GK and Current Affairs Updates

The Scripps National Spelling Bee ended in a tie for the third consecutive year on Thursday night, with Jairam Hathwar and Nihar Janga declared co-champions. 
•    Thirteen-year-old Jairam is the younger brother of the 2014 co-champion, Sriram Hathwar. 
•    Nihar, at age 11, is the youngest winner of the bee on record.
•    Each will receive a trophy and $45,000 in cash and prizes.
•    Because the best spellers become fluent in Latin and Greek roots, the bee went to words derived from trickier or more obscure languages, including Afrikaans, Danish, Irish Gaelic, Maori and Mayan.
•    Jairam’s winning word was Feldenkrais, which is derived from a trademark and means a system of body movements intended to ease tension. 
•    Niram won with gesellschaft, which means a mechanistic type of social relationship.
Snehaa Kumar of Folsom, California, finished third, and Sylvie Lamontagne of Lakewood, Colorado, was fourth. 

Pakke Tiger Reserve on 22 May 2016 received the 'India Biodiversity Award 2016' in one of its four categories in Mumbai. 
•    The Hornbill Nest Adoption Programme of the Pakke Tiger Reserve was awarded the prize under Conservation of threatened species category.
•    Besides this, Hong Niitii, Lower Subansiri was awarded under category IV Biodiversity Management Committee (BMC) award.
•    Hornbill Nest Adoption Programme It is a collaboration of Ghora-Aabhe Society, Nature Conservation Foundation and the State Forest Departments.
•    Under this programme, urban citizens contribute money to protect hornbill nests around Pakke Tiger Reserve.
•    It is a major step towards conservation of four hornbill species that are found in the adjoining areas of the Tiger Reserve.
•    India Biodiversity Awards are joint initiative of Union Environment, Forest and Climate Change Ministry, National Biodiversity Authority (NBA) and United Nations Development programme (UNDP).
•    It recognizes the contribution of the stakeholders towards the biodiversity conservation.

The Union Government on 26 May 2016 approved establishment of a National Investment and Manufacturing Zone (NIMZ) in Odisha.
•    For execution of the project, the Union Ministry of Commerce and Industry has approved the 4241 crore rupees. 
•    Of this fund, estimated 3816 crore rupees will be invested for the first phase of the project which will be completed by 2020.
•    In order to boost manufacturing sector, the Union Government in 2014 announced setting up of sixteen national investment and manufacturing zones (NIMZs) under National Manufacturing Policy (NMP).
•    Till 2013-14, 16 NIMZs have been set up. 
•    Ahmedabad-Dholera Investment Region, Gujarat
•    Shendra-Bidkin Industrial Part city near Aurangabad, Maharashtra
•    Manesar-Bawal Investment Region, Haryana
•    Khushkhera-Bhiwadi-Neemrana Investment Region, Rajasthan
•    Pithampur-Dhar-Mhow Investment Regioin, Madhya Pradesh
•    Dadri-Noida-Ghaziabad investment Region, Uttar Pradesh
•    Dighi Port Industrial Area, Maharashtra
•    Jodhpur-Pali-Marwar Region in Rajasthan
•    Nagpur in Maharashtra
•    Chittoor in Andhra Pradesh
•    Medak in Andhra Pradesh (now Telengana)
•    Prakasam in Andhra Pradesh
•    Tumkur in Karnataka
•    Kolar in Karnataka
•    Bidar in Karnataka
•    Gulbarga in Karnataka

China signed agreements on 23 May 2016 with Sudan to build 600-megawatt atomic reactor.
The agreements were signed during a three-day visit to Sudan by a Chinese delegation led by Nur Bekri.
He is head of the National Energy Administration and deputy director of the National Development and Reform Commission.
•    State-owned China National Nuclear Corp (CNNC) signed two agreements with Sudan on nuclear power development which includes building a 600-megawatt atomic reactor.
•    The agreements may involve a blueprint for nuclear power development in the next ten years for Sudan and building the first nuclear power station in Sudan.
•    China already had a nuclear cooperation with Pakistan as it has built several nuclear power reactors and is currently building two 1100 mw reactors in Karachi.
•    The contract value or the type of nuclear technology to be used for the reactor was not disclosed.
•    Chinese nuclear companies are making huge inroads in global nuclear markets, including Britain and Argentina.

Barack Obama became the first sitting U.S. president to visit Hiroshima, where he called for a "world without nuclear weapons" during his remarks at the city's Peace Memorial Park.
•    In the Hiroshima museum's guest book before his speech, the President wrote that he hoped the world will "find the courage, together, to spread peace, and pursue a world without nuclear weapons
•    Obama’s visit, the first to Hiroshima by a sitting U.S. president, comes as an acknowledgement from the American leaders towards the suffering of the estimated 140,000 killed during the bombing on Aug. 6, 1945.
•    That figure includes 20,000 Koreans who had been forced by the Japanese military to work in the city for the imperial war machine.
•    Hiroshima Peace Memorial commonly called the Atomic Bomb Dome, in Hiroshima, Japan, is part of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park and was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996.
•    The ruin serves as a memorial to the people who were killed in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945.

