HIMACHAL PRADESH

 

• Himachal CM seeks Rs 2,000 cr grant for Mandi int’l airport
• Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Jairam Thakur met Finance Commission Chairman N K Singh and sought a Rs 2,000-crore special purpose grant to construct an international airport in the Mandi district.

 

• The state is vulnerable to natural disasters, such as flash floods, cloudbursts, forest fires, droughts, cold waves and avalanches, and, therefore, there is a need to enhance the size of the State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF).

 

• He requested the Commission that SDRF be funded 100 per cent by the Central government. The state needed to be compensated for the externalities arising from environment conservation and forest protection

 

INTERNATIONAL

·         SpaceX Falcon 9 launched Israels Amos 17 telecommunications satellite

 

• The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocketlaunched Israeli telecommunications satellite called Amos-17 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The satellite was launched successfully into the geosynchronous transfer orbit.

 

• The launch was a makeup launch for Spacecom when a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket exploded on the launch pad in 2016. Amos-17 has been designed to provide enhanced voice, video and data services to customers in Africa and parts ofEurope, the Middle East, India and China.

 

• Before AMOS 17, Spacex launched the Europe’s Arianespace consortium withtwo satellites from its spaceport in the South American country of French Guiana using its heavy-lift Ariane 5 rocket.

 

• The second satellite called EDRS-C is part of an effort led by the European Space Agency and Airbus to facilitate high-speed laser communications between orbiting satellites and ground stations.

 

NATIONAL

• Quit India Movement Day: 08 August
• The Quit India Movement was a movement launched at the Bombay session of the All-India Congress Committee by Mahatma Gandhi on 8 August 1942.

 

• On this day the Congress adopted the historic ‘Quit India Resolution’ which declared among other things that the immediate ending of the British rule in India was an urgent necessity.

 

• On the same Gandhi made a call to Do or Die in his Quit India speech delivered in Bombay at the Gowalia Tank Maidan.

 

• It is also known as August Movement or August Kranti.

 

• RBI to set up a central registry for tracking frauds in payment systems

 

• The Reserve Bank of India has decided to set up a Central Payment Fraud Registry to track frauds in the payment systems.

 

• Payment system participants will be provided access to this registry for near-real-time fraud monitoring.

 

• The aggregated fraud data will be published to educate customers on emerging risks.

 

• Currently, banks report all banking frauds to the Central Fraud Monitoring Cell of the Reserve Bank.

 

·         Reserve Bank of India Expands biller categories for Bharat Bill Payment System

• The Reserve Bank of Indiaallows all categories of billers to accept prepaid recharges under the Bharat Bill Payment System (BBPS). The BBPS currently covers billers in five segments, DTH, electricity, gas, telecom and water bills.
• The regulator is expected to issue detailed instructions in this regard by the end of September 2019. The advantages of the BBPS and harness its full potential decided to permit all categories of billers (except prepaid recharges) who provide for recurring bill payments to participate in BBPS on a voluntary basis.

 

• Apart from digitization of cash-based bill payments, it will enable standardized bill payment experience, centralized customer grievance redressal mechanism, and standardized customer convenience fee. The regulator allowed on-tap authorization of retail payment systems to companies looking to function as BBPOU, TReDS and white-label ATMs.

 

·         RS passed the National Institute of Design Amendment Bill

• Rajya Sabhapassed the National Institute of Design (Amendment) Bill, 2019. It was introduced by Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal. The Bill sought to amend the National Institute of Design Act, 2014.

 

• The Bill declaresfour National Institutes of Design, from states namely Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Assam, and Haryana, as institutions of national importance.

 

• These institutes were registered as Societies under the Societies Registration Act, 1860. These institutes do not have the power to grant degrees or diplomas. As the four institutes are now declared institutions of national importance, the institutes will be allowed to grant degrees and diplomas.

 

·         India gets its first Buddhist dominated Union Territory after Jammu and Kashmir Bifurcation

ð  India’s arid mountainous desert region called Ladakh granted an identity sets it apart geographically, administratively and demographically.India’s first Buddhist dominated union territory with a dominant Buddhist population of 1.33 lakh out of a total of 2.74 lakh.The distinction is similar to that of Punjab have a predominant Sikh population, which comprises 57.69% of its total population.Chandigarh and Ladakh will not have a legislative assembly will fall directly under Central command.Ladakh strategically important with India and China. Bharatiya Janata Party member of Parliament (MP) from Ladakh Jamyang Tsering Namgyal pointed out how the region left out of all development initiatives by its Buddhist population to past Indian administrations. In 1948, the president of the Ladakh Buddhist Association requested Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru to either bring Ladakh directly under central administration or make it a part of East Punjab no condition keep Ladakh with Kashmir.

 

 

·         P.V. Sindhu among Forbes 2019 list of worlds highest-paid female athletes

 

 

• India’s badminton star V. Sindhu is the only athlete from the country to be named among the world’s highest-paid female athletes by Forbes, a list topped by tennis great Serena Willams. Sindhu is tied for 13th placein The Highest-Paid Female Athletes 2019 list released by Forbes. She secured total earnings of $5.5 million, She became the first Indian to win the season-ending BWF World Tour finals in 2018
  The list of the world’s top 15 female athletes is topped by Williams