Daily GK Updates - 5th September, 2017

NATIONAL UPDATES:

1. National Teachers Day celebrated: National Teachers Day is observed every year on 5th September in India to commemorate birthday of Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan. The first Teachers’ Day was celebrated in India in 1962. This is the year when Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan began serving as the second president of India.

2. “Lets Talk IP” Campaign to Promote Indian GIs: The Cell for IPR Promotions and Management has launched a social media campaign to promote Indian Geographical Indications with “#LetsTalkIP”. The initiative aims to make more people aware about the importance of Intellectual property rights. GI is a sign used on products that have a specific geographical origin & possess qualities or a reputation that are due to that origin.

3. Lucknow Metro rail flagged off: Rajnath Singh, Yogi Adityanath, Hardeep Singh Puri and Ram Naik (Governor of UP) flagged off the first train of Lucknow Metro. For general public the services of five metro trains will start a day later.

4. Environment Ministry launches environment awareness initiative on Teachers’ Day: The Environment Ministry has launched an environmental awareness initiative on the occasion of Teachers’ Day. Under the initiative, an online environmental quiz competition will be conducted at the national level to generate interest among school children about the science related to the environment. This will help in sensitizing the children on the issues related to environment and development.

5. Odisha CM inaugurates the fourth Govt. Medical College in Koraput: The Chief Minister of Odisha Naveen Patnaik has inaugurated the fourth Government Medical College in Koraput.The Medical College has been named after Saheed Laxman Naik (freedom fighter of Koraput).The Admission process for one hundred seats has been completed and classes began on Monday.

6. Gujarat CM Vijay Rupani launches Gyankunj project: On the occasion of Teachers Day, Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani has launched ‘Gyankunj e-class project’ at Shahpur primary school in Gandhinagar. The entire project will work on the pilot basis with interactive e-class room. Smart boards have been provided under this initiative.

INTERNATIONAL UPDATES:

1. Iranian spiritual leader sentenced to death: The court imposed death sentence on Mohammed Ali Taheri, the founder of the spiritual group Erfan Halgheh, for the second time. He was sentenced to 5 years in prison for insulting Islamic sanctities.

2. US returns Saddam Hussein’s stolen chess set to Iraq: The chess set was one of the thousands of valuable antiques which were stolen from the Iraq museum in the aftermath of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 .The US said that it remains committed to helping return stolen artifacts belonging to Iraq .

3. Seychelles ratifies ISA pact: Seychelles has become the ninth member to ratify the International Solar Alliance Framework Agreement. With this, the ISA will need the ratification of just 6 more countries to become a recognized inter-governmental body. The ISA was instituted to connect 121 solar-resource-rich nations for research, low-cost financing and rapid deployment of clean energy.

OTHER UPDATES:

SPORTS:

1. Star India bags IPL media rights: Star India has piped 23 top companies participating in the auction to win the Indian Premier League media rights for a period of five years from 2018-2022. Star India bagged the IPL media rights for a whopping Rs 16347.5 cr making it the biggest deal in the history of Indian television.

BANKING/FINANCE:

2. SBI’s Intelligent Chatbot SIA operational now: SBI is currently beta-testing its intelligent assistant called SIA – SBI Intelligent Assistant. SIA is a chatbot which is aimed at handling customer queries & help guide them through various retail products & services offered by SBI. Chatbot has been developed by Allincall, a startup backed by IIT B. It makes use of machine learning & bot experience to be able to respond to customer queries.

3. RBI gives HDFC “too big to fail” status: Reserve Bank of India has included HDFC Bank in the list of too big to fail lenders, referred to as domestic systemically important bank. With this, HDFC Bank joins SBI & ICICI Bank, which have been tagged as D-SIBs, or “too-big-to-fail” for 3d consecutive year.

4. DBS Bank gets nod from RBI: DBS Bank, Singapore’s largest lender, has received inprinciple approval from RBI to start a local banking subsidiary in the count. DBS will have to lend 40% of its net bank credit to borrowers in sectors such as agriculture or to small enterprises within five years of opening a local subsidiary.

OBITUARIES:

5. Arunachal health minister Jomde Kena passes away: Arunachal Pradesh health and family welfare minister Jomde Kena passed away in Guwahati. The state government has declared two days state mourning from today and announced a holiday tomorrow.