GK and Current Affairs Updates

GP Talwar, the first Director of the National Institute of Immunology, has developed the world’s first leprosy vaccine. 
•    A pilot run of the indigenous vaccine will be conducted in Bihar and Gujarat in a few weeks, and the government has already started screening people for the disease in high-prevalence districts. 
•    According to research data, leprosy affected 1.27 lakh Indians in 2013-14.
•    Jagat Prakash Nadda, the Union Health Minister, added that a vaccination programm will be implemented in high-prevalence districts across the country if the pilot phase is successful. 
•    The government had begun screening in 50 high prevalence districts and the next phase will cover 165 endemic districts including Erode. 
•    About 7.5 crore people have been screened, out of which 5,000 were diagnosed with leprosy.
•    According to the Indian Council of Medical Research, leprosy affected 1.27 lakh Indians from 2013-14. Let’s hope that this novel invention creates awareness about this disease across India.
 

Olympic medallists PV Sindhu and Sakshi Malik are set to receive the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award, India's highest sporting honour, alongside gymnast Dipa Karmakar and shooter Jitu Rai. 
•    This is the first time the award will be conferred upon four athletes at a time.
•    While Sindhu created history by becoming the first woman athlete from India to win silver in badminton at the Rio Olympics, Sakshi bagged a bronze in women's 58kg wrestling.
•    Dipa Karmakar, India's first woman gymnast to qualify for the Olympics, missed bronze by 0.15 points, but her clean finish in the high-risk Produnova vault earned her praise from all corners. 
•    Shooter Jitu Rai, the 2014 Asian Games and Commonwealth Games gold medallist, participated in the 10m and 50m air pistol events, finishing 8th and 12th respectively.
•    The Khel Ratna Award is given for spectacular and most outstanding performance in the field of sports by a sportsperson over a period of four years. 
•    Apart from a medal and a citation, the Khel Ratna Awardee will receive a cash prize of Rs 7.5 lakh.
 

Hindi scholar and writer Sunita Jain was on 17 August 2016 awarded with the prestigious 25th Vyas Samman 2015 for her poetry collection Kshama. 
•    She received the award by West Bengal Governor K N Tripathi.
•    The award instituted by the K K Birla Foundation carries a cash prize of 2.50 lakh rupees. 
•    It is given annually to outstanding literary work in Hindi authored by an Indian citizen.
•    She writes in both English and Hindi and has over 100 books to her credit. 
•    She began to write at the age of 22 and has published short-stories, novels and poems in Hindi and English. 
•    Her works in English include A Girl of Her Age and two short-story anthologies A Woman is Dead and Eunuch of Time and Other Stories. 
•    She had also worked as the professor and the Head of the department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. 
•    Her book Kshama was published in 2008. 
•    She was awarded with the Padma Shri in 2004.
 

Croatia's Marin Cilic won Cincinnati Open Men's Single. Marin Čilić  is a Croatian professional tennis player whose biggest success to date is having won the 2014 US Open and the 2016 Cincinnati Open. 
•    So far, Čilić has won 15 ATP singles titles. 
•    His career-high singles ranking is world No. 8, achieved in October 2014. 
•    Čilić first came to international prominence by defeating then World No. 2 Andy Murray in the fourth round of the 2009 US Open. 
•    He followed this by reaching the semifinals of the 2010 Australian Open. 
•    Čilić was also a quarterfinalist at the 2014 and 2015 Wimbledon Championships.
•    His first steps of tennis started in Bosnia and Herzegovina. 
•    His potential was discovered by local hometown coaches who saw him play and encouraged his move to Zagreb for further training.
 

Indian junior table tennis team has won the bronze medal at the Asian School Table Tennis Championships 2016, held in Singapore. 
•    The Indian team of six paddlers defeated Macau and Hong Kong in the tournament's group stage, before crashing out against eventual winners China in the semifinals. 
•    India shared the bronze medal with Thailand, while Singapore won the silver.
•    The School is situated on a 16 acre campus, 'Asian Acres' , in tranquil and verdant environs. 
•    The academic building is an impressive structure designed by a well-known group of architects from New Delhi. 
•    It has 4 hostels, 2 for senior boys, 1 for junior boys and 1 separate hostel for girls.
•    Table tennis, also known as ping pong, is a sport in which two or four players hit a lightweight ball back and forth across a table using a small paddle.
 

