DAILY UPDATED CURRENT AFFAIRS – 27.05.2018 TO 29.05.2018 NATIONAL PM Modi launches Eastern Peripheral Expressway in Baghpat (a) Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the Kundli-Ghaziabad-Palwal (KGP) expressway, also known as the Eastern Peripheral Expressway (EPE) at the District Sports stadium in Baghpat, Uttar Pradesh. (b) The 135-km EPE is India’s first smart and green highway and is built at a cost of Rs. 11,000 crore. (c) It is also the country’s first highway to be lit by solar power and at every 500 metres, the arrangement of rainwater harvesting has been done on both sides of the expressway. (d) The Delhi-Meerut expressway stretches from Nizamuddin Bridge in Delhi to Delhi-UP Border. (e) The 14-lane highway will reduce the travel time between the two cities to only 45 minutes from the present four to five hours. Modi to inaugurate India’s 1st 14-lane highway (a) Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate the 1st phase of Delhi-Meerut Expressway. (b) The Delhi-Meerut Expressway would be India’s first 14-lane highway. (c) The project is being built in four segments and is expected to be fully completed by March 2019. Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad inaugurated cloud enabled Data Centre at Bhubaneshwar (a) National Informatics Centre (NIC) has set up a new state-of-the-art cloud enabled National Data Centre at Bhubaneswar. (b) The newly set up data center was inaugurated by Union Minister of Electronics & IT and Law & Justice, Sh. Ravi Shankar Prasad in the presence of Union Minister of Petroleum & Natural Gas and Skill Development & Entrepreneurship, Sh. Dharmendra Pradhan on May 28. (c) The NIC has national data centres at Delhi, Hyderabad and Pune, and the upcoming one at Bhubaneswar is expected to enhance the range of data centre related services offered by the government body. (d) It will offer 24*7 operations with secure hosting for e-Governance applications of the Government and its departments. MHA creates new division for women safety Ministry of Home Affairs has created a new division to deal with all issues of women safety in coordination with relevant ministries, departments and state governments. Punya Srivastava has been appointed as the Joint Secretary to head this division. The division will deal with all schemes under NIRBHAYA fund and Crimes against women, SCs & STs, children & elderly persons among others. Himachal Pradesh launches three welfare schemes To mark the completion of four years of the Narendra Modi government at the Centre, Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur has launched three welfare schemes in the state which would bring remarkable change in the lives of the people. These schemes are: “Jan Manch” – for redressal of public grievances “Mukhya Mantri Swavlamban Yojana” – for providing assistance to the unemployed youth and “Himachal Grihini Suvidha Yojana” – for offering gas cylinder security and gas stoves to those not covered under the Ujjwala Yojana. Intra-state e-way bill comes into force (a) Maharashtra, Manipur & 5 union territories have rolled out intra-state e-way bill system for movement of goods worth over Rs 50,000 within the state. (b) With this, the number of States, where the system is being implemented will go up to 27. (c) E-Way Bill is an electronically generated document which is required to be generated for the movement of goods of more Rs. 50,000 from one place to another (d) As per the decision of the GST Council, e-Way Bill system has been rolled out from 1st of April this year. INTERNATIONAL Columbia formally joins NATO (a) Columbia has formally joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and thus become the first Latin America nation to attain global partner status privilege. (b) The other member nations of NATO includes Afghanistan, Australia, Iraq, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Mongolia, New Zealand and Pakistan.(NATO- Headquarters :Brussels, Belgium. Secretary General: Jens Stoltenberg) (c) The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is an intergovernmental military alliance between 29 North American and European countries based on the North Atlantic Treaty that was signed on 4 April 1949. Mission Innovation Ministerial Meeting Held in Sweden (a) The 3rd Mission Innovation (MI-3) Ministerial was held at Malmo-Sweden during 22-23 May, 2018. The Ministerial was co-hosted by the European Commission, together with Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden and the Nordic Council of Ministers. (b) Union Minister for Science & Technology, Earth Sciences, Environment, Forests and Climate Change Dr. Harsh Vardhan lead the Indian delegations. (c) Mission innovation countries launched Mission Innovation Champions Programme to felicitate clean energy innovators. (d) Dr Harsh Vardhan inaugurated Smart Grid Workshop at Copenhagen and Chaired public-private roundtable on Strategies on Decarbonisation through innovations in Smart Grids. 