DAILY CURRENT AFFARIS SERIES 3

Daily dose of current affairs:

• Indian Women's Hockey team won the FIH ( Federation Internationale de Hockey) Women's Series Finals Hiroshima 2019 after defeating the host Japan by 3-1 in the finals held at the Hiroshima Hockey Stadium, Japan. Indian team Captain Rani Rampal scored the first goal in the 3rd minute and Gurjit Kaur scored 2 goals at the 45th and 60th minutes. Japan's Kanon Mori scored the goal for the team in the 11th minute. Rani Rampal was the best player of the tournament and Gurjit Kaur emerged as the top-scorer.
• The International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit (forbidden by law, rules, or custom) Trafficking is observed on 26 June every year. It is a United Nations International Day against drug abuse and the illegal drug trade. It is observed since 1989. The day was instituted by General Assembly Resolution 42/112 of 7 December 1987. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has set the theme for 2019 as 'Health for Justice. Justice for Health'. The theme highlights that justice and health are two sides of the same coin when it comes to addressing drug problems.
• China's agricultural deputy minister, Qu Dongyu (55) elected as the new director general of the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) at Rome, Italy for a period of 4 years with effect from August 2019. He will succeed Brazil's Jose Graziano da Silva. He won 108 votes, followed by Catherine Geslain-Laneelle of France (the first woman to run for the post, a former head of the European Food Safety Authority) with 71 votes and Georgia's Davit Kirvalidze(a former agriculture minister) with 12 votes in the first round of voting. The election held as the fight to eradicate world hunger is threatened by global warming and wars, as FAO has sounded the alarm over rising food insecurity and high levels of malnutrition.
• Automobile manufacturer, Maruti Suzuki signed 'Preferred Financier' MoU(Memorandum of understanding) with public sector Bank, Bank of Baroda (BOB) to improve credit for dealership inventory financing. The alliance with Bank of Baroda will allow Maruti Suzuki an easy financing opportunity to dealers as well as customers. The dealer inventory financing will work in line with the Bank of Baroda's product program of Supply Chain Finance.
• Ashleigh Barty becomes world No.1 women tennis player after winning the Birmingham Classic by defeating Julia Goerges by 6-3, 7-5. She is an Australian Professional tennis player.
• Infosys announced a long term strategic partnership with Toyota Material Handling Europe (TMHE). As an IT services partner, Infosys will help TMHE in its digital transformation journey by facilitating transformation to a scalable digital hybrid cloud platform. It will help drive innovation and optimization agenda backed by Next Generation AI and automation solutions.
• India scraped $500 million arms deal with Israel for the purchase of Spike anti-tank missiles from defense contractor Rafael Advanced Defense Systems. This was done after Defense Research & Development Organisation (DRDO) claimed that it could deliver an alternative with a partnership with VEM technologies Ltd within two years. The project was given to DRDO due to the fast progressive second stage of testing Man-Portable Anti-Tank Guided Missile (MPATGM). MPATGM was successfully test-fired at the Ahmednagar range in September 2018. India's deal with Israel for 321 Spike launchers and 8,356 missiles was initially struck in October 2014 after the Defence Ministry selected Spike over the US-made FGM-148 Javelin. Later, it was scrapped in December 2017 in favour of DRDO.
• India proposed to host the 2023 International Olympic Committee session in Mumbai. It is expected to choose the host city for the 2030 Winter Olympics. Indian Olympic Association President Narinder Batra and IOC member Nita Ambani submitted the formal bid to the IOC chief Thomas.2022-2023 is the 75th year of Indian Independence and Indian sports are celebrated in India in a better way. Batra is elected as a new IOC member.IOC Session is the general meeting of the 100members.It is held once a year where each member has one vote.
• The Complaint Management System (CMS) is a software application launched by Reserve Bank of India on its website. It will be used for lodging complaints against banks and NBFCs with a view to improve customer experience in timely redressal of grievances. Customers can lodge complaints against any regulated entity on the platform. These complaints will be directed to the appropriate office of the Ombudsman/Regional Office of the RBI. The RBI is also planning to introduce a dedicated Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system to track the status of complaints.
• The 20-time Grand Slam champion, Roger Federer (37) of Switzerland defeated David Goffin (Belgium) to win the 27th edition of the Halle Open 2019 (also known as Noventi Open 2019) at the Gerry Weber Stadion in Halle, Germany. Federer beat Goffin with7-6 (B) 6-1 scores to win the Halle Open title for the 10th time and secured his 102nd career singles title.
• Tech Mahindra Ltd introduced K2, the first Human Resource (HR) Humanoid, for its Noida Special Economic Zone Campus in Uttar Pradesh. K2 would take over the routine HR transactions to provide constant assistance to the HR team in creating an enhanced employee experience. It can respond to queries with text display along with speech and can address general HR-related employee queries.
• Prime Minister Narendra Modi will attend the 14th G20 Summit in Osaka, Japan on 28th and 29th of June 2019. Former Union Minister Suresh Prabhu will be India's sherpa at the summit. More than 20 countries will be participating in the G20 Summit. Informal meeting of the BRICS leaders and bilateral meetings with other leaders would also take place on the sidelines of the summit. The theme of the summit is "Human-centred future society". India has participated in all the G20 Summits held so far. It will host the G20 summit in 2022 for the first time.
• Kerala has topped ranking state in terms of overall health performance as per the report submitted by NITI Aayog on health index. This is the second edition of its type. It measured the annual and incremental performances of states and UTs. Next to Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra have emerged as the second and third best performers, respectively, on health parameters. Uttar Pradesh and Bihar were ranked the two worst performers, respectively. Kerala secured an overall score of 74.01, while Uttar Pradesh was the least performing state with an overall score of 28.61. The report highlighted the outbreak of encephalitis in Bihar that killed over 150 children till 24 June.
• Author Amish Tripathi has been appointed the new director of Nehru Centre in London, which is under the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR). He will replace diplomat Srinivas Gotru. Tripathi is the author of best-selling books such as the Secret of the Nagas and Sita - Warrior of Mithila. The Nehru Center was founded in 1992 with Gopalkrishna Gandhi as its founder director. Playwright-actor Girish Karnad was among the prominent people to have manage the center.
• The Nepalese Embassy in New Delhi issued a notice stating that Nepalese nationals must have a visa if they are entering India from Pakistan, China, Hong Kong and Macau. This was done to increase security in the country.It also notified that Nepalese nationals who travel to Gulf countries, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain and Lebanon are required to acquire No Objection Certificate (NOC) from the respective Nepalese Embassies.A traveler must submit an application to the respective embassy along with relevant documents, including employment permit, ticket and visa of the destination country, in order to get the NOC.
• The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has voted in favour of restoring Russia's voting rights, five years after they were revoked over its illegal annexation of the Crimean Peninsula.
• The government approved the Motor Vehicle (Amendment) Bill that proposes hefty penalties for violation of traffic norms including up to Rs. 10,000 fine for not providing way to emergency vehicles and Rs. 10,000 for driving despite disqualification.