Current Affairs

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Dr.Randeep Guleria has been appointed as the new Director of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Delhi for five years from the date of assumption of charge or till attaining the age of 65 until further orders. He is the first Indian to get a Doctorate of Medicine (DM) in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine. Dr. Guleria has worked as a personal physician to former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and has also treated Union ministers like Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley. He succeeded Dr. M C Mishra, who retired from the post of AIIMS director in January 2017.

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India’s first-ever private sector small arms manufacturing plant has set up at Malanpur in Madhya Pradesh in a joint venture with Israel. The purpose of the plant is to supply world class weapons to the armed forces in sync with the India’s defence indigenisation programme. The plant is a joint venture between Indian defence conglomerate ‘Punj Lloy’ and Israel Weapon Systems (IWS), which will produce four products — X95 carbine and assault rifle, Galil sniper rifle, Tavor assault rifle and Negev Light Machine Gun (LMG). The weapons will be assembled based on 100% transfer of technology.

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World no. 1 Tai Tzu Ying of Chinese Taipei has won the women’s singles title at the Hong Kong Super Series badminton tournament by defeating P V Sindhu in the final at Kowloon on November 26, 2017. This was Tai’s 8th win against Sindhu in 11 meetings and fourth on the trot. This is also Sindhu’s second loss in the four finals that she reached this season. She had lost to Japan’s Nozomi Okuhara at the World Championship final, while clinched two titles at India and Korea this year.

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The Gita Research Institute will soon be set up by the Uttar Pradesh government in Mathura for research on Gayan (singing), Vadan (the art of music) and Nratya (dance) of the Krishna age. It is a research institute for the study of the ‘Bhagavad Gita’.

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The Dam Rehabilitation and Improvement Project (DRIP) is an externally-aided project being funded by the World Bank. Nearly 80% of the total cost is being funded by the World Bank as loan/credit and remaining is borne by the States/Central Governments. The Central Dam Safety Organization of Central Water Commission, assisted by Engineering and Management Consultant, is coordinating and supervising the Project implementation. There are 223 dams in seven states being improved under the Phase-I of the project. The phase-I of the project will be implemented till 2020. Recently, the phase-II of the project is proposed to be implemented over the six years (2020-26) at an estimated cost of Rs 7000 crore. Under Phase-II of the project, the safety and operational performance of 700 large dams across 18 states will be improved through repair and rehabilitation work.

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In Men’s hockey, Indian men’s national field hockey team defeated arch rival Pakistan 2-1 to clinch a Bronze at the 2018 Jakarta Asian Games. Akashdeep hit the first goal and 2nd was scored by Harmanpreet. Pakistan’s lone goal came from a counter-attack scored by Muhammad Atiq. With this, India ranked at 8th position with 69 medals – 15 gold, 24 Silver and 30 Bronze – at the 18th Asian Games. China leads the medals tally followed by Japan.

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On January 29, UNESCO official launched the International Year of the Period Table of Chemical Elements (IYPT-2019) at its headquarters in Paris to raise awareness of chemistry and its applications for sustainable development. The year 2019 also marks the 150th anniversary of its creation by Russian scientist Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleev. The aim of the year-long celebration is to recognize the importance of the periodic table as one of the most important and influential achievements in modern science, reflecting the essence not only of chemistry, but also of physics, biology and other basic sciences disciplines. The Periodic Table of Chemical Elements is a unique tool that enables scientist to predict the appearance and properties of matter on the Earth and in the rest of the Universe.

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Beirut, the national capital of Lebanon, has set a new Guinness World Record for the number of national flags raised in a city for 24 hours. On 28th April 2019, a total of 26,852 Lebanese flags were raised & beat a record held by New York’s Waterloo since 2000. The event was organized by the Beirut Alive Association (BAA) under the patronage of Prime Minister Saad Hariri.

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Vivek Kohli has been elected as chairman of the Commonwealth Table Tennis Federation (CTTF). He defeated incumbent Alan Ransome of England. The elections were recently held in Bhubaneswar, close to the venue of the 21st Commonwealth Table Tennis Championship 2019 (Cuttack). M.P. Singh, who is secretary general at Table Tennis Federation of India (TTFI), was unanimously elected as secretary general of CTTF. The CTTF president’s post is already held by TTFI chief Dushyant Chautala. It is for the first time that all the three positions in CTTF are held by Indians.

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NDTV India’s senior executive editor, Ravish Kumar has been honoured with the prestigious 2019 Ramon Magsaysay Award for his ‘ethical journalism’. Kumar has won the honour for his news show, Prime Time, which deals with real-life & under-reported problems of ordinary people. He is among five individuals who were declared winners of the award. The four other winners of the 2019 Ramon Magsaysay Award are Ko Swe Win from Myanmar, Angkhana Neelapaijit from Thailand, Raymundo Pujante Cayabyab from Philippines and Kim Jong-Ki from South Korea. The Ramon Magsaysay Award is the highest honour given to Asian individuals and organisations and often referred to as the Asian version of the Nobel Prize.