GK and Current Affairs Updates

An online complaint box for reporting child sexual abuse, the POCSO e-Box was launched by the Minister for Women and ChildDevelopment, Smt. Maneka Sanjay Gandhi in New Delhi today. Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO), e-Box, is
an online complaint management system for easy and direct reporting of sexual offences against children and timely actionagainst the offenders under the POCSO Act, 2012. Minister of State for Women and Child Development , Smt Krishna Raj,
Secretary WCD, Ms Leena Nair, NCPCR Chairperson, Smt Stuti Kacker and other senior officials of the WCD Ministry and NCPRC\were present on the occasion.
•    Speaking on  the occasion, Smt Maneka Gandhi said that the idea of an e-Box came out of a police initiative inwhich physical complaint boxes were placed in schools. The e-Box will make it possible to implement it on a large scalethroughout the country. A large number of incidents of abuse are against close relatives and so they get pushed under the
carpet, the Minister said. E-Box is very simple to operate and will help to maintain the confidentiality of the complaint,Smt Maneka Sanjay Gandhi explained. 
•    Smt Krishna Raj said that all efforts should be made to generate awareness about the e-Box so that more and morechildren can come out with their suffering. Highlighting the lifelong trauma of a child suffering from abuse , Mrs Stuti
Kacker said that the online facility has been created so that the child can be given immediate help.
•    The e-Box is incorporated prominently in the home page of National Commission for Protection of Child Rights(NCPCR) website http://ncpcr.gov.in/  where a user has to simply push a button named POSCO e-Box. This will navigate to apage with a window containing an animation movie. The animation movie reassures the child that whatever has happened to
him/her is not his/her fault and she/he need not feel guilty and that NCPCR is a friend which will help her. After the userpresses the arrow on this page, it navigates  to another page where he/ she has to select at least one picture option(describing the category of harassment) and fill the form with details such as mobile number, e-mail and description of the
harassment followed by  the ‘submit’ button. The complaint is then registered and a unique auto-generated complaint number is flashed.
•    Sexual offences against children are rampant but only a small percentage gets reported. According to a study, about 53% of children surveyed, reported having faced one or the other form of sexual abuse in their lifetime.  In most cases,
the offender is a family member/near relative or an acquaintance.  The child victim in such cases generally does not report these offences.  Sexual abuse scars the psyche of the affected child for  entire life. A child who is sexually abused has
to face very serious consequences such as cognitive impairment, violent and risk behaviour including depression andanxiety. Feeling shame and guilt with poor interpersonal relationship & self esteem are other consequences of sexually
abused children.  
•    Being concerned about such offences against children, the  Government enacted POCSO Act, 20012 to protect them from offences of sexual assault, sexual harassment and pornography, while safeguarding the interest of the child at every stage
of the judicial process, by incorporating child friendly mechanisms for reporting, recording of evidence, investigation and speedy trial of offences through designated Special Courts.   Any human being up to the age of 18 years is recognised as a child under the POCSO Act.
 

Indian Council of Agricultural Research-National Bureau of Animal Genetic Resources (ICAR-NBAGR) in the third week of
August 2016 announced that it has registered 9 new breeds of indigenous farm animals.
•    The Breed registration Committee had approved the registration of nine new breeds of livestock and poultry on 21
June 2016.
•    With this, the total number of indigenous breeds of livestock in the country reached to 160, which include 40 for
cattle, 13 for buffalo, 26 for goat, 42 for sheep, 6 for horses and ponies, 9 for camel, 6 for pig, 1 for donkey, and 17
for chicken.
•    National Bureau of Animal Genetic Resources and National Institute of Animal Genetics were established on 21
September 1984 at Bangalore.
•    In 1985, the institutes were shifted to Karnal.
•    The two institutes were merged to function as a single entity in the form of National Bureau of Animal Genetic
Resources (NBAGR) in 1995.
•    This premier institute is dedicated to work with its mandate of identification, evaluation, characterization,
conservation and utilization of livestock and poultry genetic resources of the country.
 

World's first self-driving taxi service was on 25 August 2016 launched in Singapore. With this, Singapore became the first
country in the world to launch such service, beating Uber Technologies Inc by mere days to public road tests of a
technology that could revolutionize the transport industry.
•    The trial, although small, illustrates how intense the global race to develop autonomous driving vehicles has
become.
•    Singapore based nuTonomy began testing a free taxi-hailing service in a small business district in Singapore called
one-north, a campus-like space dominated by tech firms and biotechnology companies. 
•    The trial was given the approval of the Singapore government, which has long sought to turn the city-state into a
hub for disruptive technology through firms like nuTonomy.
•    NuTonomy’s test vehicles, a Renault Zoe and Mitsubishi i-MiEV electric car, will have a computer engineer and
backup human driver during the trial phase in case anything goes wrong.
•    These vehicles can be hailed by select members of the public using a smartphone app. 
•    The company will also test its vehicles on a 6 kilometer (3.7 mile) route.
 

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on 25 August 2016 asked all commercial and Co-operative banks to provide loans to women self-
help groups (SHGs) in rural areas at 7 percent per annum.
•    The loans will be provided for the financial year 2016-17 under the Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana - National Rural
Livelihoods Mission (NRLM) in 250 districts.
•    All women self-help groups (SHGs) will be eligible for interest subvention on credit up to three lakh rupees at 7
percent per annum.
•    SHGs availing capital subsidy under the Swarnajayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY) in their existing credit
outstanding will not be eligible for benefit under this scheme.
•    All banks will be subvented to the extent of difference between the weighted average interest charged and 7%,
subject to the maximum limit of 5.5% for 2016-17.
•    NRLM (Aajeevika) was launched by the Union Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) in June 2011. 
•    In 2015, the mission was replaced by the Deen Dayal Antyodaya Yojana.
 

