GK and Current Affairs Updates

A temple trust in Nepal associated with the world’s biggest animal sacrifice event held every five years made a historic announcement to ban the practice of animal sacrifice in this festival. “Gadhimai Festival” is held every 5 years at Nepal’s Gadhimai Temple, which is dedicated to the local Goddess Gadhimai. The practice of animal sacrifice in this festival was going on for the last 300 years. This announcement has gone down well with animal lovers worldwide with lives of millions of animals expected to be saved.

 Yash Singh bagged India's first medal at the Special Olympics World Summer Games 2015 in Los Angeles. The 13-year-old swimmer (suffering from autism) won bronze in the 25-metre backstroke swimming event.Yash clocked 19.23 seconds. 

Ashish Bahuguna was appointed  as the Chairman of food safety regulator Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI). Former Agriculture Secretary, Bahuguna's tenure will be of three years and he succeeded K. Chandramouli whose tenure ended in January 2015. Bahuguna is a 1978-batch Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer of Rajasthan cadre who retired from the post of Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture in February 2015.

Mr Ram Sewak Sharma appointed as the new Chairman of Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), the regulating body of Indian telecom sector. He succeeded Rahul Khullar who retired from post on 14 May 2015.

Government of India signed a loan agreement of 300 million US dollars with Asian Development Bank (ADB) for its flagship programme National Urban Health Mission (NUHM). The main of the NUHM is to improve the health status of the country’s urban population. The loan agreement is titled Supporting National Urban Health Mission and it seeks to reinforce ongoing government efforts under the NUHM to develop health systems in urban areas that can deliver quality health services to the urban poor and vulnerable.

Anshu Gupta & Sanjiv Chaturvedi win Ramon Magsaysay Award Established in 1957, the Ramon Magsaysay Award is Asia's highest honour (Famous as ASIAN NOBLE ) and is widely regarded as the region's equivalent of the Nobel Prize. Whistleblower Indian forest officer Sanjiv Chaturvedi and founder of NGO Goonj Anshu Gupta are the two Indians selected for this year's Ramon Magsaysay Award.The Board of Trustees of the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation (RMAF) today announced that this year five individuals from India, Chanthavon from Laos, Kyam thu from Myanmar, and the Ligya Fernando from Philippines will receive Asia’s premier prize, the Ramon Magsaysay Award.

The World Trade Organization formally accepted Kazakhstan as its member, Meeting at its headquarters in Geneva, the WTO General Council approved the membership terms finalised last month. With this Kazakhstan has become the WTO's 162nd member state.

29 July: International Tiger Day or Global Tiger Day, is an annual celebration to raise awareness for tiger conservation, held annually on 29 July.It was created in 2010 at the Saint Petersburg Tiger Summit. The goal of the day is to promote a global system for protecting the natural habitats of tigers and to raise public awareness and support for tiger conservation issues.

Axis Bank, India’s third largest private sector bank, has signed a $200 million 7-year bilateral loan deal with the Asian Development Bank (ADB). The deal will help bolster Axis Bank’s efforts of improving farm efficiency by extending customized and affordable agriculture credit to farmers. The bank would effectively leverage its extensive semi urban and rural branch network to deliver agriculture credit.

 Mexico won the CONCACAF Gold Cup football tournament played in Washington. . This is Mexico team's third title win in the last four tournaments. Andres Guardado in 31st minute, Jesus Corona in the 47th minute and Oribe Peralta in the 61st minute scored one-one goal each.