Daily GK Updates - 8th August, 2015

DAILY GK UPDATES - 8TH AUGUST, 2015

NATIONAL UPDATES:

  I.      BHEL commissions 500MW thermal unit at Vindhyachal Super Thermal Power Station: State run BHEL commissioned a 500MW unit of NTPC’s Vindhyachal Super Thermal Power Station located at Vindyachal, Singrauli (MP).

II.      Government to impose 10% import duty on wheat till March 2016: The step has been suggested by the Food Ministry to curb the premium quality Australian wheat shipments in order to liquidate the stocks lying with the Food Corporation of India.

III.    Government to allow aadhaar enrolments of NRIs, PIOs, and OICs: Government has decided that Aadhaar enrolment of Non-Resident Indians, Persons of Indian Origin and Overseas Citizens of India should be eventually allowed to help them authenticate their identity digitally.

IV.    Mumbai gets a Flamingo Sanctuary: Mumbai is setting another record after being home to a national park for decades. The Maharashtra Revenue and Forest Department notified the northern part of the Thane Creek as a wildlife sanctuary under section 18 of the Wildlife (Protection Act), 1972.

V.         3 Kancheepuram weavers get national awards: Expert weavers V. Sundararajan, K. Jayanthi and V. Palanivelu were presented with the SantKabir award by the PM for their contribution to the revival of the World famous Kancheepuram silk saree.

VI.   Tendong Lho Rum Faat, annual festival of ethnic Lepcha tribe of Sikkim was celebrated on 8^th August 2015.

VII. Tripura Legislative Assembly passed a resolution against death penalty: The resolution moved by Congress MLA JitendraSarkar requested the Union Government to amend the section 302 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and replace it with life sentence unto death.

VIII.Accenture appointed RekhaMenon as chairperson of India’s operation and AnindyaBasu as MD.

IX.     Boost for ‘Make in India’: Global electronic manufacturing giant Foxconn to invest $5 billion over the next five years in Maharashtra, the company chairman Tery Gou said.

X.    Ram NathKovind, AcharyaDevVrat appointed as Governers of Bihar and Himachal Pradesh: Mr.Kovind will succeed KeshriNath Tripathi, the governer of WB who was holding additional charge of Bihar. AcharyaDevVrat will succeed Kalyan Singh (Governer of Rajasthan) who was holding additional charge of HP.

XI.   ESIC extends health insurance scheme to Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram and Manipur.

INTERNATIONAL UPDATES:

   

I.          Thomas Cook acquires Kouni Travel for Rs 535 crore: Travel Major Thomas Cook has acquired Kouni Travel (India) Pvt Ltd and Kouni Travel (China) Ltd.

II.        China remains World’s largest robot market: It has retained its rank as the world’s largest robot market for the second successive year. It accounted for one fourth of the world’s total.

III.  Pramerica AMC to acquire Deutsche’s India AMC business: Pramerica Asset Managers Pvt Ltd is going to acquire Deutsche’s Bank’s Asset management business in India for an undisclosed amount.

IV.    Typhoon ‘Soudelor’ battered Taiwan leaving four people dead and a trail of devastation.

V.          India decided to boycott 61^st Commonwealth Parliament Conference to be held in Islamabad: The reason for the boycott was Pakistan’s deliberate decision to not invite the Speaker of Jammu and Kashmir Kavinder Gupta.

VI.     Global Satellite to be named after the ‘Missile Man’: A global satellite for earth observation and disaster risk reduction – Globalsat for DRR, proposed under the UN framework is to be dedicated to APJ Abdul Kalam as a tribute to the vision of the celebrated scientist and former Indian president who died recently. The satellite will be renamed as UN KalamGlobalSat.

OTHER UPDATES:

SPORTS:

I.           Bronte dethrones sister Cate for 100m freestyle gold: Bronte Campbell of Australia took the 100m freestyle gold at the World Championship, in Kazan (Russia), to succeed her sister Cate Campbell as champion.

II.      BCCI announced ad-hoc committee for Cricket Administration in Bihar and Uttarakhand: The Bihar panel will be headed by its chairman Niranjan Shah while the Uttarakhand panel will be headed by MP Pandove.

OBITUARIES:

   III.  F. O Kelsey, the anti-thalidomide Canadian Doctor died in London at the age of 101.