Indian Olympic Committee (IOC) Chief Narayana Ramachandran, was awarded the Olympic Order for outstanding services to the Olympic movement. 
•    Established in 1975, the Olympic Order is the highest award of the Olympic Movement, awarded for particularly distinguished contributions to the movement. 
•    Narayana Ramachandran is an Indian squash administrator who serves as current President of WSF (World Squash Federation). 
•    He was elected on 2008, succeeding Jahangir Khan.
•    He is also, since the 9th of February 2014, the president of the Indian Olympic Association (IOA).
•    He is the brother of the former Chairman of BCCI and ICC, N Srinivasan
•    The International Olympic Committee is an international, non-profit, non-governmental organization based in Lausanne, Switzerland, created by Pierre de Coubertin, on 23 June 1894 with Demetrios Vikelas as its first president. 
•    Today its membership consists of 100 active members, 32 honorary members, and 1 honour member
 

USA's Abbey D'Agostino and New Zealand's Nikki Hamblin were presented with the Fair Play awards at the Rio Olympics. 
•    Hamblin and D'Agostino tripped and fell to the ground during the 5,000m race, after which D'Agostino helped Hamblin to her feet instead of carrying on with her race. 
•    The two sprinters went on to complete the race together.
•    Speaking of this recognition after the ceremony, 28-year-old Nikki Hamblin said:  “I think it’s very special for both Abbey and myself. 
•    The Norwegian men’s handball team was also honoured for its gracious attitude during a European championship match against Germany earlier this year, which saw them lose out on their Olympic dream. 
•    The match was tied when at the last minute the German team scored a goal. It was discovered that when the goal had been scored an extra player had come onto the field. 

The Guinness World Records recently recognised NASA's September 2015 launch which saw 44 rockets being fired in a single flight, as a world record for the most rockets fired in a single launch. 
•    The mission, which used 37 engines to create an exhaust cloud, three for the rocket launch, and four for position control, was aimed at studying "dusty plasmas".
•    Although the rocket carried an NRL experiment, Wallops had a big hand in the mission. 
•    The team implementing the NRL concept for the multi-rocket-motor dust release module and leading the construction of CARE II are at Wallops.
•    Phil Eberspeaker, Office Chief for the Sounding Rocket Program, said, “Being recognized by Guinness World Records for this achievement is icing on the cake for the entire team. 
•    To successfully carry out this mission required great planning from everyone involved.”
 

A total of ten nations won their first ever Olympic gold medal at the recently concluded Rio Olympics, making it the most first-time gold medalists since 1996.
•    Bahrain: Ruth Jebet, born in Kenya but now running for Bahrain, won the women's steeplechase
•    Fiji: The men's rugby sevens team took gold, giving Fiji its first gold in 14 trips to the Summer Olympic Games.
•    Independent: Fehaid Al Deehani became first to win gold in  shooting.
•    Côte d'Ivoire : Cheick Sallah Junior Cisse won gold in taekwondo, the first gold in 14 Olympic Games for Côte d'Ivoire.
•    Jordan : Ahmad Abughaush also prevailed in taekwondo. This was Jordan's 10th trip to the Summer Olympic Games.
•    Kosovo : Majlinda Kelmendi prevailed in women's judo. Kosovo was first recognized by the International Olympic Committee in 2014, so this was its first time at the Summer Games.
•    Puerto Rico: Monica Puig won the women's tennis gold, completing a dazzling run through the field. 
•    Singapore: Joseph Schooling won the men's 100m butterfly, beating Michael Phelps among others. 
•    Tajikistan: Dilshod Nazarov won the men's hammer throw. 
•    Vietnam: Hoang Xuan Vinh in the 10m air pistol gave the Vietnamese their first gold in 15 trips to the Olympic Games.
 

Indian wrestler Sakshi Malik on 17 August 2016 won bronze in the 58 kg category at the Olympic Games in Rio.
•    With this, Malik brought home India’s first medal of the competition. 
•    With the win, she also became India's firstss female wrestler and the fourth female athlete ever to win an Olympic medal.
•    Born 3 September 1992, Sakshi Malik is an Indian freestyle wrestler.
•    Her first success as a professional wrestler in the international arena came in 2010 at the Junior World Championships where she won the bronze medal in the 58 kg freestyle event.
•    At the 2014 Dave Schultz International Tournament, she won gold in the 60 kg category.
•    She had previously won silver medal at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.
•    At the 2015 Asian Wrestling Championships in Doha, she won the bronze medal.