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August 18, 2017

18th August 2017 Important Daily Current Affairs

Friday, August 18, 2017 , 2 comments

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Dear Great Ambitionists, here are today's (18th August 2017) Important Current Affairs updates. Happy Reading :)

Daily Current Affairs of 18th August 2017

International Current Affairs
  • Lebanon today abolished a law that allowed rapists to escape punishment by marrying their victims. 
    • Note : Jordan and Tunisia banned similar laws earlier this year.
  • The United States today designated ISIS leaders Ahmad Alkhald and Abu Yahya al-Iraqi as Specially Designated Global Terrorists. 
    • These designations seek to deny them the resources they need to plan and carry out further terrorist attacks.
    • Note : The US has so far designated over 30 ISIS leaders and operatives.
  • Pakistani Nobel Prize winner Malala Yousafzai has gained a place to study Politics, Philosophy and Economics at the University of Oxford.
    • Note : The human rights and education advocate was nearly killed by the Taliban in Pakistan for campaigning for girls' rights to education in 2012.
  • European Union citizens will not need visas to visit the UK after Brexit.
    • This comes after the UK government announced to end free movement of workers between the country and EU. 
National Current Affairs
  • Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Dr.  Harsh Vardhan today launched a new campaign titled “Harit Diwali, Swasth Diwali”.
    • Aim of this campaign : To reduce adverse environmental conditions especially pollution in the country after post Diwali celebrations due to excessive bursting of crackers which contributes significantly to air and noise pollution.
    • This campaign enlightens children about harmful fire crackers and motivates them to not to buy fire crackers, instead buy a gift, food items, or sweets for poor and underprivileged children living in their locality.
  • The Odisha government has doubled the cash incentive it offers for inter-caste marriages from ₹50,000 to ₹1 lakh, in order to encourage more such marriages. 
    • The couples need to refund the amount if their marriage ends in divorce within five years.
  • A new Partition Museum that commemorates and documents the largest migration in history across borders in 1947 was inaugurated at the historic Town Hall (Amritsar).
    • Note : This Partition Museum will be the first museum of its kind anywhere in the world.
  • The Union Defence Ministry has cleared a proposal to procure six AH-64-E Apache attack helicopters along with weapons systems from American aerospace giant Boeing for the Indian Army.
  • National Highways Authority of India has launched two mobile Apps, MyFASTag and FASTag Partner. 
    • These mobile apps will help in the availability of FASTags for Electronic Toll Collection.
Awards & Honors
  • Quaiser Khalid, IPS 1997 batch honored with Leadership Icon award by IBPC in Dubai for contributions to civil society
  • 3 Indians have made it to the MIT Technology Review magazine's Innovators Under 35 list this year. 
    • The awardees are :
      • Radha Boya (University of Manchester) - For developing world's narrowest fluid channel for water filtration
      • Suchi Saria (Johns Hopkins University) - For developing disease diagnosis algorithms
      • Neha Narkhede (Co-founder of Confluent Inc) - For developing data handling systems.
Banking, Business & Economic Affairs
  • China's State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC) has banned companies from registering odd and long names. 
  • The Union Cabinet gave its approval for raising Extra Budgetary Resources of up to Rs, 9,020 crore for Long Term Irrigation Fund (LTIF) during the financial year 2017-18.
    • The funds will be raised by the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) through the issuance of Bonds at 6% per annum as per requirement.
New Appointments
  • SriLanka's President Maithripala Sirisena today appointed Rear Admiral Travis Sinniah as Navy chief from the Tamil minority, giving a significant boost to reconciliation efforts.
    • This post was formerly held by Vice Admiral Ravindra Wijegunaratne.
    • He is the senior most naval officer who combated operations against the LTTE terrorists.
  • Vishal Sikka resigned as the MD and CEO of India’s 2nd largest software export firm Infosys.
    • He has now been appointed the Executive Vice Chairman of the company. 
    • Infosys' Chief Operating Officer UB Pravin Rao has been appointed as the interim CEO.
Deaths
  • S Paul (88), a Doyen of photography, passed away today.
    • He was born in Jhang in Pakistan in 1929. 
    • He moved to India after partition and his family shifted to Shimla. 
Sports Current Affairs
  • American tennis player Serena Williams has topped the Forbes' list of highest paid female athletes of 2017, with $27 million in earnings between June 2016 and June 2017. 
  • India captain Virat Kohli continued to be the World's top-ranked One-day batsman in the latest ICC ODI rankings, released in Dubai today.
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