Current Affairs July 08, 2019
In this post, GKToday presents Current Affairs of July 08, 2019 in Short Notes form for preparation of IBPS, Banking, CLAT, SSC, Railway, UPSC, IAS/PCS, UPPSC, BPSC, MPPSC, RPSC, TNPSC, MPSC, KPSC and all other competitive examinations of India.
1. The book titled ”War over Words: Censorship in India, 1930-1960” has been authored by Devika Sethi, who teaches modern Indian history at IIT-Mandi. The book explores the diverse mechanisms and motivations for censorship and its role in the shaping of the modern Indian republic. It looks at state censorship in India in the transition period from colonial to national rule, when historical actors behaved in unpredictable ways. The book is divided into four parts - Guarding the State, Protecting the Public: Censorship Policies and Practices in the 1930s; Protests and Publicity: Banning Non-Indian Authors; Political or Military? Censorship in India during the Second World War; and The Censored Turn Censors: Freedom and Free Speech.
2. Under Puducherry smart city development plan, the Union Territory government has decided to introduce Bi-cycle sharing scheme in a couple of months. The registered users or customers can use bicycles to hop from one place to another within the boulevard area. The bicycles can be left at any of the docking stations after use. For the scheme, 100 spots have been identified for cycle docking stations. To begin with, 20 docking stations with 10 to 15 cycles each, are to be set up in places like beach promenade, Bharathi Park, Gandhi Thidal, Aurobindo ashram and railway station. The novel scheme is a boon to tourists who throng to Puducherry in thousands whose number swells to several thousand on weekends. The project under the public-private partnership model will be operationalised after a suitable operator is found out through tender. This scheme is one among the 22 prioritised schemes of the Puducherry Smart City Project for which about 194 crore rupees would be spent.
3. Arinjeeta Dey, a village girl from West Bengal, has won a silver under-12 age group category in the 2019 World Youth Cup in Umag, Croatia. The tournament was organised by World Karate Federation affiliated to the International Olympic Association. A total of 35 countries participated in this competition.
4. Reliance Jio Infocomm has collaborated with Facebook to launch a countrywide digital literacy drive, christened as Digital Udaan, for its growing base of JioPhone users and other first-time internet users. Under the initiative, Jio will engage with users every Saturday to apprise them on features of its 4G VoLTE feature phone (called JioPhone), the use of various apps and internet safety, including the use of Facebook to connect with friends and family in a simple and secure way. The digital literacy engagement will be undertaken via audiovisual training in 10 regional languages. Digital Udaan will initially be launched in nearly 200 different locations across 13 states, and the initiative will subsequently reach over 7,000 locations, empowering millions of JioPhone users and other first-time internet users.
5. The Punjab & Sind Bank has set up the Centralised MSME & Retail Group (Cen-MARG) for credit facilities at its head office in New Delhi. Now, all MSME and retail credit approvals will be performed at this centralised set up. This will help branches focus better on lead generation for retail and MSME lending and enhanced customer service. The Cen-MARG would be linked with pan-India branches in a phased manner. It has been envisioned to ensure a qualitative improvement in credit appraisal, improved turnaround time, uniform documentation and efficient monitoring.
6. The Tata Steel Kalinganagar (TSK) is the first and the only Indian manufacturing plant to be included in the Global Lighthouse Network (GLN) of World Economic Forum (WEF). The lighthouses are chosen for their leadership in applying Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies to drive financial and operational impact. The factories were selected based on their success in integrating these technologies to increase efficiency and drive innovation. Tata Steel's IJmuiden plant at Netherlands is already a member of this network. The TSK steel plant is the largest single-location greenfield steel project in India and is located at Jajpur district in Odisha.
7. In Gujarat, India's first design development centre 'Fashionova' has recently launched in Textile city Surat to provide a platform to apparel business aspirants. It offers scope to fulfil all business needs from co-working space, technicians, expert advice to cognitive workshops and industry exposure. The main objective of this centre is to provide a strong platform to all those who have a flair of the apparel business. It fulfills, on a large scale, all business needs from co-working space, technicians, expert advises to cognitive workshops and exposure to the industry.
8. To celebrate the 20th anniversary of Kargil Vijay Diwas (KVD) on 26th of July 2019, Army Chief General Bipin Rawat has released a Kargil Tribute Song at a function in New Delhi to honour, salute and pay homage to the Kargil martyrs and war veterans. The song has been composed by Mr Sammer Anjaan, renowned hindi lyricist and sung by Mr Shatadru Kabir. The music has been composed by Mr Raju Singh. The 20th anniversary celebrations are aimed at ‘Remembering their sacrifice’, ‘Rejoicing in their victory’ and ‘Renewing the pledge’ to go beyond the call of duty when called upon. Operation Vijay involved major operations to evict Pakistani intruders from Indian territory on the icy heights of Dras, Kargil, Batalik and Turtuk.
9. The ‘WorldSkills India’s International Cloud Computing Challenge 2019’ will be organized by NASSCOM in partnership with the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC). Ten countries including India are participating in the competition, along with New Zealand, Belgium, Japan, China, South Korea, Russia, Oman and Ireland. The finalists would further compete in the 45th “WorldSkills International Competition 2019”, to be held in Kazan, Russia in August 2019. The “WorldSkills India” is an NSDC initiative launched in 2011 to provide a platform to the youth, along with industries and educators to compete, experience, learn and develop key professional skill sets required for Industry 4.0. The NSDC is headquarterd at New Delhi & Anil Manibhai Naik is its chief.
10. The International Co-operative Day (ICD) is an annual celebration of the co-operative movement observed on the first Saturday in July since 1923 by the International Co-operative Alliance. The 2019 theme is “COOPS 4 DECENT WORK”. The aim of this celebration is to increase awareness of cooperatives. The event underscores the contributions of the cooperative movement to resolving the major problems addressed by the United Nations and to strengthening and extending the partnerships between the international cooperative movement and other actors.
