Current Affairs of 11th July 2019

• Delhi-Lucknow Tejas Express, one of the most-awaited trains on the route announced in 2016, is set to be the first train to be operated by private players. At present, it is parked at the Anandnagar Railway Station in Uttar Pradesh. It will be handed over to private players after an open bidding process for operationalization. Despite protests from Railway unions, the Indian Railways is going ahead with its 100-day agenda of handing over operations of 2 trains to the private sector.

• General Directorate of Residency and Foreigners Affairs of Sharjah granted the first golden card visa to an Indian expat businessman, Lalu Samuel, Chairman and Managing Director of Kingston Holdings and Chairman of Sharjah Industry Business Group. The 10-year visa is a part of the long-term permanent residency system tailored for investors and entrepreneurs aims to attract capital, investments, and owners of leading companies, professionals, researchers and students to engage them in the renaissance and development of the UAE. The golden cardholders are entitled to have the privileges and facilities including a residency visa without a sponsor to them and their families. It also allows the visa holder to sponsor up to 3 workers and obtain a residency visa for one of his/her senior employees.

• Pune's Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) researchers have developed an extended range prediction system that aims at the real-time monitoring and prediction of forthcoming heat waves 2 to 3 weeks in advance. It has great potential in providing an advance indication about the onset, duration, and demise of the heatwave spell with a small spatial & temporal error with 70% accuracy. Since the 2017 Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) has been using this system and it had used it in 2019 to predict heat waves. From 1981 to 2017, 22 heatwave events of the northwest, 14 southeast coastal regions and 9 regions in the northwest-southeast region were experienced for more than eight days in each region during the summer season.

• Hyundai Motor launched India's first fully-electric SUV in the national capital. The SUV will offer a range of 452 km/charge, according to ARAI certification. An 80% charge can be achieved in 57 minutes with DC quick charger, using the CCS type II charging port.

• Parliament passed Aadhaar and Other Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2019 which allows voluntary use of Aadhaar as proof of identity for users to open bank accounts and get a mobile phone connection. If private entities violate provisions on Aadhaar data, they will be imposed Rs 1 crore penalty and a jail term. The Bill provides the use of Aadhaar number for KYC (Know Your Customer) authentication voluntarily under the Telegraph Act, 1885, and the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002.

• Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) launched a project for undertaking 'immunocontraceptive measures' for population management of 4 species of wild animals namely Elephant, Wild boar, Monkeys and Blue Bull (Nilgai). The human-elephant conflict caused the maximum number of casualties. Between 2014 and March 2019, 2,398 people died in an elephant attack in the country. West Bengal had a maximum number of such deaths. Immunocontraception is a birth control method that uses the body's immune response to prevent pregnancy. It is a technology that uses a female animal's immune system to build a protein around the egg that prevents it from fertilizing.

• 4th Director General level talks between Narcotics Control Bureau (India) and the Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control (Myanmar) were held in New Delhi. India and Myanmar have resolved to exchange crucial information relating to drug trafficking and precursors.

• The Chief Minister of Haryana Government Manohar Lal Khattar has launched an online portal named "Meri Fasal Mera Byora" (https://www.fasalhry.in/ )for farmers to directly avail crop-related benefits of state government schemes after self -reporting their land and crop-related details. The farmers who will register on the portal required to upload information like the name of crop sown, area under cultivation, cropping month, bank account number and mobile number at Common Service Centres (CSCs) or Atal Seva Kendras (ASK) or with the help of VLEs (Village Level Entrepreneurs )by end of July. Each farmer, who registered on the portal gets a financial incentive of Rs 10 per acre or part thereof subject to a minimum of Rs 20 to maximum Rs 50. It will enable farmers to avail the subsidy on agriculture implements easily & make damage assessment during natural calamities and disbursal of relief in cases of crop damage easier and other financial assistance under different schemes. The state government will get the accurate data of area and name of crop cultivated in various parts of the state and it is a step forward towards Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision of doubling the farmer's income by 2022.

• Arun Kumar, Additional Secretary and Financial Advisor to the Ministry of Civil Aviation were appointed as the Director-General in Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) in the rank of Additional Secretary.

• Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal held a bilateral meeting with the Indonesian Minister of Trade Enggartiasto Lukita in New Delhi and agreed to work towards sustainable trade. The meeting took place on the sidelines of the Troika Meeting with ASEAN Trade Ministers. India's trade deficit with Indonesia stood at 10.57 billion US Dollars last financial year. The balance of trade is heavily in favor of Indonesia and both countries need to work towards establishing sustainable trade by diversifying the export basket. There is considerable potential for expanding trade in agricultural, automobiles, engineering products, IT, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, and healthcare sectors. The bilateral trade of 21.13 billion US Dollars in 2018-19. Indonesia emerged as the second-largest trading partner of India in the ASEAN region after Singapore.

• Ukraine has inaugurated the world's largest movable metal dome encasing the destroyed reactor at the infamous Chernobyl plant. It is a 108-meter high dome that weighs 36,000 tonnes.

• To promote solar energy across the world, the Karnataka government has decided to award the Karnataka Visvesvaraya Solar Award in the name of Bharat Ratna M. Visvesvaraya. This award will be given every year for a country in the world to do better in the field of Floating Solar Project.

• The 577th meeting of the Central Board of Directors of Reserve Bank of India(RBI) was held in New Delhi. Union Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs, Nirmala Sitharaman, addressed the Directors of Central Board.

• The Delhi Police Crime Branch has rescued 333 children, who had reported missing since January 2019 from various parts of the country. The crime branch took 'Operation Milap' under which the children are rescued and reunited with their respective families. Delhi police have also recovered 57 people, including 14 minors, who were kidnapped, abducted, or went missing from various areas in the national capital. The children are mostly rescued from bus stands, railway stations and other crowded places in the city. Operation Milap was launched in December 2014 to rescue children. Anti-Human Trafficking Unit (AHTU) has formed under the 'Milap' develops information, rescues the trafficked or kidnapped children and arrests the kidnappers.

• American business and employment-oriented service, LinkedIn appointed Ashutosh Gupta as its new country manager for India effective September 2, 2019. He will replace Mahesh Narayanan, who was the country manager for India from January to June 2019. In 2013, Gupta joined LinkedIn as the head of the Marketing Solutions (LMS) business in India, and in 2016 he moved to Singapore to build LMS' Online Sales Organisation (OSO) for the Asia Pacific(APAC) and China. He will report to Olivier Legrand, LinkedIn's Managing Director(MD) for the APAC and he will continue to lead the LMS's OSO. He is an alumnus of IIM-Lucknow and IIT (BHU), Varanasi. He worked in organizations like Google, Cognizant, and Infosys. He also had two decades of experience in the internet and IT and software services industries.

• Toran Yadav(19), a specially-abled boy from Khatti village in Chhattisgarh clinched 3 medals for India at the 4th World Yoga Festival and Championship 2019, held at Bulgaria, Sofia. He strikes two silver medals in the rhythmic pair and an artistic pair and a bronze medal in athletic yoga. He started yoga from the age of 9 and was selected to represent India.

• India will host the 14th conference of the parties from September 02 to 13 in Greater Noida. 197 countries are expected to participate in the conference. Three crucial issues in this conference are desertification, land degradation, and drought.

• RPF launched "Operation Thirst" to crack down selling of unauthorized Packaged Drinking Water in the railway premises. During the operation, 1371 persons were arrested for selling of packaged drinking water of unauthorized brands

• Boeing, an American aerospace company, informed the arrival of 2 new heavy-lift CH-47F (I) Chinooks helicopters for the Indian Air Force (IAF) at the Mundra port in Gujarat. It will provide IAF an unmatched strategic airlift capability. In 2015, IAF had ordered 15 Chinooks along with 22 Apache attack helicopters. The first 4 Chinooks were received in February 2019. The CH-47 Chinook, advanced multi-mission helicopter, has unsurpassed ability to deliver heavy payloads to high altitudes. It is suitable for operations in the high Himalayas. It was battle-tested in diverse, extreme conditions throughout the world and has proven the capability to operate in a wide range of conditions.

• Indian girl, Isha Kanth is one of the two persons in the world to have bagged an internship program at the International Court of Justice. She has earlier worked in rural Bihar spreading awareness on the right to education and women empowerment among children belonging to the marginalized sections.