GK and Current Affairs Updates

The sixth edition of Ekuverin-2015, the annual joint military training exercise between the Indian Army and the Maldives National Defence Forces (MNDF), concluded at the Military Station, Pangode.Brigadier Samir Salunke, Station Commander, Pangode Military Station, presents a memento to Brig Ali Zuhair of the MNDF in T’Puram 
The 2016 edition will be held in Maldives.   Brigadier Samir Salunke, chief director of the exercise and Station Commander, Pangode Military Station, and Brigadier Ali Zuhair of the MNDF oversaw the final phase of the exercise. Senior officials from both armies, who reviewed the exercise, expressed their satisfaction over the level of training and jointmanship achieved between the troops, a defence spokesperson said.A total of 45 MNDF marines and an equal number of soldiers of the Indian Army’s Bihar Regiment took part in the two-week-long exercise. The bilateral annual exercise commenced in 2009 at Belgavi and is hosted alternately by India and the island nation for enhancing military cooperation and interoperability between the two forces. Ekuverin-2015 was also the first joint exercise involving an international contingent to be held in Thiruvananthapuram.

Swetha Prabhakaran, an Indian American teen entrepreneur and founder CEO of Everybody Code Now!, will receive the prestigious 'Champions of Change' award at the White House on Tuesday.Prabhakaran, 15, a junior at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, in Virginia, founded non profit Everybody Code Now! to empower the next generation of youth to become engineers, scientists, and entrepreneurs."Under Swetha's direction, Everybody Code Now! has taught hundreds of students how to code and has raised thousands of dollars for STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Math) activities in schools," the White House said."Her mentorship programmes have transformed shy young girls into confident students, community leaders, and budding technologists," it said.Prabhakaran is among 11 young women selected by the White House as recipients of 'Champions of Change'.In addition to her passion for science and computers, Prabhakaran, who was born in Indianapolis, is an avid Bharatanatyam dancer.

The  party coup to install Malcolm Turnbull as Australia’s fourth prime minister in just over two years has exposed deep unease about the resource-dependent country’s sharply slowing economy and a political system that lets small groups of politicians oust elected leaders.

The 60-year-old former investment banker unseated Tony Abbott as leader of the ruling Liberal-National coalition government  in a party rebellion, as voter surveys pointed to defeat for the ruling Liberal-National coalition at federal elections due next year. Mr. Turnbull was sworn and became the country’s 29th prime minister.

He now faces many of the same challenges as his predecessor, first among them how to revive an economy in which a recession may be imminent after 24 years of avoiding one. Australia’s economy expanded just 0.2% in the second quarter from the first, the slowest pace in four years, as China’s slowing economy translates into less construction of skyscrapers, bridges and railways—hurting demand for raw materials like iron ore. 
“We need to have in this country…an economic vision, a leadership that explains the great challenges and opportunities that we face, that describes the way in which we can handle those challenges, seize those opportunities, and does so in a manner that the Australian people understand,” Mr. Turnbull said.
The latest ouster caps nearly a decade of instability in Australian politics that has splintered both major political parties.

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has been announced as one of the winners of the United Nations Champions of the Earth award in recognition of her country's initiatives to address climate change.

"Serving as Prime Minister of Bangladesh - one of the world's least-developed countries - Sheikh Hasina has proven that investing in climate change is conducive to achieving social and economic development," said the announcement issued by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), which confers the awards.UNEP noted that Bangladesh is one of the world's most populated countries, with over 159 million people. It is also one of the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Cyclones, floods and droughts have long been part of the country's history, but they have intensified in recent years.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state Gujarat has ranked at the top of an assessment of state implementation of business reforms sponsored by the department of industrial policy and promotion (DIPP).Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh are the remaining states in the top five.While poll-bound Bihar placed 21st, Arunachal Pradesh came last with a rank of 32.The DIPP on 8 June released a framework to assess and rank states in terms of ease of doing business on 98 parameters. Its aim was to assess various factors enabling the ease of doing business in each state, and to compare the states.

The DIPP had mentioned eight areas in which states would be ranked: setting up a business, allotment of land and obtaining construction permit, complying with environmental procedures, complying with labour regulations, obtaining infrastructure-related utilities, registering and complying with tax procedures, carrying out inspections and enforcing contracts.

The move is expected to encourage states to carry out reforms in areas such as land acquisition and labour laws, where the Modi-led central government is finding it difficult to make legislative headway.

Utkal Alumina International Ltd has been conferred with 'IDA Award 2015 for Excellence in CSR in Education' by providing access to quality education for the underprivileged sections of society.In all, 28 companies were in contention for the category, of which four corporates reached the final stage and were invited to the awards function on September 10 at Bengaluru International Exhibition Centre, the company said in a statement.

'IDA Awards' are presented by India Didactics Association, the premier trade association for the education and training fraternity, it added.The trophy, along with a certificate of award, was received by M Ramesh Kumar, Senior Vice President (HR, Admin & CSR) and Siba Mahapatra, AGM (CSR) from the Deputy Prime Minister of Jordan, Dr Mohammad Thneibat, the statement said.Utkal Aluminas activities in this sphere include setting up of an ITI at Kashipur and providing artisan training to displaced and project affected persons.

