GK and Current Affairs Updates

Justice Tinlianthang Vaiphei on 16 May 2016 was sworn in as the acting Chief Justice of Tripura High Court. He was administered the oath of office by the Governor Tathagata Roy at the Raj Bhavan in Agartala.
•    At present Vaiphei is the Acting Chief Justice of the Gauhati High Court. He replaced Deepak Kumar Gupta, who was transferred as the chief justice of the Chhattisgarh High Court.
•    Vaiphei was appointed as an Additional Judge in the Gauhati High Court in July 2003. He was elevated as the Chief Justice (Acting) in October 2015.
•    High Court of the state of Tripura was established in March 2013.
•    Prior to the establishment, a bench of the Gauhati High Court used to have jurisdiction over the state.
•    The seat of the High Court is at Agartala, the capital of Tripura.
•    Deepak Gupta worked as the first Chief Justice of the court.
•    This article empowers the President of India to appoint acting Chief Justice to a High Court.
•    Appointment of acting Chief Justice takes place when the office of Chief Justice of High Court is vacant.
•    Such an appointment also takes place when any such Chief Justice is, by reason of absence or otherwise, unable to perform the duties of his office.

State-run power producer NTPC Limited on 16 May 2016 signed a Joint Venture Agreement (JVA) with state-run miner Coal India limited to foray into the Fertilizer Sector and revive plants of the Fertilizer Corporation of India Limited (FCIL).
The JVA was signed by NTPC's General Manager (BD) Arun Kumar Gupta and Coal India's General Manager (Coal Videsh) T Bandopadhyay.
•    The JV company would initially be incorporated with 50:50 equity participation from both.
•    It will also contain the provision of inducting strategic partners at a later date depending upon business requirement of JV company.
•    The joint venture company will take up the revival of FCIL plants at Sindri in Bihar and Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh.
•    It will set up an ammonia urea plant at each location.

The South Korean author Han Kang has been named the winner of the 2016 Man Booker International Prize for her novel The Vegetarian, splitting the £50,000 prize with her translator, Deborah Smith.
•    The Vegetarian, published by Portobello Books, the UK independent publisher, is Ms Han’s first novel to be translated into English. 
•    It is the strange story of Yeong-hye, a Korean wife who, seeking a more “plant-like existence”, decides to become vegetarian — a rebellious decision that flouts the traditions of her family and country.
•    Ms Smith, 28, started to learn Korean only seven years ago, when she moved to Korea. 
•    It was Ms Smith who proposed the idea of translating The Vegetarian.
•    She also worked on Ms Han’s second novel to be translated into English, Human Acts. 
•    Ms Smith is also the founder of Tilted Axis Press, a non-profit publishing house that promotes the translation of literature from Africa and Asia.
•    Previous prize winners include László Krasznahorkai (2015), Lydia Davis (2013), Philip Roth (2011), Alice Munro (2009), Chinua Achebe (2007) and Ismail Kadare (2005).
•    The prize is sponsored by Man Group, who also sponsor the annual Man Booker prize for English language fiction.

Union Minister of Road Transport & Highways and Shipping Shri Nitin Gadkari has called upon stakeholders to make conscious and active use of  innovations and successful best practices from round the world in engineering and construction of roads.
•    The meet was attended by officials of the Ministry of Road Transport & Highways, and NHIDCL, besides   contractors, consultants, bankers and material suppliers concerned with road construction. 
•    Technological initiatives have also been brought in like satellite based road asset management system, use of concrete for road construction, electronic toll collection,  INAMPRO other IT initiatives. 
•    Gadkari also launched ePACE, INFRACON and an updated version of  INAMPRO, three innovative IT initiatives of the Ministry of Road Transport & Highways, developed  in house by NHIDCL( National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation Ltd.)
•    ePACE (Projects Appraisal & Continuing Enhancements) is an online integrated Management  Information System that brings projects from all wings of the  Ministry under a common platform,  ensuring  their effective and real time tracking. 
•    INFRACON is the National Portal for Infrastructure Consultancy Firms and Key Personnel. This portal acts as a kind of bridge between consultancy firms working in the road engineering and construction sector and domain experts and key personnel who are deployed both for project preparation and supervision.  
•    INAM PRO has been developed as a web-based application for Infrastructure and Material Providers. It is a kind of a web based market place that brings together the material providers and the prospective buyers on a common platform.  
•    The Minister also released the IT Task Force Report on the occasion. The report has suggested many innovative ways in which IT can be used to make the working of the transport sector more efficient and transparent.

Surgeons in Boston have performed the first penile transplant in the United States, a procedure that soon could help severely wounded troops, surgeons at Massachusetts General Hospital .
•    Thomas Manning, 64, whose penis was removed in 2012 due to penile cancer, is recovering well and showing no signs of rejecting the transplant.
•    Manning, a bank courier in Halifax, Mass., underwent the operation on May 8 and 9. 
•    The surgeons who led the 15-hour procedure, Curtis Cetrulo and Dickens Ko, said they were "cautiously optimistic" Manning will regain full urinary and sexual function.
•    Manning has been cancer free for about four years, the physicians said.The surgeons stressed the psychological aspects of such transplants.
•    Team plans to further develop transplant protocols on civilians, noting that Defense officials are hesitant about supporting experimental surgeries for service members.
•    A team of South Africa surgeons performed the world's first successful penis transplant in a nine-hour operation in December 2014. 