Sunil Bharti Mittal, the founder and chairman of Bharti Enterprises, received the Alumni Achievement Award of Harvard Business School. 
•    The award is presented annually since 1968 and is the highest honour given to any alumni of the institute.
•    Mittal serves on the Prime Minister of India’s Council on Trade & Industry and has held various prestigious positions like Vice-Chairman of International Chamber of Commerce (ICC).
•    He was also felicitated with a Padma Bhushan, country’s third highest civilian honour, in 2007.
•    Mittal also founded Bharti Airtel, the country’s largest telecommunications company.
•    Airtel is the first company to launch 4G Services in India.
•    Apart from strong marketing and market value Airtel has also been in many controversies.
•    Airtel is known for its wide network coverage and fluent flow of data services

India and Russia have agreed ‘in principle’ to export the world’s fastest anti-ship cruise missile, BrahMos, to UAE, Vietnam, South Africa and Chile.
•    BrahMos was developed jointly by India’s Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) and Russia’s NPO Mashinostroyenia (NPOM), which in 1998 established the company BrahMos Aerospace. 
•    The name BrahMos is a portmanteau formed from the names of two rivers, the Brahmaputra of India and the Moskva of Russia.
•    Russia is the partner country in the BrahMos joint venture with its consent discussions with several other countries, including Philippines, South Korea, Algeria, Greece, Malaysia, Thailand, Egypt, Singapore, Venezuela and Bulgaria .
•    BrahMos has: 3 times more velocity, 2.5 to 3 times more flight range, 3 to 4 times more seeker range, 9 times more kinetic energy. 
•    The missile has identical configuration for land, sea and sub-sea platforms and uses a Transport Launch Canister (TLC) for transportation, storage and launch.

Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries leads the pack of 56 Indian firms in Forbes's annual list of the world's 2,000 largest and most powerful public companies,
•    US is leading the list with 586 companies.
•    The 2016 Forbes 'Global 2000', a snapshot of the world's largest companies, shows the dominance of US and China in the current global business landscape.
•    Reliance improved its ranking this year to 121 from 142 last year, with a market value of USD 50.6 billion and assets worth USD 91.5 billion.

•    Reliance is followed by State Bank of India which is ranked 149 and has a 23.3 billion dollar market value.
•    The other Indian companies on the list are Oil and Natural Gas ranked (220), 
•    ICICI Bank (266), 
•    HDFC Bank (275), 
•    Indian Oil (371), 
•    Tata Consultancy Services (385), 
•    NTPC (400), 
•    Bharti Airtel (453), 
•    Axis Bank (484), 
•    Infosys (590), 
•    Bharat Petroleum (650), 
•    Wipro (755, 
•    Tata Steel (1178) 
•    Adani Enterprises (1993)
•    Coal India (465), 
•    Larsen and Toubro (505), 
•    ITC (781), 
•    Kotak Mahindra Bank (899),
•    Mahindra and Mahindra (901) and 
•    HCL Technologies (943).

Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee sworn in as Chief Minister of West Bengal on Friday, beginning her second stint in the once-Left dominated State.
•    Forty-one ministers, including 17 new faces, were sworn in along with her in batches at a function at Red Road in central Kolkata.
•    Among the new entrants in the ministry were singer Indranil Sen, cricketer Laxmi Ratan Shukla, dissident Marxist leader Adbur Razzak Molla, powerful Muslim leader Siddiqullah Chowdhury and a couple of former IPS officers. 
•    Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Minister of State for Urban Development Babul Supriyo attended the swearing-in ceremony.
•    Her council of ministers includes five Minister of States (Independent Charge) and 8 MoS.
•    West Bengal has always had a very strong hold for Mamta.
•    Narendra Modi’s Language and his speeches also worked against the BJP which lead to the defeat of BJP in the state.

Marathi litterateur and critique R.G. Jadhav, passed away at his residence following a prolonged illness.

•    He was best known for his 91 reflective poems on Mahatma Gandhi.
•    A prolific literary critic, Professor Jadhav, who was born at Vadodara in Gujarat, taught Marathi literature in various colleges across Maharashtra, including Elphinstone College in Mumbai and Milind College in Aurangabad, among others.
•    Prof. Jadhav presided over the 2004 Marathi Sahitya Sammelan held at Aurangabad and served as chief editor of the ‘Marathi Vishwakosha’ based in Wai between 2000 and 2002.
Conceived along the lines of the World Almanac and the Encyclopaedia Britannica, the ambitious ‘Vishwakosha’ project, launched by the State government in 1960 in an effort to inform and edify the Marathi-speaking world on modern science and arts, began as a print concept before moving online in 2011.