Current Affairs

Notes:
Praful Patel, the president of All India Football Federation (AIFF), has become the first Indian to be elected as a member of the FIFA Executive Council. He got 38 out of 46 votes. Mr Patel was one of the eight candidates vying for the spot in the election which was held during the 29th Asian Football Confederations Congress in Kuala Lumpur yesterday. The membership in the council will be for four years, from 2019 to 2023.

Notes:
The 8th edition of joint military exercise titled Shaheen VIII has started between the air forces of China and Pakistan in Chinese city of Holton, which is closer to the Indian border near Ladakh. The purpose of the exercise is to improve training standards of the two air forces through mutual learning. It comes at a time when the country’s relations with Pakistan have hit rock-bottom. The air to air war games is said to be an exercise to develop a mechanism for interoperability of both countries’ air forces. The Indian Air Force (IAF) is keeping a close eye on the Pakistan-China aerial exercise in which both the countries have deployed latest fighter jets.

Notes:
• Santosh Yadav is an Indian mountaineer. She is the first woman in the world to climb Mount Everest twice, and the first woman to successfully climb Mt. Everest from Kangshung Face. She climbed the peak first in May 1992 and then again in May 1993.
• Oprah Gail Winfrey is an American media executive, actress, talk show host, television producer and philanthropist.
• Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London’s most popular playwrights in the early 1890s.
• Palagummi Sainath is an Indian journalist who focuses on social & economic inequality, rural affairs, poverty and the aftermath of globalization in India. He is the founder editor of the People’s Archive of Rural India and a senior fellow for Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.

Notes:
According to NASA Scientists, they have detected a massive thermonuclear X-ray explosion from outer space through their Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) telescope on the International Space Station (ISS).The explosion released as much energy in 20 seconds as the Sun does in nearly 10 days. The X-ray burst has came from an object named “J1808” i.e., located about 11,000 light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius. NASA spotted the burst because it sent out an intense beam of x-rays that got picked up by its  orbital observatory NICER.

Notes:
The scientists at the IIT Hyderabad had developed a memristor sensor for detecting the bovine serum albumin, which is analogous to the human serum albumin. The memristor or ‘Resistive Random Access Memory’ device is capable of changing its resistance state with voltage (called SET and RESERT switching). It is made up of metal electrodes and uses titanium dioxide as the active material.

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The Global Gender Gap Report is published by the World Economic Forum. It was first published in 2006. It is used as an index to measure gender equality. The WEF is based in Geneva, Switzerland and is an international non-governmental organisation.

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Kaifi Azmi was a famous Indian Urdu poet and song writer and was the pioneer in using Urdu literature in Indian movies. His 101st birth anniversary was recently observed and Google dedicated a doodle on the day as a tribute.
He had won several awards including the National Film Award and the Filmfare Award. He was also presented with the Padma Shri award, the fourth highest civilian award in India. Kaifi Azmi had won the renowned Sakitya Akademi fellowship.

Notes:
The Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) has lifted restrictions on export of formulations of Paracetamol and fixed dose combinations of the drug.
In the wake of domestic supply concerns, the DGFT has barred the export of paracetamol and 13 other active pharmaceutical ingredient (API), as well as their formulations, in March 2020. Now though the restriction is relaxed, export of the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) remains barred.

Notes:
The internet regulator of China, Cyberspace Administration of China has announced that it has launched a two-month nation-wide campaign to clean up websites aimed at users under the age of 18.
Earlier, China has imposed limits on online play time for young users after gaming addiction was rising among children. As per the watchdog, the aim of this campaign was to promote a healthy online environment.

Notes:
It is reported that fraudulent transactions amounting Rs 12,705 crore has taken place in Dewan Housing Finance Corporation Limited (DHFL) during FY17 to FY19. These frauds pertain to development of 2 Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) projects undertaken by DHFL.
This observation was made by “Grant Thornton”, a transaction investigating agency. The assistance of Grant Thornton was sought by the administrator of DHFL appointed under Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code.