GK and Current Affairs Updates

THE long cherished dream of Karnataka to have an Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) was fulfilled on Sunday when Union HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar formally inaugurated the institute in Dharwad.

•    Political leaders across parties were present at the inaugural function which was delayed due to ongoing agitations over Kalasa-Banduri issue in North Karnataka. The first batch of IIT-Dharwad began on August 1 with 120 students.
•    Speaking at the inaugural function, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said bringing the IIT to Dharwad was a collective effort of all political parties.
•    The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) are autonomous public institutes of higher education, located in India.
•    They are governed by the Institutes of Technology Act, 1961.
•    The Institutes of Technology Act, 1961 lists twenty-three institutes located at Bhilai, Chennai, Delhi, Dhanbad, Dharwad, Goa, Guwahati, Jammu, Kanpur, Kharagpur, Mumbai, Roorkee, Bhubaneswar, Gandhinagar, Hyderabad, Indore, Jodhpur, Mandi, Palakkad, Patna, Ropar, Tirupati and Varanasi.
 

A cargo train left south China's Guangzhou City for Vorsino, Kaluga Region (113 miles south-west from Moscow) on Aug. 28 , China’s Xinhua reported.
•    It is the latest freight train route China has launched to boost trade ties along the ancient Silk Road. 
•    The train will travel 11,500 km over 14 days before reaching its destination. 
•    Its cargo includes garments, shoes, hats, cloth, lamps and lanterns, electrical appliances, and electronics. 
•    According to Xinhua, Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong Province, has traditionally depended more on maritime freight services. 
•    The new cargo train service saves 30 days compared with shipping services, and it costs just a fifth of the price for air transportation.
•    Russia’s Kaluga Region has set up a major logistics center in the Vorsino industrial park to handle 150,000 to 350,000 containers a year, the Russian media report.
 

National Sports Day was observed across India on 29 August 2016. 
•    The day is celebrated to mark the birth anniversary of the legendary hockey player Dhyan Chand who was born on 29 August 1905.
•    On this occasion, President Pranab Mukherjee conferred National Sports and adventure awards on sports person at the Rashtrapati Bhawan, New Delhi.
•    Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna: It was conferred on four sports person and they are PV Sindhu (Badminton), Dipa Karmakar (Gymnastics), Jitu Rai (Shooting) and Sakshi Malik (Wrestling).
•    Dronacharya Awards: It was conferred on six sports coaches and they are Nagapuri Ramesh (Athletics), Sagar Mal Dhayal (Boxing), Raj Kumar Sharma (Cricket), Bishweshwar Nandi (Gymnastics), S Pradeep Kumar (Swimming (Lifetime)) and Mahabir Singh (Wrestling (Lifetime)).
•    Arjuna Awards: It was conferred on 15 sports from different discipline of sports and they are Rajat Chauhan (Archery), Lalita Babar (Athletics), Sourav Kothari (Billiards & Snooker), Shiva Thapa (Boxing), Ajinkya Rahane (Cricket), Subrata Paul (Football), Rani (Hockey), Raghunath VR (Hockey), Gurpreet Singh (Shooting), Apurvi Chandela (Shooting), Soumyajit Ghosh (Table Tennis), Vinesh (Wrestling), Amit Kumar (Wrestling), Sandeep Singh Mann (Para-Athletics) and Virender Singh (Wrestling (Deaf)).
•    Dhyan Chand Award 2015:  It was conferred on three sports person and they are Athlete Satti Geetha, hockey player Sylvanus Dung Dung and Rower Rajendra Pralhad Shelke.
 

The Tourism Ministers of BRICS countries will meet in Madhya Pradesh's temple city Khajuraho for a two-day long conference from September 1. 
•    During the conference, several presentations will be made and group discussions on Inter-Regional Tourism Promotion will be held. 
•    Further, a session on implementing technology and innovation in the sector will be held along with various cultural programmes.
•    On the first day of the meet a presentation will be made on the Indian Tourism Ministry's 'Atulya Bharat' campaign by Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Bihar.
•    Later, BRICS nation's representatives and Indian Association of Tour Operators (IATO) delegation will make a presentation, it said.
•    On the second day, Indian Travel and Trade and its associated institutes will have a meeting with the BRICS representatives. 
•    Group discussions will also be held on the Inter-Regional Tourism Promotion.
•    Besides a session on implementing technology and innovation in tourism sector will also be held.
•    Various cultural programmes including light and sound show will also be organised for the participants during the event.
 

Unified Payments Interface (UPI) was introduced on 25 August 2016 by four banks, namely Axis Bank, Union Bank of India, Federal Bank and Bank of Maharashtra. 
•    The app will allow customers to make payments via digital means.
•    The app went live for these banks after National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) issued letters to them asking them to make the apps available on Google Play Store. 
•    Apart from this, the UPI-enabled apps will be available for other 19-banks in next 2-3 working days.
•    Initially, the facility, which is available on Google Play Store, will be available for bank customers with Android smart phones. 
•    Versions for Apple’s iOS operating system will be launched in next six months.
•    UPI, a product of NPCI, will help move India towards a cashless economy. 
•    It will allow customer to have multiple virtual address for accounts in various banks.
•    UPI is a set of standard Application Programming Interface (APIs).
•    National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) is the umbrella organisation for all retail payments system in India.
 

