Agreement showing the way forward. 
•    The Prime Minister’s point man at the summit, Arvind Panagariya, said that India was not ready in terms of domestic actions to ratify the agreement before 2016-end, but that it plans to do so at the earliest.
 

Mother Teresa on 4 September 2016 was proclaimed a Saint by Pope Francis in a ceremony at the Vatican.
Thousands of pilgrims attended the canonization of Mother Teresa in St Peter's Square.
During the ceremony, Pope Francis announced “We declare and define Blessed Teresa of Calcutta to be a saint and we enroll her among the saints, decreeing that she is to be venerated as such by the whole Church."
With this, Mother Teresa became the fourth Indian to be made saint. Those who received the honour before her include Father Kuriakose Elias Chavara, Sister Euphrasia and Sister Alphonsa. Saint Gonsalo Garcia, though of Portuguese parentage, was born in India, and is considered an India born saint.
•    Originally, individuals were recognized as saints without any formal process.
•    Later, different processes, such as those used by the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church were developed.
•    • There are four steps to canonization that the saints have to go through: Servant of God   →   Venerable   →   Blessed   →   Saint
•    After Mother Teresa's death in 1997, the Holy See began the process of beatification, the first step towards possible canonisation. This process required the documentation of a miracle performed from the intercession of Mother Teresa.
•    In 2002, the Vatican recognised as a miracle the healing of a tumour in the abdomen of an Indian woman, Monica Besra, after the application of a locket containing Mother Teresa's picture. Besra said that a beam of light emanated from the picture, curing the cancerous tumour.
•    Mother Teresa was beatified on 19 October 2003, becoming known by Catholics as "Blessed."
•    On 17 December 2015, the Vatican confirmed that Pope Francis had recognised a second miracle attributed to her, involving the healing of a Brazilian man with multiple brain tumours.
•    Saint Teresa of Calcutta was an Albanian-Indian Roman Catholic nun and missionary.
•    After having lived in Macedonia for eighteen years, she moved to Ireland and then to India, where she lived for most of her life.
•    In 1950, Teresa founded the Missionaries of Charity, a Roman Catholic religious congregation.
•    In 2012, the Missionaries of Charity consisted of over 4500 sisters and was active in 133 countries.
•    The Missionaries of Charity run homes for people dying of HIV/AIDS, leprosy and tuberculosis, soup kitchens, dispensaries and mobile clinics, children's and family counselling programmes,  orphanages and schools.
•    In 1962, she won the Ramon Magsaysay Peace Prize.
•    In 1979, she was honoured with the Nobel Peace Prize.

India and Vietnam on 3 September 2016 signed twelve agreements to boost the bilateral relations between the two nations. The agreements were inked after delegation level talks between of Prime Minister of the two nations, Narendra Modi and Nguyen Xuan Phuc.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is the first Indian premier to visit the country in 15 years, was on a two day visit (2-3 September 2016) to Vietnam. The last Prime Minister to visit Vietnam was Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who visited the nation in 2001.
•    Framework agreement on cooperation in the exploration and uses of outer space for peaceful purposes
•    Protocol for amending the agreement on avoiding double taxation
•    Program of cooperation in UN Peacekeeping Matters
•    Protocol on celebrating 2017 as the "Year of Friendship”
•    MoU on health cooperation
•    MoU on cooperation in information technology
•    MoU on cooperation between the Vietnam academy of social sciences and the Indian council of world affairs
•    MoU on cooperation in cyber security
•    MoU for cooperation in the fields of standardization and conformity assessment
•    MoU on establishment of the centre of excellence in software development and training
•    Technical agreement on sharing of white shipping information
•    Contract for offshore high-speed patrol boats
•    Apart from this, India also extended 500 million dollar Line of Credit (LoC) to Vietnam for facilitating deeper defence cooperation with the South East Asian nation. The LoC was extended as the two nations elevated their ties to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership to respond to emerging regional challenges.
•    Till now, Vietnam had Strategic Partnership only with Russia and China.
 

Indian researchers have made a major discovery by understanding the mechanisms by which preterm births (between 28 and 32 weeks of gestation) occur. 
•    At 35 per cent, India accounts for the highest burden of preterm births in the world.
•    The researchers found for the first time that gram-positive Group B Streptococcus (GBS) bacteria produce small balloons called membrane vesicles, which contain toxins that kill both foetal and maternal cells and destroy the collagen that binds the cells together.
•    The team was led by Professor Anirban Banerjee from the Department of Biosciences and Bioengineering, IIT Bombay, and Dr. Deepak Modi from Mumbai’s National Institute for Research in Reproductive Health. 
•    The results were published on September 1 in the journal PLOS Pathogens.
•    Group B Streptococcus (GBS) bacteria are normally found in human vagina and their numbers can shoot up in some pregnant women. 
•    The GBS bacteria have been associated with premature rupture of amniotic membrane and preterm birth.

