International Current Affairs, GK & News

Angela Merkel: 2022 UNESCO Peace Prize awardee

August 26, 2022

Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been awarded the 2022 UNESCO Peace Prize for her efforts to welcome refugees. Key Points All jury members, including jury chairman and 2018 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Denis Mukwege, were impressed by Merkel’s courageous decision to welcome more than 1.2 million refugees from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Eritrea in ..

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Nomination of Garba Dance to UNESCO Heritage List

August 23, 2022

After Durga Puja was included in UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage last year, India has now named Garba for the year 2022. If approved, it will become the first intangible cultural heritage of Gujarat to be listed by UNESCO. What is Garba? Garba is a form of dance, as well as a religious and social event. ..

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Melbourne tops in 2017 EIU Liveability index

August 17, 2017

According to the 2017 Global Liveability Report compiled by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), Australian city Melbourne is the most liveable city in the world. The EIU Liveability index scores 140 major cities of the world on the scale ranging from 0 (least liveable city) to 100 (most liveable city) based on healthcare, education, stability, ..

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Goldman Environmental Prize for Prafulla Samantra

April 24, 2017

Social activist Prafulla Samantra was announced one among six winners of the Goldman Environmental Prize for his “historic 12-year legal battle that affirmed the indigenous Dongria Kondh’s land rights and protected the Niyamgiri Hills from a massive, open-pit aluminum ore mine.” The other five winners for this year are: Mark Lopez (United States); Uroš Macerl (Slovenia); ..

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Japan: What are Tobashi schemes and what is Olympus scandal?

January 9, 2012

Tobashi is Japanese for “fly away”. It describes the practice where external investment firms typically sell or otherwise take loss-bearing investments off the books of one Client Company at their near-cost valuation to conceal investment losses from the clients’ financial statements. In that sense, the losses are made to disappear, or ‘fly away’. (Wikipedia). This ..

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South Africa: What is the controversial “The Protection of Information Bill”?

January 9, 2012

Recently, the South Africa’s parliament has passed legislation aimed at better protecting state secrets. The measure has been widely criticised for provisions that could help the government hide corruption. The bill named “The Protection of Information Bill” is aimed at ensuring “a coherent approach to protection of state information and the classification and declassification of ..

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