GK and Current Affairs Updates

The Lok Sabha on 27 July 2016 passed the Lokpal and Lokayukta (Amendment) Bill, 2016. The bill with amendments was passed without any discussion.
•    The bill amends section 44 of the 2013 Act and says that every public servant shall make a declaration of his assets and liabilities in such form and manner as may be prescribed.
•    Section 44 of the Lokayukta Act, 2013 provides for declaration of assets by the public servants.
•    It says that every public servant shall, within a period of thirty days from the date on which he makes  and  subscribes  an  oath  or  affirmation  to  enter  upon  his  office,  furnish  to  the competent  authority  the  information  relating  to—(angel) the assets of which he, his spouse and his dependent children are, jointly or severally,  owners  or  beneficiaries; (beer) his liabilities and that of his spouse and his dependent children.

Kolkata’s football club East Bengal on 26 July 2016 announced that the 2016 Bharat Gaurav Award, also known as Pride of India Award, will be conferred on legendary athlete Milkha Singh.
•    Milkha Singh is a former Indian track and field sprinter.
•    He is also known as The Flying Sikh.
•    He was introduced to the sport while serving in the Indian Army.
•    He also won gold medals in the 1958 and 1962 Asian Games.
•    He was awarded the Padma Shri in 1958.
•    East Bengal Football Club is a professional football club.
•    It is based in Kolkata, West Bengal.
•    It was founded on 1 August 1920.
•    It currently competes in the I-League, the top-tier of Indian football pyramid.
•    The club is the current holder of the Calcutta Football League.
•    The club has represented India the most number of times in the Asian competitions.

Punjab's Beas railway station was ranked the highest in cleanliness in a passenger feedback survey carried out by the Railway Ministry. 
•    The survey also ranked Bihar's Madhubani railway station the last in cleanliness.
•    The survey, involving 1.3 lakh passengers in 407 railway stations, was conducted as a part of Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu's 'Swachh Rail Swachh Bharat' initiative.
•    Out of the 40 different cleanliness parameters passengers rated stench at stations as their top concern, followed by lack of dustbins and unclean platforms.
•    Every passenger was asked to rate the stations cleanliness on 40 different parameters. Out of these absence of stench in the station premises was the most important for the passengers; this was followed by "adequate availability of dustbins".
•    The primary audience for the survey was passengers. Porters and vendors on the platform or ticketed area and railway officials were also approached for their feedback.

The Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has approved Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) between India and Cambodia. 
•    The Treaty seeks to promote and protect investments from either country in the territory of the other country with the objective of increasing bilateral investment flows. 
•    The Treaty encourages each country to create favourable conditions for investors of the other country to make investments in its territory and to admit investments in accordance with its laws. 
•    The Treaty is the first Bilateral Investment Treaty in accordance with the text of the Indian Model BIT, approved by the Cabinet in December, 2015.
•    Cambodia officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia.
•    Cambodia is a Southeast Asian nation whose landscape spans low-lying plains, the Mekong Delta, mountains and Gulf of Thailand coastline.

Lok Sabha on 27 July 2016 passed the Benami Transactions (Prohibition) Amendment Bill, 2015. The Bill seeks to amend the Benami Transactions Act, 1988.
•    The bill prohibits benami transactions and provides for confiscating benami properties.
•    It defines benamidar as the person in whose name the benami property is held or transferred, and a beneficial owner as the person for whose benefit the property is being held by the benamidar.
•    Under the Act, an Authority to acquire benami properties was to be established by the Rules. 
•    To hear appeals against any orders passed by the Adjudicating Authority, the Bill also seeks to establish an Appellate Tribunal. 
•    Appeals against orders of the Appellate Tribunal will lie to the high court.

