8th October 2015 - Important Current Affairs updates

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International Affairs

• Today (2nd Thursday of October) is World Sight Day.
• World Sight Day is a global event that focuses on bringing attention on blindness and vision impairment. 
• This day was originally initiated by the SightFirstCampaign of Lions Club International Foundation in 2000.
• Themes of World Sight Day
• 2013 : Universal Eye Health
• 2014 : No more Avoidable Blindness
• 2015 : Eye care for all
• World Health Organization (WHO) confirms October first week as first full week with no new Ebola cases, since March 2014.
• The deadliest-ever Ebola outbreak since the virus was identified in central Africa in 1976 has killed 11,312 of the 28,457 people infected since December of 2013, according to the latest WHO figures.
• Nearly all the victims have been in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
• Liberia was declared free of Ebola transmission in early September, and Sierra Leone in late September began a 42-day countdown to becoming Ebola free.
• About WHO
• Formed on : 7th April 1948
• Headquarters : Geneva, Switzerland
• Director General : Margaret Chan
• MoS Home Kiran Rijju is going to represent India in 1st BRICS Migration Ministers' Conference at Sochi in Russia today.

National Affairs

• Today (8th October) is 83rd Air Force Day.
  
• Indian Airforce was officially established on 8 October 1932 as an auxiliary air force of the British Empire and the prefix Royal was added in 1945 in recognition of its services during World War II.
• Important Details about Indian Air Force
• Founded    on : 8th October 1932
• Motto : Touch the Sky with Glory
• Headquarters : New Delhi
• Chief of Air Staff : Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha
• Vice Chief of Air Staff   : Air Marshal BS Dhanoa
• Indian Airforce is the World's 4th largest Airforce.
• The Indian Air Force has involved in the following:
• World War II
• Sino-Indian War
• Operation Cactus
• Operation Vijay
• Kargil War
• Indo-Pakistani War of 1965
• Indo-Pakistani War of 1947
• Congo Crisis
• Operation Poomalai
• Operation Pawan
• Indian Air Force plans to induct women into the fighter aircraft stream.
• The plan to induct women into a fighting arm is a first in the three services which were earlier not open to the idea of women taking part in combat role.
• IAF currently has women in seven areas of administration, logistics, meteorology, navigation, education, aeronautical engineering — mechanical and electrical — and accounts.
• Nearly 95 lakh toilets have been constructed in rural areas during the first year of the Swachh Bharat mission.
• The target was 60 Lakh.
• Note : Swachh Bharat Mission was launched on October 2, 2014, as one of the largest national campaigns to make the country open defecation free in five years.

Important Books

• Union Minister for Rural Development and Drinking Water and Sanitation Birender Singh launched a coffee table book, “An Open Mind.”
• This book highlights the inspiring stories of sanitation champions who have driven positive behaviour change in their communities and helped their villages achieve Open Defecation Free status.

Awards & Honors

• Belarusian writer and journalist Svetlana Alexievich‬ has won the 2015 NobelPrize‬ for literature.
• The 67-year-old author is the 14th woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in its history.
• Her best known works in English translation included Voices From Chernobyl, an oral history of the nuclear catastrophe; and Zinky Boys, a collection of first-hand accounts from the Soviet-Afghan war. Alexievich is a political writer who is critical of her home country's government.

Sports

• ‎FIFA‬ has suspended its President Sepp Blatter, Secretary General Jerome Valcke and Vice-President Michel Platini for 90 days.
• Former Fifa vice-president Chung Mong-joon has been banned for six years and fined 100,000 Swiss Francs.
• The punishments were handed out by the ethics committee of football's world governing body.
• They are being investigated by the committee over corruption allegations.

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