India's recent defeats to Guam, Oman and Iran may have been disheartening, but the Asian Football Confederation's (AFC) newest technical ranking system is bound is to spread cheer. According to the latest input, India are ranked at 22nd amongst 46 Asian countries and the highest amongst all of its South Asian neighbours. 

As per guidelines, the latest ranking methodology by the AFC takes into account the performance of the national team and the clubs in AFC bracket of competitions (AFC Cup and AFC Champions League) over the last four years. 30 per cent of points weightage is handed to the national team whilst clubs' performance in the AFC competitions carries the remaining 70 per cent of allocated marks.It is also to be noted here that the AFC Cup participant teams earn less points than their AFC Champions League participating counterparts. One AFC Cup point carries 1/3 the value of the AFC CL point awarded. 

India meanwhile, being ranked at 22nd in the AFC table and 27th best Asian team according to FIFA's rankings, has accumulated a total of 18.636 points. The national team's performances have earned the team 11.951 points whilst clubs performances in the continental competiton have earned the nation a total of 6.685 points. Indian clubs who finish the preceeding season as champions do get the opportunity to play in the AFC CL through a qualifier but generally don't make it through and they are then automatically slotted into the second tier competition. All second placed teams in the I-League have a direct entry into the AFC Cup. Of all the clubs to have participated at the Asian-level, East Bengal are the most predominant having taken part in three of the last four AFC Cups, in 2012, 2013 and 2015. They are followed by Churchill Brothers, now in I-League division two, and most recently Bengaluru FC. 

DRDO scientist Dr G Satheesh Reddy in the first week of September 2015 was conferred with the Silver Medal of the prestigious Royal Aeronautical Society (RAeS). DRDO stands for Defence Research and Development Organisation.Dr Reddy was conferred with this medal in recognition of his contributions as one of the leading navigation and avionics experts of the Indian Defense research establishment.The award will be formally presented to him at the Wilbur and Orville Wright Lecture to be held on 9 December 2015 in the Society's headquarters in London.

About Dr G Sateesh Reddy--• He joined DRDO in 1985 after graduating from JNTU Anantapur in Andhra Pradesh.
• At present, he is the Director, Research Centre Imarat (RCI) and Programme Director, medium-range surface-to-air missile (MRSAM) system since May 2013. Also he is the Scientific Adviser to Raksha Mantri. 
• As Director RCI, he led the development of Avionics technologies in critical areas of Inertial Systems, Embedded Computers, Control, Real Time Software and Simulation for various Defence programmes - Agni A1, A2, A3, A4, A5, Prithvi, Dhanush, Astra, Akash, B-05, K-4, BrahMos, Nirbhay, Helina, Nag, MRSAM, etc.
• Under his leadership India has developed state-of-the-art avionics sensors and systems for key national strategic programmes and other defence applications.

About Royal Aeronautical Society (RAeS)

• It is a British-founded multidisciplinary professional institution dedicated to the global aerospace community. It is headquartered in London.
• It was established in 1866 and is the oldest aeronautical society in the world.
• It has been honouring outstanding achievers in the global aerospace industry since 1909, when Wilbur and Orville Wright came to London to receive the Society’s first Gold Medal.
• It awards a number of medals and prizes include its Gold, Silver and Bronze medals in the individual and team category.
• The very first gold medal was awarded in 1909 to the Wright Brothers.
• Since 2004, the society started awarding team medals for exceptional or groundbreaking team work in aeronautical research and development.
• Besides the above awards, the society also confers R P Alston Memorial Prize for developments in flight-testing, the Edward Busk prize for applied aerodynamics, the Wakefield Medal for advances in aviation safety and an Orville Wright Prize

Pakistan and China are on their way to building the world’s largest solar farm, with the completion of a 100 Megawatt, 400,000-panel pilot power project, the first solar power plant ever built in Pakistan. Spread out over almost 500 acres of flat land in the Punjabi desert and known as the Quaid-e-Azam Solar Power Park (QUASP), the $130 million project took just three months for Chinese company, Xinjian Sunoasis to build. And it is just the first part of a larger project, the $46 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. According to Chinadialogue, when the project is complete in 2017, the same site could see a total of 5.2 million photovoltaic cells producing up to 1,000 Megawatts of electricity – or enough to power 

about 320,000 homes.
The 100 MW plant is the pilot stage of a more ambitious plan to build the world’s largest solar farm. Once complete in 2017, the site could have capacity of 5.2 million PV cells producing as much as 1,000 MW of electricity – equivalent to an average sized coal-fired power station – and enough to power about 320,000 households. Construction of the next stage is already underway, led by another Chinese company, Zonergy.Eighteen months ago, the site was nothing more than wilderness. Now a mini city has emerged in the middle of the desert, with over 2,000 workers accompanied by heavy machinery, power transmission lines, blocks of buildings, water pipes and pylons

Good news for rail commuters in India! Google and Indian Railways have collaborated together to create ‘Project Nilgiri’ that will deliver Wi-fi access to around 400 railway stations across India.This project makes use of Google’s Fiber technology which currently is providing fast internet services in U.S. The project when started will give users access to high speed internet for the first 30 minutes and thereafter the speed will drop and become slow. The connection of the users will however still be active.With this initiative, Google and Indian Railways are jointly aiming to set up WiFi hotspots across select railway stations through out the nation to offer seamless connectivity to passengers.However, it is expected that the first phase of the project shall be up and running in a span of 4 months.