GK and Current Affairs Updates

It is going to be mandatory for public transport buses to install emergency buttons, CCTV cameras and vehicle tracking devices to ensure the safety of women commuters, Road Transport and Highways. 
•    Government will issue a notification on June 2, laying down the safety measures to be installed in public transport buses across the country.
•    The statement came at an event at Bikaner House in Delhi where Gadkari launched 20 such Rajasthan government buses. 
•    The 20 Mahila Gaurav Express buses that would run between Delhi and Rajasthan are part of a pilot project. 
•    The Rajasthan government plans to eventually bring over 2,300 more buses under the project’s ambit.
•    Many women are also scared of the ‘consequences’ of confronting harassers. Only 36% of those surveyed say they would help a co-passenger being harassed; 22% others feel it’s safer to ignore such regular incidents

Routes 2 Roots, a Delhi-based Non-profit organization (NGO), has been awarded prestigious Inter-cultural Innovation Award 2016. 
•    The award was given by United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) in Baku, Azerbaijan. 
•    Under this programme, students from both countries connect with each other through written, audio and visual recordings that share history before partition and thus help in eliminating misunderstandings about each other’s cultures. 
•    This engagement also facilitates the students to ask each other questions, thereby discovering common interests. 
•    Intercultural Innovation Award: It has been instituted by a partnership between UNAOC and the BMW Group. 
•    Formed with a vision of ‘connecting cultures’, constantly striving to bridge the socio-cultural distance between India and the world through music and art thereby becoming cultural diplomats to the world. 
•    Ever since its inception (2004) our shows and exhibitions have traveled to more than 20 cities in India and to 12 international cities in Russia, China, United Kingdom, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and South Africa. 
•    It has always been the motto of R2R to bring much needed global integrity & harmony amongst people, cultures and values across borders and especially in SAARC countries.

The World Bank Group has launched Pandemic Emergency Finance Facility a new financing mechanism to quickly mobilize funds to tackle global disease outbreaks and create a new insurance market for pandemic risk.

•    PEF is expected to bring the much needed coordination and speed for future global disease outbreak response efforts.
•    Pandemics pose some of the biggest threats in the world to people’s lives and to economies, and for the first time we will have a system that can move funding and teams of experts to the sites of outbreaks before they spin out of control
•    Jim Yong Kim is the President of the World Bank Group.
•    This facility addresses a long, collective failure in dealing with pandemics. 
•    The PEF facility launch announcement came few days ahead of the May 26-27 Summit of Group of Seven Leaders in Ise-Shima, Japan. 
•    G7 leaders had urged the World Bank Group to develop the initiative during their May 2015 summit in Schloss-Elmau, Germany.
•    Japan became the first donor to the PEF initiative and committed $ 50 million.
•    Innovative financing for crisis responses by PEF, together with financing for preparedness and prevention in peacetime, including through IDA, are important to mitigate human and social losses and to help quickly recover in the event of a crisis. 

Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 25 May 2016 gave its ex-facto approval to the Amendment to The Institutes of Technology Act, 1961 for incorporation of six new Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs).
•    These six new IITs will be based in :
•    Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh
•    Palakkad in Kerala
•    Dharwar in Karnataka
•    Bhilai in Chhattisgarh
•    Goa
•    Jammu in Jammu & Kashmir
•    The above Amendment is also for conversion of Indian School of Mines (ISM), Dhanbad into an IIT by bringing it into the ambit of the Institutes of Technology Act, 1961 and also declaring it as an institute of national importance.
•    The cabinet also gave ex post facto approval to set up NIT, Andhra Pradesh which has been registered as a Society under the Andhra Pradesh Societies Registration Act, 2001. The approval will give a legal entity to the NIT.

The Union Ministry of Human Resource Development has decided to launch, a student tracking system programme ASMITA.
•    It is acronym for All School Monitoring Individual Tracing Analysis.
•    It will be launched under Shala Asmita Yojana (SAY).
•    It aims to track the educational journey of school students from Class I to Class XII across the 15 lakhs private and government schools in the country. 
•    ASMITA will be an online database which will carry information of student attendance and enrolment, learning outcomes, mid-day meal service and infrastructural facilities among others. 
•    Students will be tracked through their Aadhaar numbers and incase those not having unique number will be provided with it.
•    The Ministry of Human Resource Development is responsible for the development of human resources. 
•    The Ministry is divided into two departments: the Department of School Education and Literacy, which deals with primary, secondary and higher secondary education, adult education and literacy, and the Department of Higher Education, which deals with university education, technical education, scholarship etc. 

Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 25 May 2016 gave the ex-post facto approval to the amendments in the Constitution (Schedule Tribes) Order, 1950.
•    The approval was given to modify the list of Scheduled Tribes in respect of five States, namely, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Tamil Nadu, Tripura
•    Assam - i) Boro, Boro Kachari,    Bodo, Bodo Kachari, ii) Karbi (Mikir)
•    Chhattisgarh - iii) Bhuinya, Bhuiyan, Bhuyan, iv) Dhanuhar / Dhanuwar, v)  Kisan
•    vi) Saunra, Saonra, vii) Dhangad
•    Jharkhand - viii) Bhogta, Deshwari, Ganjhu, Dautalbandi (Dwalbandi), Patbandi, Raut, Maajhia, Khairi (Kheri), ix)  Puran
•    Tamil Nadu - x) Malayali Gounder, xi) Narikoravan,      Kurivikkaran
•    Tripura - xii) Darlong
•    Puducherry - xiii) Irular (including Villi and Vettaikaran)
•    
•    Besides, it also seeks to identify new communities in the Union Territory of Puducherry.
•    After the Bill becomes an Act, members of the communities included in the list of Scheduled Tribes will be able to derive benefits meant for Scheduled Tribes under the existing schemes.
•    Further, existing entries in list of Scheduled Castes (SCs) in case of Jharkhand and Other Backward Classes (OBCs) /Most Backward Classes (MBCs) of Central /State lists would be modified.
•    Under Article 342 of the Constitution of India certain privileges/concessions to the members of Scheduled Tribes has been provided.
•    As per the approved Modalities of June 1999, later modified in June 2002, any proposal for inclusion/exclusion by the concerned State Government/UT Administration shall be in concurrence with the both the Registrar General of India (RGI) as well as the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes (NCST).

Samsung Electronics will partner with SK Telecom to build a LoRaWAN network for the Internet of Things that will cover all of South Korea. 
•    The two companies claim that this is the world’s first nationwide IoT network.
•    LoRaWAN stands for “long-range wide-area network,” and is specifically designed for Internet-connected, battery-operated objects. 
•    South Korea may be getting the first countrywide IoT network, but LoRaWAN has already been used to build a citywide IoT data network in Amsterdam that launched last August.
•    Samsung Electronics and SK Telecom’s IoT network will be available throughout South Korea by the middle of this year. 
•    The South Korean government has said that it plans to invest 100 billion won by 2024 in smart cars and IoT as part of a drive to promote the country’s startup industry and decrease its dependence on semiconductor manufacturing.
•    South Korea’s Internet speeds are already among the fastest in the world.

Andhra Pradesh is going to implement e-Governance initiatives.
•    It is going to be implemented in all districts. 
•    e-Office will be introduced on a pilot basis in all 13 districts in June 
•    Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu announced this program.
•    It was announced during the two-day conference of district collectors. 
•    Already 2,23,582 files with 1,72,40,119 pages have been scanned and kept ready while another 2,02,193 files would also be digitised soon. 
•    The Chief Minister directed officials to constitute a Cyber Security wing to ensure safety of the electronic files. 
•    A three-member committee would also be constituted to prepare the e-file protocol. 
•    He directed the Information Technology Department to submit quarterly reports on e-files and e-Office implementation. 
•    Employees associations are happy with the e-Office system as it eases the work. 
•    Advisor to government J Satyanarayana made a presentation on various e-Governance initiatives. 
•    Chief Secretary Satya Prakash Tucker and other top bureaucrats attended. 

Andhra Pradesh is going to implement e-Governance initiatives.
•    It is going to be implemented in all districts. 
•    e-Office will be introduced on a pilot basis in all 13 districts in June 
•    Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu announced this program.
•    It was announced during the two-day conference of district collectors. 
•    Already 2,23,582 files with 1,72,40,119 pages have been scanned and kept ready while another 2,02,193 files would also be digitised soon. 
•    The Chief Minister directed officials to constitute a Cyber Security wing to ensure safety of the electronic files. 
•    A three-member committee would also be constituted to prepare the e-file protocol. 
•    He directed the Information Technology Department to submit quarterly reports on e-files and e-Office implementation. 
•    Employees associations are happy with the e-Office system as it eases the work. 
•    Advisor to government J Satyanarayana made a presentation on various e-Governance initiatives. 
•    Chief Secretary Satya Prakash Tucker and other top bureaucrats attended. 

For effective waste management in an eco-friendly manner, the Sikkim government has restricted the use of mineral water bottles in government programmes and banned the use of foam food containers all over the state.
•    In order to reduce creation of garbage in the form of used drinking water plastic bottles it is notified that the packaged drinking water bottles may not be used during any government meetings or functions.
•    It suggested that as an alternative, departments can use filtered water or water from large reusable water dispensers or reusable water bottles in government functions.
•    Government has been initiating various measures to manage the waste and maintain a clean environment but it has been found that a lot of disposable foam containers are being rampantly used not only in the bazar areas but also in the rural pockets.
•    A huge quantity of municipal waste is created in the form of disposable products which are environmentally hazardous and occupy a huge space in the landfill.
•    The order banned the use and sale of disposable items such as cups, plates, spoons, containers, etc made from foam throughout the state with immediate effect.
•    Made from polystyrene foam, such food containers are generally white in colour.