Daily GK Updates - 6th October, 2017

NATIONAL UPDATES:

1. 14th India-EU Summit in New Delhi: The 14th India and European summit held in New Delhi, to remove hurdles to implementation of free trade agreement.Donald Franciszek Tusk (President of European Council) and Jean-Claude Juncker (President of the European Commission) accompanied by a high-level delegation including EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice President of the European commission Federica Mogherini.India-EU Business Event will also be organized, on the sidelines of the Summit.

2.First ASEAN India Music Festival to be held at Purana Qila today: The First ever three-day ASEAN-India Music Festival to be held at Purana Quila in New Delhi.The Festival aims to boost cultural influences among the peoples of the ASEAN member states and India.The festival has been organized by the External Affairs ministry in collaboration Culture Ministry to celebrate the 25th anniversary of ASEAN-India Dialogue Relations.

3. India’s first-ever Industrial Training Institute for the Divyangans will come up in Assam: India’s first-ever Industrial Training Institute (ITI) for the Divyangans will come up in Assam. Recently, the foundation stone for the institute was laid at Dibrugarh ITI Complex at Borboruah in Assam. As per the guidelines of National Council for Vocational Training (NCVT), the ITI will have sixty seats for three different trades with 20 seats per trade. The three different trades included in the curriculum are Computer Operator and Programming Assistant, Cutting and Sewing Technology and Hair & Skin Care.

                      

INTERNATIONAL UPDATES:

1. Mongolian Parliament Confirms New Prime Minister: The Mongolian Parliament confirmed Ukhnaa Khurelsukh as the country's new Prime Minister (30th).His confirmation comes after Jargaltulga Erdenebat was voted out of office over allegations of corruption and incompetence.Earlier, Mr. Khurelsukh served in the army and joined the parliament as a member in 2000.

2. India & Ethiopia sign agreements on trade, communication: India and Ethiopia have signed agreements to boost bilateral ties after talks between President Ram Nath Kovind and his Ethiopian counterpart Mulatu Teshome on trade, communication, and media at Addis Ababa(Ethiopia).The President thanked Ethiopia for its participation in the International Solar Alliance (ISA) to provide a dedicated platform for cooperation among solar resource-rich countries and promote the use of solar energy. They also addressed the India-Ethiopia Business Dialogue and released a book titled ‘India-Ethiopia: 70 years of Diplomatic Relations’.

OTHER UPDATES:

SPORTS:

1.FIFA U-17 World Cup 2017 starts from today: FIFA U-17 World Cup 2017 kicks off with four opening day matches to be played in Delhi (Jawahar Lal Nehru Stadium) and Mumbai (Dr. DY Patil stadium).This is the first time that India will be participating in a FIFA World Cup.India are placed in a tough Group A along with United States, Colombia, and two-time champions Ghana.

BUSINESS/ECONOMY:

1.Airtel gets approval of Ghana Government over Tigo merger: Bharti Airtel has received Ghana’s National Communication Authority’s approval for the merger between Bharti Ghana (Airtel) and Millicom Ghana (Tigo).This merger will result in an entity which will be the second largest mobile network operations in the country.

2.Bangladesh has signed a loan deal with India for its infrastructure and social sector development: Bangladesh has signed $4.5 billion third line of credit (LoC) agreement with India for its infrastructure and social sector development on October 4, 2017. The new Indian line of credit will be used to fund 17 major projects in Bangladesh, which include electricity, railroads, roads, shipping and ports. As with previous LoC agreements, Bangladesh will pay an interest rate of 1 % a year. It will have 20 years to pay back the loans, with a grace period of five years. Under the agreement, Bangladesh would have to purchase 65 to 75% of the services, goods or works from the Indian market with the money to be provided under the third LoC following the precedence of the previous two nearly identical agreements. Bangladesh has two other LoCs open with India: the first one was signed in 2010, and the second one in 2016. These LOCs are collectively worth Tk3.06 billion, but till last year, Bangladesh government has been able to use only USD 576 million.

 AWARDS/HONOURS:

 1.Gauri Lankesh Fetches Anna Politkovskaya Award: Late Indian Journalist- activist Gauri Lankesh (first Indian Journalist) has been awarded the Reach All Women in War (RAW) Anna Politkovskaya Award alongside, Gulalai Ismail, a women's rights activist from Pakistan.Gauri Lankesh was fatally shot by unidentified attackers in Bengaluru in September.The Anna Politkovskaya Award was established to remember and honour Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who was murdered in Moscow on October 7, 2006 over her reportage of the second war in Chechnya.

2. Kazuo Ishiguro wins 2017 Nobel Literature Prize: The 2017 Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded to British writer Kazuo Ishiguro (64-Year), whose best-known novels include ‘The Remains of the Day" and "Never Let Me Go’.Mr. Ishiguro was born in Japan and his family moved in 1960 to the United Kingdom when he was five.The awards are presented every year on 10th December, the anniversary of the death of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel.The amount of money awarded depends on the income of the Nobel Foundation that year.

3. Nobel Peace Prize 2017 awarded to ICAN: International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize - 2017 for its work to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and for its ground-breaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition of such weapons.ICAN is a coalition of non-governmental organizations (NGO) from around 100 different countries around the globe.In 2016, Juan Manuel Santos was awarded the Peace Prize “for his resolute efforts to bring the country’s more than 50-year-long civil war to an end”.