Scientists have named a small maroon and gold fish species, which was discovered 300 feet deep in the waters off Kure Atoll in the Pacific Ocean, after U.S. President Barack Obama.
•    The fish, of the genus Tosanoides, was named in honour of Mr. Obama for his commitment to protecting nature through the expansion of the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument, researchers said.
•    It was discovered in June this year during a research trip to Kure, the world’s northernmost atoll. 
•    The fish is found only within the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument.
•    Researchers confirmed that the fish represented a new species, the first member of the genus Tosanoides found outside of the waters off Japan.
•    This is not the first fish to be named after Mr. Obama. A species of darters found only in the Duck River and the Buffalo River in U.S. was named Etheostoma obama in 2012.

Union Government on 3 September 2016 approved the use of Pelargonic Acid Vanillyl Amide (PAVA) as an alternative to pellet guns for crowd control. 
•    Pellet guns will be used in the rarest of rare cases.
•    Pelargonic Acid Vanillyl Amide (PAVA) also called Nonivamide is chilli-based ammunition that is less lethal and immobilises the target temporarily. 
•    The shells actually contain an organic compound found in natural chilli.
•    The PAVA shells were under trial for over a year at the Indian Institute of Toxicology Research, a Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) laboratory in Lucknow.
•    Earlier in July 2016, the Home Ministry constituted a seven-member Expert committee headed by TVSN Prasad for exploring the other possible alternatives to pellet guns as non-lethal weapons. 
•    The Committee submitted its report to the Ministry recommending use of PAVA shells as an alternative. 
•    The Kashmir Valley is witnessing unrest following the killing of a Hizbul Mujahideen militant Burhan Wani on 8 July 2016.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) on 4 September 2016 listed the eastern gorilla, the largest living primate, as critically endangered in its latest red list of threatened species.
The largest living primate’s population is now estimated to be fewer than 5000. Grauer’s Gorilla, one subspecies of Eastern Gorilla, has lost 77% of its population since 1994, declining from 16900 individuals to just 3800 in 2015. 
•    The eastern gorilla is a large hominid with a large head, broad chest and long arms.
•    It has a flat nose with large nostrils.
•    The face, hands, feet and breast are bald.
•    The fur is mainly black, but adult males have a silvery saddle on their back.
•    Grauer's gorilla has a shorter, thicker, deep black fur, while the mountain gorilla has a more bluish color.
•    Eastern gorillas are herbivorous, with a heavily foliage based diet, due lack of available fruit in their habitats.

Chennamaneni Vidyasagar Rao, Governor of Maharashtra, was sworn in as the acting Governor of Tamil Nadu on 2 September 2016 as the tenure of K. Rosaiah ended on 31 August 2016.
•    Rao was administered oath of office by the Madras High Court's Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul at the Raj Bhavan, Chennai.
•    Chennamaneni Vidyasagar Rao is the present Governor of Maharashtra.
•    He took oath as the Governor on 30 August 2014.
•    Previously, he served as the Union Minister of State for internal affairs in the Vajpayee-led BJP Government from 1999.
•    He was elected to 12th and 13th Lok Sabha from Karimnagar in Telangana as a Bharatiya Janata Party candidate.
 

India and  China on Sunday sought to reboot ties, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi advocating in his talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping that New Delhi and Beijing must be sensitive to  each other’s “strategic concerns” — a theme which included a reference to terrorism radiating from the controversial China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).
•    In response to a question whether the Prime Minister raised concerns regarding terrorism emerging from the area covered by CPEC — the 46-billion dollar connectivity project jointly undertaken by China and Pakistan — Foreign Ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup said: “That issue was also raised.”
•    Analysts say that the Prime Minister’s 35-minute talks with President Xi were “highly significant” as the under-appreciation of each others’ core  “strategic interests”  was identified as the main obstacle, preventing India-China ties to reach the next level.
•    All contentious issues, including China’s reservations in sanctioning Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar and the CPEC, are expected to be discussed “openly and frankly” at the  newly formed dialogue mechanism between the Foreign Secretary and the Vice-Foreign Minister from China.
 

After winning two consecutive assembly polls in West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee on Friday added yet another feather to her cap with her Trinamool Congress being extended the 'national party' status by the Election Commission.
•    Sources in the poll panel, quoting an order, said Trinamool Congress has satisfied one of the conditions mentioned in the Election Symbols (Reservation and Allotment) Order, 1968 to be recognized as a national party — having being recognized as a state party in at least four states.
•    It is a recognized state party in West Bengal, Manipur, Tripura and Arunachal Pradesh.
•    Now, India has seven recognized national parties — Congress, BJP, BSP, CPI, CPM, NCP and All India Trinamool Congress.
•    Recognition as a national or a state party ensures that the election symbol of that party is not used by any other political entity in polls across India. 
•    Other registered but unrecognized political parties have to choose from a pool of "free symbols" announced by the commission from time to time.