Daily GK Updates - 5th October, 2017

NATIONAL UPDATES:

1. ‘India Rich List 2017’ released: Mukesh Ambani with a net worth of USD 38 billion, topped the India Rich List 2017 for the tenth straight year. Savitri Jindal, with a net worth of USD 7.5 billion ranked at the 16th place, and is the richest woman in India. Savitri Jindal is followed by the Gupta family, which is ranked at the 40th in Forbes magazine’s annual ‘India Rich List 2017’

2. Valmiki Jayanti being observed today: Valmiki Jayanti was observed today across India and people paid their respects to the great writer and poet. Maharishi Valmiki also authored the epic Ramayana.

3. Swayam to offer special course for untrained teachers: The HRD Ministry started a special training course for untrained teachers, designed by NIOS, called Diploma in Elementary Education. The HRD Ministry had announced that ‘untrained teachers’ have to complete the Diploma in Elementary Education course, till 2019. This course would be offered through ‘Swayam’, a platform for online education and knowledge through Dish TV.

4. Environment Education Portal by WWF launched: WWF-India, in partnership with Capgemini, launched One Planet Academy, the first environment education portal for students and teachers in India. The One Planet Academy website is a digital network for schools, teachers and students.

5. Paryatan Parv begins across the country:  A festival of Tourism ‘Paryatan Parv’ is beginning all over the country and continue till 25th of this month. It is being organized with the objective of drawing focus on the benefits of tourism, showcasing the cultural diversity of the country and reinforcing the principle of “Tourism for All”. It will have three main components, Dekho Apna Desh, Tourism for All and Tourism & Governance.

6. National School and College Games to be launched to tap talent: The Sports Minister ‘Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore has announced the launch of National School and College Games to tap talent from the country. The union government has decided to start for the first time the Khelo India National School Games in December 2017 and Khelo India National College Games in January 2018.

7. Khushwant Singh Literary Festival to start in Kasauli: The 6th Khushwant Singh Literary Festival will be held at the Kasauli Club, Kasauli, Himachal Pradesh, from Oct 6 to 8. This year’s theme is ‘70’, marking the seven decades of India’s independence after Partition from Pakistan.

8. Maharashtra to have Samruddhi Corridor: Samruddhi Corridor is a ambitious Mumbai-Nagpur Super Communication Expressway project in Mumbai. The project aims to create state-of-the art road connectivity within a period of three years

INTERNATIONAL UPDATES:

1. World Teachers’ Day being observed today: The World Teachers’ Day (WTD) 2017 is being observed across the world on 5th October since 1994. The theme of 2017 World Teachers’ Day is “Teaching in Freedom, Empowering Teachers”.

2. World Space Week – October 4 -10 being observed: World Space Week is being observed all over the world from 4th to 10th October. It was declared as World Space Week in 1999. It was to mark two big events, first, on October 4th, 1957 Sputnik 1 was launched and second, the signing of The Outer Space Treaty on October 10th 1967. World Space Week theme for 2017 is ‘Exploring New Worlds In Space’.

3. Conference of SAARC Speakers: The 8th Conference of the Association of SAARC Speakers and Parliamentarians is being held in Colombo. The three day conference which started on October 4, 2017 is lead by Sumitra Mahajan.

OTHER UPDATES:

BUSINESS/ECONOMY:

1. HDFC Life launches service-bot Neo: HDFC Life Insurance Company has launched Neo, a servicing bot for Twitter that uses artificial intelligence for customer service.

The insurer hopes to deploy the bot in answering policy related queries on social media.

2. Strategy to revitalize PPPs in India: The Asian Development Bank, in its report titled “Meeting Asia’s Infrastructure Needs”, has estimated that $4.36 trillion is needed to fix India’s infrastructure deficit by 2030. That entails more than $300 billion of spending every year for the next 13 years, as compared to recent spend rates of $120 billion per year.

3. WEF’s India summit begins: World Economic Forum’s 33rd India Economic Summit started on 4th october, in partnership with industry body CII. The theme of the conference is ‘Creating Indian Narratives on Global Challenges’.

BANKING/FINANCE:

4. Senior citizens and differently-abled to be taken care of-RBI: According to the Reserve Bank of India, banks should remain sensitive to requirements of senior citizens as well as differently-abled persons and should not turn them away from branches in order to promote digital transactions. Banks are discouraging or turning away senior citizens and differently abled persons from availing banking facilities in branches.