Senior DRDO scientist Dr. G. Satheesh Reddy was awarded the first IEI-IEEE Award for Engineering Excellence-2015. 
•    He was bestowed with this award in recognition of his significant national contributions towards missiles and
aerospace technologies. 
•    Reddy is a renowned aerospace and navigation scientist. Presently, he is serving as the Scientific Adviser to the
Defence Minister and DRDO’s DG.
•    He has pioneered many technological developments for Indian Missiles. He had led indigenous development of denied
sensor and avionics technologies related to Indian missile navigation. 
•    He also has made significant contributions towards successful flight testing of the country’s maiden
intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) Agni-V mission. 
•    He is also credited with development of the Medium Range Surface-to-Air Weapon System (MRSAM) and the country’s
first guided bomb, among others. 
•    In 2015, he became first Indian to get the fellowship from Royal Institute of Navigation.
 

National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) on 25 August 2016 constituted a five-member review committee to probe the
shooters' Rio Games debacle.
•    The committee will be headed by India's first and only individual Olympic gold-medallist Abhinav Bindra. 
•    The committee has been asked to submit the report within a maximum period of four weeks.
•    To examine and identify the causes behind shooting not securing any medals at the Rio Olympics.
•    To recommend concrete steps that NRAI must immediately undertake to ensure that this is not repeated in future
Olympics.
•    Other members of the committee include former tennis player Manisha Malhotra, who has also been appointed Convenor
of the committee, NRAI Secretary Rajiv Bhatia and two journalists.
•    Bindra, who finished at the fourth position in the men’s 10meter air rifle event in Rio, retired from the sport in
third week of August 2016.
 

The largest 'Mariachi' festival will be hosted in the Mexican city of Guadalajara starting today. 
•    The annual 10-day festival, which takes place over the city's streets, features around 500 musicians from Europe
and Asia. 
•    This year, the festival is seeking to break the world record for individuals wearing hats.
•    Mariachi is a musical expression that dates back to at least 19th century Western Mexico. 
•    It is a tradition that can be defined by eight socio-musical elements: mariachi instrumentation and texture,
musical genres and subgenres, performance methods and styles, singing styles and forms, dance styles, per formative space,
performance clothing, and the word "mariachi". 
•    Each element has its own history, originated at varying moments in time and in different regions of the Western
Mexican countryside, and some, not all, had to have converged in order for the mariachi tradition to be what it has become.
 

Portuguese footballer Cristiano Ronaldo (31) has won the UEFA Best Player in Europe award for the year 2015-16. 
•    This is second time he has won this award after he was crowned for first time in 2013–14. 
•    To bag this award, Ronaldo defeated Antoine Griezmann and Gareth Bale. 
•    In 2015, he had scored 35 goals for Real Madrid and 16 goals in Champions League competition. 
•    He scored 3 goals for Portugal national team at Euro 2016. 
•    Ada Hegerberg: She was crowned with UEFA Best Women’s Player in Europe Award for the year 2015-16. 
•    Lionel Messi: He was crowed UEFA Goal of the Season award for the 2015-16.
•    He had won the award for his strike against Roma. His famous goal had received 73331 votes. 
•    The award is an association football award given to the footballer playing for a football club in Europe that is
considered the best in the previous season. 
 

The Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has been apprised of the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between India and South Africa to establish cooperation in Grassroots Innovation. 
The MoU was signed on July 07, 2016 at Pretoria in pursuance to the Inter-Government Agreement between two countries for cooperation in Science & Technology. 
•    Under this MoU, both countries will jointly organise various programmes such as forums, seminars, workshops, and training on matters related to innovation; share open source technologies with each other and jointly develop projects (and including partnering with relevant industries in the respective countries) to assist innovators in converting their ideas into commercially viable innovations leading to joint technology development and transfer of technology for Societal benefit. 
•    The MoU will provide a mechanism and help in creating an ecosystem that will promote inclusive innovation and entrepreneurship at the grassroot level in both countries with particular focus on Indigenous knowledge systems and Agriculture Biotechnology.
 

The Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has given its approval for signing of new Air Services Agreement (ASA) between India and Fiji. 
The Agreement is for updation of the existing Air Services Agreement (ASA) between the two countries which was signed on 28th January, 1974. The updation is as per latest ICAO template keeping in view the latest developments in civil aviation sector and with an objective to improve the air connectivity between the two countries. 
i.    Both countries shall be entitled to designate one or more airline. 
ii.    The designated airlines of either country shall have the right to establish offices in the territory of the other country for the promotion and sale of air services. 
iii.    The designated airlines of the two countries shall have fair and equal opportunity to operate the agreed services on specified routes. The routes and frequencies shall be decided subsequently. 
iv.    The designated airline will be free to decide tariffs in respect of the agreed services at reasonable levels based on the commercial considerations. 
v.    The designated Airline of each party can enter into cooperative marketing arrangements with the designated carriers of same party and other party. 
vi.    Apart from the above, the ASA also has the provisions relating to Revocation or Suspension of Operating Authorization, Principles governing operations of agreed services, commercial opportunities, safety related clause etc. that were incorporated in the line of Indian model ASA. 
vii.    The existing Route Schedule annex to the ASA has also been revised and new points of call have been added for enhanced connectivity. Now Indian carriers can operate to any points in Fiji from points in India whereas the carriers of Fiji can establish direct operation to Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai in India and by code share with Indian carriers to Bangalore, Kolkata, and Hyderabad apart from points given for direct operation. Besides this, Kochi, Varanasi, Ahmadabad and Amritsar may be served through domestic code share operations.