Last month was the hottest April on record globally – and the seventh month in a row to have broken global temperature records.
•    The latest figures smashed the previous record for April by the largest margin ever recorded.
•    It makes three months in a row that the monthly record has been broken by the largest margin ever, and seven months in a row that are at least 1C above the 1951-80 mean for that month. 
•    Figures released by Nasa over the weekend show the global temperature of land and sea was 1.11degree celcius warmer in April than the average temperature for April during the period 1951-1980.
•    The new record broke the previous one by 0.24C, which was set in 2010, at 0.87C above the baseline average for April. That record itself broke one set three years earlier at 0.75C above the baseline average for April.
•    The current blast of hot air around the globe is being spurred by a massive El Niño, which is a release of warm water across the Pacific Ocean. But it’s not the biggest El Niño on record and that spike in temperatures is occurring over a background of rapid global warming, pushing temperatures to all-time highs.
•    The record temperatures were wreaking havoc with ecosystems around the world. They’ve triggered the third recorded global coral bleaching, and in Australia 93% of the reefs have been affected by bleaching along the 2,300km Great Barrier Reef. In the northern parts of the reef, it’s expected the majority of coral is dead, and on some reefs over 90% of the coral is dying.

The United Nations in the third week of May 2016 announced that four Indian peacekeepers and a civilian will be honoured along with other 124 personnel with a prestigious U.N. medal.
Head Constable Shubhkaran Yadav,Rifleman Manish Malik, Havildar Amal Deka, Naik Rakesh Kumar and Gagan Punjabi will be honoured with the Dag Hammarskjold Medal awarded posthumously.
The 124 personnel will be honoured on the International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers. The day, observed annually on 29 May, will be commemorated this year on 19 May.
•    Head Constable Shubhkaran Yadav served in the U.N. Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO).
•    He made the supreme sacrifice in April 2015.
•    Rifleman Manish Malik also served in the U.N. Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
•    He died in August 2015 during the mission.
•    Havildar Amal Deka served in the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF).
•    He died in June 2015.
•    Naik Rakesh Kumar served in the U.N. Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS).
•    He died in January 2015.
•    Gagan Punjabi was serving in MONUSCO in a civilian capacity under the U.N. Volunteers programme and died in an incident in January 2015.
The Dag Hammarskjöld Medal is a posthumous award given by the United Nations to military personnel, police or civilians who lose their lives while serving in a UN peacekeeping operation.The first medals were awarded in October 1998.

India and the United States (US) on 16 May 2016 held the first round of discussions under the recently-constituted Maritime Security Dialogue. The dialogue was held between the officials of Defence and External Affairs ministries and their US counterparts.
The Indian side was represented by Shambhu Kumaran, Joint Secretary in-charge of Planning and International Cooperation (PIC) and Munu Mahawar, Ministry of External Affairs Joint Secretary, Americas (AMS). 
While, David Shear, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs; Manpreet Anand, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs and Vice Admiral Aucoin, Commander, US Seventh Fleet, were the officials from the American side.
•    Both the sides discussed various issues including Asia-Pacific maritime challenges, naval cooperation, and multilateral engagement.
•    They also agreed for the white shipping technical arrangement to improve data sharing on commercial shipping traffic.
•    Navy-to-Navy discussion on submarine safety and anti-submarine warfare was also undertaken.
•    The dialogue was one of the several new initiatives agreed between Indian Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and his US counterpart Ashton Carter during the latter’s visit to India in April 2016.
•    It was created as a part of the maritime security objectives under the India-US Joint Strategic Vision for the Asia-Pacific and Indian Ocean Region.
•    The newly constituted Maritime Security Dialogue between India and US is a sign of the growing relations between our two countries.
•    The dialogue comes as India and the US are cautiously eyeing the rise of China. 
•    The US wants its regional allies to adopt a more united stance against China over the South China Sea, where tension has spiked since China's construction of artificial islands with facilities for military use.

Global organization EY on 10 May 2016 released the Renewable energy country attractiveness index 2016. 
The report reveals 40 countries on the attractiveness of their renewable energy investment and deployment opportunities based on a number of indicators.
•    The emerging markets now represent half of the countries in the 40-strong index, including four African markets featuring in the top 30.
•    Index was topped by the United States (US) and was followed by China at 2nd position and India at 3rd position.
•    Countries like Chile at 4th position, Brazil at 6th position and Mexico at 7th position climbed higher in the index top 10.
•    While Germany and France fell in the ranking to 5th and 8th position respectively.
• Argentina was the highest-scoring new entrant in the index. The transformation of the country’s economy brought it into the index in 18th position.
•    The Renewable energy country attractiveness index (RECAI) ranks 40 markets on the attractiveness of their renewable energy investment and deployment opportunities.
•    The ranking is given based on a number of macro, energy market and technology-specific indicators.

André Brahic was an expert on the solar system, in 1984. He launched a programme which led to the discovery, with US astronomer William Hubbard, of the rings around the gaseous planet Neptune.
•    Born into a modest family in Nazi-occupied Paris in 1942, Brahic was initiated into astrophysics after the war by Evry Schatzman, considered the father of the discipline in France.
•    In the 1980s, Brahic became a specialist in exploring our solar system with the help of the NASA Voyager and later US-Europe Cassini unmanned missions, which continue to this day.
•    He was an astrophysicist at the Commission for Atomic Energy and Alternative Energies (CEA) and a professor at the University of Paris.
•    It was his interest in Saturn and its rings which led him to launch his Neptune research.
•    Neptune’s outermost ring is divided into three arcs to which Brahic gave the names Liberte, Fraternite and Egalite.
•    In 1990 an asteroid, number 3488, was named Brahic in his honour.