Automobile manufacturer Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd (M&M) has introduced DiGiSENSE, a cloud based technology solution to track vehicle information in real time. 
•    With this, Mahindra has become the first OEM (original equipment manufacturer) in India to integrate its product line-up onto a cloud-based technology platform.
•    DiGiSENSE by its digitally-enabled sensing connects Mahindra range of pick up vehicles, tractors, trucks and construction equipment to the cloud. 
•    It will enable vehicle owners to have complete information on the location and usage their assets round-the-clock on their mobile phones. 
•    This inbuilt technology solution has been jointly developed in India in association with Tech Mahindra, Bosch India and Vodafone. 
•    DiGiSENSE allows vehicle owner to monitor the performance and location of vehicles, including the quantity of fuel used by the vehicles on real time basis. 
•    The key features include delivery tracking and route planning, vehicle utilisation reports, trip optimisation, alerts and machine hour operations and geo-fencing to prevent unauthorised use of the asset and theft.
 

Recognising it’s efforts for developing football at the grassroot level, the ‘Subroto Mukerjee Sports Education Society’ (SMSES) has been bestowed with National Sports Award ‘Rashtriya Khel Protsahan Puruskar’, for ‘Sports for Development’ by Ministry of Youth Affairs & Sports. The ‘Subroto Mukerjee Sports Education Society’ organises the famous Subroto Cup Football Tournament, and over last six decades has made significant contribution towards development of football in the country. 
•    The Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, on 23 August announced the award of ‘Sports for Development’ to ‘Subroto Mukerjee Sports Education Society’ along with the other annual sports awards like the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna, Dronacharya, Arjuna Award and others. 
•    Ever since its inception in 1960, the Subroto Cup Football Tournament, named after the first Chief of Air Staff of Indian Air Force, Late Air Marshal Subroto Mukerjee OBE, has time and again ventured into unchartered territory to ensure every child is encouraged to play football in the country. Subroto Cup, conducted by the Indian Air Force, is the largest Football tournament for school children with over 35000 Indian and Foreign teams participating each year. The tournament has made a major impact on Indian Football in recent times with increased interest in football in the country. Subroto Cup Football tournament is now recognised as a ‘Game Changer’ and a ‘Bedrock’ for nurturing talent at junior and sub-junior level in the country. 
•    Air Marshal MK Malik AVSM VSM Air Officer-in-charge Administration who is also the Vice Chairman of ‘Subroto Mukerjee Sports Education Society’ received the ‘Rashtriya Khel Protsahan Puruskar’ on behalf of ‘Subroto Mukherjee Sports Education Society’ from Hon’ble President of India today at a ceremony in Rastrapati Bhawan.
 

An Iranian man who has been detained at Australia's Manus Island detention centre for over three years was awarded an international cartooning award for courage by the Cartoonist Rights Network International. 
•    Ali, who goes by the pen name Mr Eaten Fish, has been detained in Australia’s offshore immigration processing centre for more than three years.
•    The man, under the pen-name 'Eaten Fish', has documented abuses he suffered at the centre through his cartoons, pushing "through the veil of secrecy and silence".
•    CRNI is an international human rights organization with a network of more than 600 illustrators. 
•    It seeks to support and defend cartoonists facing censorship, intimidation, imprisonment, violence and death.
•    It campaigns for protection and freedom of cartoonists, and its annual award seeks to honor an individual for expressing their freedom of speech rights.
 

Himachal Pradesh Health Minister Kaul Singh Thakur today launched a mobile app for availing immediate and easy access to ambulances in the state.
•    The app named '108 HP' can be downloaded on any smartphone.
•    He also flagged off five ambulances from Ridge Maidan.
•    The new ambulances under 108- National Ambulance Service would be serving at health centres of Jalog and Rampur in Shimla District, Chatari in Mandi District, Gagret in Una District and Bharari in Bilaspur District.
•    With this, the number of 108 ambulances which was just 50 in 2010 has increased to 199 and there is one ambulance for every 34,000 population.
•    The state government was spending Rs 1 lakh per day on the ambulance services and till now 7.50 lakh emergency cases had been facilitated.
•    Besides, 102 Janani Express providing free services to pregnant women from home to hospital and back home after delivery was being provided and so far 82,000 women had benefited.
•    During the programme, Singh also distributed cheques of Rs 5 lakh each to the families of deceased in the 108 National Ambulance Service accidents.
 

The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) on 28 August 2016 successfully test launched the Supersonic Combustion Ramjet engine, called Scramjet, from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikotta in Andhra Pradesh.
•    The experimental mission aimed at realisation of an Air Breathing Propulsion System (ABPS) uses hydrogen as fuel and oxygen from the atmosphere air as the oxidiser.
•    Two scramjet engines were mounted alongside of a two-stage, solid fueled rocket called Advanced Technology Vehicle (ATV), which is an advanced sounding rocket. The national space agency said that its first ever experimental mission met all the specified goals. The rocket carrying Scramjet engines weighed 3277 kg at lift-off.
•    After a flight of about 300 seconds, the vehicle touched down in the Bay of Bengal, approximately 320 km from Sriharikota. The vehicle was successfully tracked during its flight from the ground stations at Sriharikota.
•    With this success, India joined the select league of four space faring nations that have demonstrated flight testing of Scramjet engines.
•    A scramjet (supersonic combusting ramjet) is a variant of a ramjet air breathing jet engine in which combustion takes place in supersonic airflow.
•    The scramjet engine is used only during the atmospheric phase of the rocket’s flight.
•    It uses hydrogen as fuel and the oxygen from the atmospheric air as the oxidizer.