The 2016 report of the prestigious Scimago Institutions Rankings in the fourth week of July 2016 ranked the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) as the 12th Best Government Institutions in the world.
•    CSIR is the only Indian organization to have found a place among the top 100 global institutions.
•    The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) was established in 1942.
•    It is an autonomous body and the largest research and development organisation in India.
•    It runs 37 laboratories and 39 field stations or extension centres spread across the nation.
•    It is mainly funded by the Ministry of Science and Technology.
•    It operates as an autonomous body registered under the Registration of Societies Act of 1860.

The Union Cabinet on 27 July 2016 approved the establishment of an All India Institute Of Medical Science (AIIMS) at Bhatinda in Punjab under the Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana (PMSSY).
•    It will provide super specialty health care to the population while creating a large pool of doctors and other health workers in this region that can be available for primary and secondary level institutions/facilities being created under National Health Mission (NHM).
•    The cost of the project for establishment of the AIIMS in Bhatinda shall be 925 crore rupees. 
•    This cost estimate does not include recurring costs (wages & salaries and operation & maintenance expenses). 
•    In addition, there will be an Administration Block, AYUSH Block, Auditorium, Night Shelter, Hostels and residential facilities. 
•    It will also conduct research on prevalent regional diseases and other health issues and provide for better control and cure of such diseases. 
•    The project will be completed in a period of 48 months from the date of the approval by the Union Government.

Flipkart Ltd on 26 July 2016 acquired online fashion portal Jabong through its unit Myntra in a move to maintain its position as the market leader. However, the financial details of the deal were not revealed.
•    This acquisition will strengthen Flipkart Group's position in Fashion and Lifestyle segment to compete with Amazon Fashion in India.
•    Jabong was founded in 2012 . 
•    In September 2014, its investor Rocket Internet merged Jabong with four online fashion retailers in Latin America, Russia, the Middle East, South-east Asia to create Global Fashion Group (GFG). 
•    It offers more than 1500 international high-street brands, sports labels, Indian ethnic and designer labels and over 150000 styles from over a thousand sellers.
•    Global Fashion Group has been on the lookout for a buyer of Jabong for the last few months. The company was in touch with Snapdeal as well as Future Group and Amazon, but a deal failed to pass through. 
•    In 2014, Amazon reportedly wanted to acquire Jabong but it couldn't due to the price tag that was a steep 1.2 billion US dollars.

Rio-bound shot putter Inderjeet Singh became the second athlete to test positive for a banned substance.
•    He was caught using a banned steroid in an out-of-competition test on June 22. Sources said it was a "fancy-sounding" drug though the name could not be ascertained.
•    Gold-medallist in the Asian championships, Asian Grand Prix and the World University Games last year, Inderjeet was the first Indian athlete to qualify for Rio.
•    Inderjeet had been registered by NADA for its testing pool and he was "avoiding" getting tested by the agency. 
•    Inderjeet returned from the US in the summer and participated in the Indian Grand Prix in the capital in April where he finished a fault-ridden second. 
•    Though he struggled with a shoulder injury and loss of form in recent times, but still he was considered a potential finalist in the Rio Olympics.

The first round-the-world solar powered flight by Solar Impulse 2 was completed on 26 July 2016 after the aircraft landed successfully in Abu Dhabi.
•    Construction of Solar Impulse 2 started in 2011.
•    The wingspan of Solar Impulse 2 is 71.9 m, slightly less than that of an Airbus A380, the world's largest passenger airliner.
•    It is made of carbon-fibre.
•    It weighs only about 2.3 tonnes.
•    It features non-pressurized cockpit 3.8 cubic metres in size and advanced avionics, including an autopilot.
•    It has 17248 solar cells built into the wings that supply the plane with renewable energy, via four motors.
•    It made an unscheduled stop in Japan to await favourable weather over the Pacific.
•    The aircraft began the flight from Japan to Hawaii on 28 June 2015.
•    The plane landed at Moffett Field in California on 23 April 2016.
•    The aircraft next landed in Cairo, Egypt, on 13 July 2016.
•    On 23 July 2016, the plane departed Cairo and landed in Abu Dhabi on 26th July 2016.