Daily GK Updates - 31st July, 2018

NATIONAL UPDATES:

1. Neelakurinji flowers bloom after 12 years : The neelakurinji will bloom in the Anamalai hills near Munnar, a phenomenon that occurs once in 12 years.Spread over 3,000 hectares of rolling hills, Munnar is home to this rarely occurring neelakurinji flower plants.These plants take another 12 years for the seeds to sprout again and grow up to 30 to 60 centimetres high.

2. Chattisgarh CM to launch ‘Mobile Tihar’ : Chattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh launched the ‘Mobile Tihar’ (Mobile Festival) under the Sanchar Kranti Yojna (SKY).The scheme is for distribution of smart-phone to women and students in the station covering 45 lakh women and 5 lakh students.Under the programme, 460,000 students of Chhattisgarh’s colleges and 4 million women staying in rural areas will be given smartphones.

3. LS passes bill to revamp homoeopathy council : A bill seeking to replace the Central Council of Homoeopathy (CCH) with a board of governors and aimed at bringing accountability and quality in homoeopathy education system was passed by the Lok Sabha.The government will reconstitute the CCH within a year.As per the bill, the members of the board of governor will replace the existing functionaries of the CCH.

4. 3. Munshi Premchand’s 138th birth anniversary : On the occasion of the 138th birth anniversary of Munshi Premchand, President Ram Nath Kovind paid tribute to the writer and novelist.Born on July 31, 1880, as Dhanpat Rai Shrivastava near Varanasi, Premchand used his pen name for his dramas, novels and stories.

Among his works, ‘Godaan’ is deemed as one of the finest Hindi novels.

5. IT ministry launches “e-Aksharayan” : The IT ministry launched a desktop software “e-Aksharayan” to enable editing of text printed on scanned documents.The software can be downloaded for free from its website.The software supports editing in seven Indian languages – Hindi, Bangla, Malayalam, Gurmukhi, Tamil, Kannada & Assamese.

6. Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill passed in LS : The Lok Sabha has passed the Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill 2018 which replaces the Criminal Law (Amendment) Ordinance promulgated on April 21 2018.The bill stipulates punishment for perpetrators of rape, particularly of girls below 12 years and death sentence has been provided for rapists of girls under 12 years.The investigation of all cases of rape has to be completed within 2 months.

INTERNATIONAL UPDATES:

1. World’s first UN Certified Football Club : The Forest Green Rovers Football Club was recognised by the United Nations as the World’s first certified carbon neutral football club.The UN campaign, launched in 2015, encourages companies, organisations, governments and citizens to reduce their climate footprints.The aim is to achieve a climate neutral world by the middle of this century.

2. Mars closest to earth in 15 years : At 57.6 million kilometres apart, Mars will be closest to Earth in over 15 years.With Mars and Sun on each side, the rare event will witness all three celestial bodies falling in a straight line.This will also be the closest the red planet comes to Earth until October 2020.Back in 2003, Earth and Mars were “only” 56 million kilometres apart- the closest it came in over 60,000 years.

3. U.S. eases export controls on India : The US has eased export controls for high-technology product sales to India by designating it as a Strategic Trade Authorization-1 (STA-1) country.The granting of STA-1 status to India comes after the US recognised India as a Major Defence Partner in 2016.Currently there are 36 countries on STA-1 list. India is the only South Asian country to be on the list.

4.Indo-Nepal forum to be set up for tourism : A forum will be set up between India and Nepal for mutual consultation and promotion of tourism by the countries.In a meeting held on July 6, 2018 of the joint working group of the two countries it was decided that an Indo-Nepal Tourism Forum should be set up.The forum will have representation from the government and private sectors of both the nations.

5. 3rd BRICS Film Festival concluded : The 3rd BRICS Film Festival took place in Durban, South Africa, along with the International Durban Film Festival  from 22-27th July, 2018.“Newton” won the Best Film and “Village Rockstars” won two awards at the third edition of the BRICS Film Festival.The Best Actress award went to Bhanita Das.The film festival is aimed at celebrating world-class film productions from the BRICS nations.

OTHER UPDATES:

BUSINESS/ECONOMY:

1. RIL reclaims its top slot : Reliance Industries Ltd. (RIL) regained its status as the country’s most valued firm by market capitalisation (m-cap) on 31st July 2018.It replaced Tata Group’s Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) from the top slot.Reliance Industries had crossed the $100-billion market capitalisation mark.The m-cap figure of companies changes daily with stock price movement.

SPORTS:

1. Smriti equals fastest T20 half-century : India’s batswoman Smriti Mandhana equalled the record for the fastest half-century in women’s T20 cricket during a Kia Super League.Mandhana equalled New Zealand’s Sophie Devine’s record of a half-century off 18 balls, set against India during a T20 International in 2015.Mandhana also smashed the tournament record for the fastest fifty.