Current Affairs June 25, 2019
In this post, GKToday presents Current Affairs of June 25, 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. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will attend the 14th G20 Summit in Osaka, Japan on 28th and 29th of June 2019. Former Union Minister Suresh Prabhu will be India's sherpa at the summit. More than 20 countries will be participating in the G20 Summit. Informal meeting of the BRICS leaders and bilateral meetings with other leaders would also take place on the sidelines of the summit. The theme of the summit is "Human-centred future society". India has participated in all the G20 Summits held so far. It will host the G20 summit in 2022 for the first time.
2. The fifth edition of International Yoga day (IYD-2019) is celebrated across the country and abroad on 21st June with theme ‘Yoga for Climate Action’. The aim of the IYD is to raise awareness worldwide of the many benefits of practicing yoga. Yoga is an ancient physical, mental and spiritual practice that originated in India. The word ‘yoga’ derives from Sanskrit and means to join or to unite, symbolizing the union of body and consciousness.
3. Thanjavoor Ramamoorthy (90), the noted mridangam exponent and former top grade staff artist of All India Radio (AIR), has passed away in Trichy, Tamil Nadu on June 22, 2019. He had the unique distinction of having accompanied four generations of Carnatic stalwarts starting from violin genius Muringapuri Gopalakrishna Iyer, right up to renowned vocalist ML Vasanthakumari. He was the recipient of the Kalaimamani award of the Government of Tamil Nadu.
4. Justice Raghvendra Singh Chauhan has been sworn-in as new Chief Justice of Telangana High Court in Hyderabad. Governor ESL Narasimhan administered the oath of office to Justice Chauhan at Raj Bhavan. Justice Chauhan is the 2nd Chief Justice of the Telangana High Court after the bifurcation of the erstwhile Andhra Pradesh High Court in 2018.
5. On 21st June 2019, India's ace cueist Pankaj Advani clinched the 35th men's Asian Snooker Championship in Doha to complete a career grand slam in cue sports. In the final, he defeated Thanawat Tirapongpaiboon 6-3 to become the only one to win the Asian and World championships in all formats. He is also the only one to do so in two sports, both Billiards and Snooker. He conquered the ACBS Asian Snooker events - 6-red (short format) and 15-red (long format) - along with the IBSF World Championships in both formats too. Pankaj will now take part in IBSF World Cup next week in Doha.
6. In Gymnastics, India's Pranati Nayak from West Bengal clinched a bronze in vault event at the 8th Senior Asian Artistic Championships in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia on June 22, 2019. In the final, she scored a total of 13.384 points to claim the bronze medal. China's Yu Linmin and Japan's Ayaka Sakaguchi won the gold and silver medal at the event.
7. The researchers at the University of St Andrews in Scotland have found that gray seals can copy the sounds of human words and songs including "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”. The study showed that 3 trained seals were able to imitate parts of popular tunes. The study gave the researchers a better understanding of the evolution of vocal learning and human language development. It also suggested that gray seals could be a new model to study speech disorders since they use their vocal tracts the same way as humans. The grey seal is found on both shores of the North Atlantic Ocean. It is a large seal of the family Phocidae which are commonly referred to as "true seals" or "earless seals". It is the only species classified in the genus Halichoerus.
8. The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has constituted a working group, headed by NSE Clearing Ltd., to review the current framework of margins in the futures and options segment. The group will look into the issue and submit its recommendations to the Secondary Market Advisory Committee. This assumes significance as lower cost of trading was primarily the reason why institutional investors preferred to trade in Nifty contracts on SGX at Singapore rather than on the highly liquid derivatives segment of the National Stock Exchange (NSE). Incidentally, a recent study jointly conducted by Association of National Exchanges Members of India (ANMI) and consultancy firm Ernst & Young (EY) highlighted the fact that trading in derivatives in India costs much more when compared with most of the other leading markets due to a variety of margins that are imposed on the traders.
9. The Punjab government has decided to launch its flagship universal health insurance scheme -Sarbat Sehat Bima Yojana' (SSBY) - from July 2019. The scheme will provide an annual health cover of Rs 5 lakh per family. Around 43.18 lakh families in Punjab will be covered under it. Besides all government hospitals, 364 private hospitals in Punjab had been empanelled, where the beneficiaries would get the secondary and tertiary care. The beneficiaries included the 14.86 lakh families covered under the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PMJAY) in the state. The cost of the premium for the families covered under the PMJAY would be borne by the Centre and the state government in the 60:40 ratio while for the rest of the beneficiaries, it would borne by the state government.
10. Author Amish Tripathi has been appointed the new director of Nehru Centre in London, which is under the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR). He will replace diplomat Srinivas Gotru. Tripathi is the author of best-selling books such as the Secret of the Nagas and Sita – Warrior of Mithila. The Nehru Centre was founded in 1992 with Gopalkrishna Gandhi as its founder director. Playwright-actor Girish Karnad was among the prominent people to have helmed the centre.
