Notes:
Amit Khare, a 1985-batch IAS officer of the Jharkhand cadre, has taken assumed charge as new Secretary in the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (I&B). He succeeded Narendra Kumar Sinha. Prior to the appointment as Secretary, Khare was Additional Chief Secretary in Jharkhand government. During a career span of more than 33 years, Khare has held various field postings and has worked from grassroots to the higher levels of governance in both State and Central Governments. He has also worked as Member Secretary in the Department of Pharmaceuticals, Union Ministry of Chemicals & Fertilizers and Joint Secretary in the Department of Higher Education, Union Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD).

Notes:
President Ram Nath Kovind has recently presented the ‘Santokbaa Humanitarian Award’ to two noted personalities viz. Child rights activist and Noble Laureate Kailash Satyarthi and space scientist A S Kiran Kumar, former chairman of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) in Surat, Gujarat. The award, instituted by Shree Ramkrishna Knowledge Foundaton (SRKKF) and led by diamond baron Govind Dholakia, includes a trophy and a prize money of Rs 1 crore each to the awardees. SRKKF confers the award every year for humanitarian contributions by individuals whose life and work are characterised by their selfless and inspiring service.

Notes:
India is hosting the 3rd Asia Cup International Bridge Championship 2018 in Goa from June 4 and will see participation from countries including Australia, Bangladesh, China, Japan and Korea. The championship will be contested in five categories namely men, women, mixed, super-mixed and senior. Players from Australia, Bangladesh, China, Hong Kong, Chinese Taipei, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Pakistan, Singapore and Thailand will be participating in the event. Round robin matches will be played from the June 5-8. Four top teams in each category will progress to the knock-out stage.  Semi-finals will be contested on June 9 and. The finals and play-offs for 3rd place will be played on June 10. The tournament will also have a Match Point pairs contest which is an open event.

Notes:
Sanjana Ramesh has won the ‘Most Valuable Player’ (MVP) award at the Basketball Without Borders Asia 2018, which featured 66 campers from 16 countries from the Asia-Pacific region. Her compatriot Vaishnavi Yadav won the ‘Girls Grit Award’ in the camp. The camp got underway with the girls championship game between the New York Liberty and the Minnesota Lynx. Coached on the sidelines by Ruth Riley and Sakshi Sheoran, the Lynx defeated the Liberty 20-13.

Notes:
The IBSA Foreign Ministers’ Meeting was held in Pretoria, South Africa on June 4, 2018. The External Affairs Minister of the Republic of India, Sushma Swaraj chaired the IBSA (India, Brazil, South Africa) ministerial meet and hold talks on how to deepen coordination among the three countries on major global issues. On this occasion, Ministers adopted and jointly released the IBSA Declaration on South-South Cooperation, to contribute to greater understanding of development cooperation as a common endeavor of the Global South. The Ministers also considered proposed IBSA events planned for 2018-19 to mark the fifteenth-anniversary of IBSA. The Ministers agreed to host these events in all three countries as well as on the margins of multilateral events.

Notes:
The Union Government has constituted a group of eminent persons to study the Special Economic Zones (SEZ) Policy of India. The group will be headed by Industrialist Baba Kalyani. The group will evaluate the SEZ policy, suggest measures to cater to the needs of exporters in the present economic scenario and make the SEZ policy WTO compatible. The Group has to submit its recommendation in 3 months. The SEZ Policy was implemented from 1st April, 2000. Subsequently, the Special Economic Zones Act, 2005 was passed by Parliament in May, 2005 which received Presidential assent on the 23rd June, 2005 and the Special Economic Zone Act was enacted. The SEZ Act, 2005, supported by SEZ Rules, came into effect on 10th February, 2006.

Notes:
On June 6, the Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Project (KLIP) in Telangana has received the approval of Technical Advisory Committee of the Union government in a meeting held in the Central Water Commission (CWC) in Delhi. The Kaleshwaram project, which is the biggest lift irrigation project in the country, has provision for the storage of about 148 tmc ft with plans of utilising 180 tmc ft by lifting at least 2 tmc ft water every day for 90 flood days. The project is designed to irrigate 7,38,851 hectares (over 18.47 lakh acres) uplands in the erstwhile districts of Karimnagar, Nizamabad, Warangal, Medak, Nalgonda and Ranga Reddy. The expected cost of project is Rs 80,000 crore. One of the unique features of the project is the longest tunnel in Asia of 81 kms between Yellampally and Mallannasagar dams. To lift the water the project will utilise 139MW pump, the highest capacity pump to be deployed in any project in the country. The Kaleswaram project across the Godavari river is often described as a boon to the state.

Notes:
India hosted the 11th edition of Geo-Intelligence Asia 2018 at Manekshaw Centre in New Delhi on 04-05 June 2018. It was organised by GeoSpatial Media and Communication with Directorate General of Information System as Knowledge Partners and Military Survey as Co-organisers. The theme of Seminar was ‘GeoSpatial : A Force Multiplier for Defense and Internal Security’. The aim of the event is to provide a platform to showcase the innovative applications of the Geospatial technologies. The seminar brought together the military, security officials including BSF and Police Forces, Government and industry together to examine the latest technology solutions and on the critical role of geospatial technology in military and security applications.

Notes:
The Mitti Dam is a concrete and earthen dam built on the Mitti River in Abdasa Taluka of Kutch District, Gujarat. The Mitti River is an intermittent stream and provides a catchment area of 468.78 sq kms for the reservoir. The dam is 4405 m long and has 17.40 million cubic metres (MCM) of gross storage, 2.68 MCM of dead storage, and 14.72 MCM of live storage capacity.

Notes:
Andhra Pradesh will become the first Indian state to use auto-disable syringes for all clinical purposes to prevent infection. The move will be enforced from the World Hepatitis Day (WHD-2018) when the state government will declare itself as “Safety Injection Use State”. The initiative will ensure one injection will be given from one syringe by mandating universal usage of auto-disable syringes in all clinical/therapeutic cases as part of infection prevention. The move would strengthen the healthcare system by lowering the burden of infections and breaking the cycle of cross infection.