Daily GK Updates - 21st June, 2016

NATIONAL UPDATES:

1. Union Government approves 100% FDI in Aviation, Defence and e-commerce sectors: The Union Government has radically liberalized the foreign direct investment (FDI) norms by permitting 100 % FDI under government approval route for almost every sector including defence to give impetus to job creation and ease of doing business in the country.

2. India and Thailand sign 2 agreements to boost ties: India and Thailand have signed two agreements in culture and educational sectors to boost bilateral ties. The agreements were signed in New Delhi during the three-day official state visit of Thailand Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha to India.

3. Centre approves a proposal for Greenfield Electronic Park in Odisha: The department of electronics and information technology (DeitY), government of India has given its final approval for setting up of a Greenfield electronic park within the Infovally complex, a dedicated IT hub, on the outskirt of Bhubaneswar.

4. Punjab Government launches MukhyaMantri Punjab Hepatitis C Relief Fund: The Punjab government has launched a special fund “MukhMantri Punjab Hepatitis C Relief Fund” to provide free treatment for patients affected by Hepatitis C.

5. Assam Government launches MaitreeEkGyanYatra initiative to link primary schools to colleges: The Assam Government has launched a unique initiative ‘MaitreeEkGyanYatra’ to link primary schools to high schools to colleges. Initially, it will be launched at in Sivsagar district of the state and later will be implemented across the state. The purpose of the programme is to change the mindset of the teachers, as in some places in states teachers of a school considered it below their dignity to teach the lower level student.

6. PradhanMantriUjjwalYojana to be launched in Odisha: Union Tribal Affairs Minister JualOram and Oil Minister DharmendraPradhan have launched  the PradhanMantriUjjwalaYojana to provide free of cost LPG cooking gas connections to women from BPL households in Sambalpur, Odisha.

7.  Union Government bans the use of cancer-causing chemical potassium bromate as food additive.

8. Tata-Boeing joint venture established as aerospace facility in Hyderabad.

9. HAL unveils indigenous basic trainer aircraft HTT-40: Public sector aerospace Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) has unveiled indigenous Basic Trainer Aircraft (BTA) HTT-40 in Bengaluru.

INTERNATIONAL UPDATES:

1. International Yoga Day celebrated on 21^st June 2016: India and the whole world are celebrating the International Day of Yoga, or commonly and unofficially referred to as Yoga Day annually on 21st June since its inception. This resolution was adopted under the agenda of ‘Global Health and Foreign Policy’. The theme for 2016 International Day of Yoga is “Connect the Youth”. This is the second edition of the International Day of Yoga.

2. Martian crater named after Nepal quake-hit village Langtang: The International Astronomical Union named a 9.8 kilometers wide crater on Mars as Langtang, a popular trekking site in Nepal.

3. China’s Sunway TaihuLight declared world’s fastest supercomputer: Chinese supercomputer Sunway TaihuLight with 93 petaflop/second speed was declared as the world’s fastest supercomputer.

4. Scientists make world’s first 1000-processor microchip: US scientists team has created the world's first microchip that has 1,000 processors and is thought to be the fastest chip designed in a university lab. It is named as the "KiloCore" chip and has a maximum computation rate of 1.78 trillion instructions per second and contains 621 million transistors.

5. Virginia Raggi became first female mayor of Rome.

OTHER UPDATES:

SPORTS:

1. BCCI suspends Goa Cricket Academy Association officials for misappropriation of organisation fund: The BCCI has suspended and issued show-cause notices to the top Goa Cricket Association officials, who were arrested for alleged misappropriation of organization funds.