1441, Opp. IOCL Petrol Pump, CRPF Square, Bhubaneswar-750015 1 Ph. : (0674) 6556677, 8093556677. Web : www.vanik.org, E-mail : [email protected] DAILY UPDATED CURRENT AFFAIRS – 27.05.2018 TO 29.05.2018 (e) India announced setting up of First International Incubator for clean energy in a public-private partnership at a total investment of around US $ 5 million in Delhi. World’s longest surface-to-air missile test was conducted by Russia quietly Russia quietly conducted the world’s longest surface-to-air missile test. The S-500 surface-to-air missile system successfully struck a target 299 miles away, which the U.S. assessed is 50 miles further than any known test. Russia claims that the ground-based missile system is capable of intercepting hypersonic missiles, drones, aircraft as well as stealth warplanes like the F-22 and the F-35. Hamburg To Host 2018 Global Wind Summit The first edition of the Global Wind Summit will be held in Hamburg, Germany from September 25-28, 2018. The four-day event would witness participation of about 100 countries, including India, China, the US, Spain and Denmark. Google to host first Demo Day for Asian startups in Shanghai Google is set to host its first-ever Demo Day for Asian startups in Shanghai, China on September 20. Since 2014, Google for Entrepreneurs has organised Demo Days in the US and Europe for startups to connect with investors and scale globally. BILTERAL PM of Netherlands Inaugurates Indo-Dutch Ganga Forum Prime Minister of Netherlands Mr. Mark Rutte inaugurated the Indo-Dutch Ganga Forum in New Delhi to take forward the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed between the Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation, Government of India and the Ministry of Infrastructure & Environment of the Netherlands in June 2017. Netherlands Becomes 64th Signatory Member of International Solar Alliance The Netherlands has become the 64th signatory member of the International Solar Alliance (ISA). Netherlands Prime Minister Mark Rutte, is on a two days official visit to India at PM Modi’s invitation. The joint statement issued hailed the Netherlands as India’s “Gateway to Europe”.India also welcomed the Netherlands as the Partner Country for the TechSummit in 2019. ECONOMY EPF interest rate hits 5-year low at 8.55% (a) Government is likely to notify this week the 5-year low 8.55% interest on EPF for 2017-18 as against the interest rate of 8.65% for 2016-17. (b) The Central Board of Trustees (CBT), the apex decision making body of the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO), headed by the labour minister, had decided to fix 8.55% interest for 2017-18 in its meeting held on February 21, 2018. (c) The EPFO had provided 8.65 per cent interest for 2016-17. The members got 8.8 per cent in 2015-16 and 8.75 per cent each in 2014-15 and 2013-14. (d) UAN is Universal Account Number. The UAN is a 12-digit number allotted to employee who is contributing to EPF will be generated for each of the PF member by EPFO. Telangana Government announces unique life insurance scheme for farmers (a) Telangana government has announced a unique life insurance scheme for farmers. Under the scheme, the government will provide life insurance facility of five lakh rupees to the nominee, after the death of the insured farmer. (b) Life Insurance Corporation India will implement the scheme.(LIC-Chairman-V.K. Sharma ,HQ: Mumbai) (c) The farmers in the age group of 18 to 60 are eligible to enroll their names to get benefit from it. The scheme will come into force from 15th of August this year. HDFC Bank will now offer Digital Loans against your mutual funds India’s most valuable lender HDFC Bank has launched Digital Loans against Mutual Funds in partnership with transfer agent CAMS. Customers can now pledge mutual fund assets online and get overdraft limit set in their account in under 3 minutes, the bank claimed. Yes Bank empaneled as ‘Settlement Bank’ by National Stock Exchange (a) Yes Bank has received approval from National Stock Exchange to be enrolled as ‘Settlement Bank’ for National Securities Clearing Corporation (NSCCL), a wholly owned subsidiary of NSE. (b) YES BANK will provide comprehensive Settlement & Clearing services suitable to the members by leveraging its state-of-the-art Technology platform coupled with superior service excellence and constant innovation (c) The services will include electronic funds transfer (ETF) facilities and ‘anywhere’ banking. (d) YES BANK will provide facilities including issuing bank guarantees, credit facilities and inter-bank funds transfer as well as free of cost funds transfer across centers for NSE’ s members. (e) YES BANK is already an empanelled Clearing Bank for the BSE(Bombay Stock Exchange), NCDEX(National Commodity and Derivatives Exchange ) and MCX(Multi Commodity Exchange) NOTE (1) National Commodity & Derivatives Exchange Limited (NCDEX) is an online commodity exchange based in India.