Daily Current Affairs 9th June 2016

Daily Current Affairs  9th June 2016

 

 

 

National

PM Narendra Modi addresses joint session of the US Congress:

i. Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the joint session of the US Congress on 8 June 2016. Earlier PM Modi was invited to speak at the joint session by House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan.
ii. He addressed the congress during his second official bilateral visit to the US after his trip in September, 2014. This was PM Modi’s fourth visit to the US since he assumed office in May 2014.
iii. With this PM Narendra Modi became the fifth Indian Prime Minister to address a joint meeting of Congress, and the first since 2005. 
iv. Earlier, Prime Ministers Rajiv Gandhi (July 13, 1985), P V Narasimha Rao (May 18, 1994), Atal Bihari Vajpayee (September 14, 2000) and Manmohan Singh (July 19, 2005) had addressed the joint meeting of the US Congress.

India-US to sign framework for cyber relations:

i. Ushering in a new era of collaboration in the cybersphere, India and the US will sign a framework for the bilateral cyber relationship between the two countries within the next two months.
ii. The announcement in this regard was made in a joint statement after the White House meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US PresidentBarack Obama.
iii. During the meeting the two leaders emphasized that cyberspace enables economic growth and development, and reaffirmed their commitment to an open, interoperable, secure, and reliable Internet, underpinned by the multi stakeholder model of Internet governance.

India ranks low at 141st place in global peace index, Iceland tops the list:

i. India was today ranked low at 141st place on a Global Peace Index — making it less peaceful than countries like Burundi, Serbia and Burkina Faso — with violence taking a USD 680-billion toll on its economy in 2015.
ii. In a ranking of 163 countries, compiled by global think tank Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP), Syria has been named as the least peaceful, followed by South Sudan, Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia.
iii. On the other hand, Iceland was ranked as the world’s most peaceful country, followed by Denmark and Austria.
iv. India has moved up two position, from 141st last year, but the study said the country’s peace score has “deteriorated” over the past year — which means the slight rise in ranking could be due to worse performance of others.
v. Within South Asia, Bhutan was ranked best (13th overall rank), while India was fifth followed by Pakistan at sixth (overall 153rd) and Afghanistan at sixth place (global 160th).
vi. The GPI 2016 ranks 163 independent states and territories according to their level of peacefulness.

Railways to provide baby food at stations:

i. Indian Railways on Wednesday launched ‘Janani Sewa’, a service under which baby food, hot milk and hot water will be provided at stations. The facility has initially been introduced at 25 railway stations.
ii. Besides this, Railways has also launched a food menu for children in the 5-12 age group.

India becomes third largest oil consumer:

i. According to recently released BP Statistical Review of World Energy India has surpassed Japan to become the world’s third-largest oil consumer.
ii. With demand of 4.1 million barrels a day (bpd), India is the third-largest consumerbehind the United States (19.39 million bpd) and China (11.96 million bpd).
iii. India accounted for 4.5% of world oil consumption in 2015 and its oil demand galloped 8.1% in 2015. India’s oil demand growth had surpassed China’s 6.3 per cent expansion.
iv. Japan slipped to the fourth spot after its oil usage contracted 3.9% to 4.15 million bpd in 2015.
v. Oil remained the world’s leading fuel, accounting for 32.9% of global energy consumption. It is gaining market share for the first time since 1999.
vi. Coal is the second-largest fuel by market share (29.2%). Natural gas’ market share of primary energy consumption stood at 23.8%.

Indian Among Time Magazine’s 10 Millennials Changing The World:

i. A 30-year old Indian entrepreneur has been named by Time magazine to its 2016 list of “10 millennials who are changing the world” for building a phone which can help people to interact and access critical services by communicating in their native languages.
ii. Umesh Sachdev has been named by Time to its 2016 list of “10 millennials who are changing the world” for his work on “building a phone that can understand almost any language”. Mr Sachdev, along with his college friend Ravi Saraogi, founded Uniphore Software Systems.
iii. The Chennai-based start-up produces software allows people to interact with their phones and access services such as online banking by communicating in their native languages, Time said in its profile on Mr Sachdev.
iv. Uniphore’s products, which include a virtual assistant that is able to process more than 25 global languages and 150 dialects, are being used by over five million people, mostly in India.

Business & Economy

Bharat Electronics to manufacture Micro ATMs, Citizen Verification Devices:

i. Public sector defence electronics major Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) on announced its foray into manufacturing Micro ATMs andCitizen Verification Devices CVD).
ii. Capable of strengthening financial inclusion in the country, the portable BEL Micro ATM can facilitate a low-cost payment platform for all type of card transactions using a magnetic strip card or contact and contactless chip card.
iii. Talking about CVD, BEL chairman S.K. Sharma said, “The Registrar General of India has asked us to provide a device with a special application software for door to door census collection required for government schemes. CVD is basically a customised tablet PC.”
iv. BEL is also venturing into solar energy with plans to produce 150 MW to be exclusively used by the defence industry. The BEL is also installing rooftop solar energy installations in Bengaluru with an aim to produce 6-10 MW in 2-3 years.

Micro ATM: The Micro ATMs are Point of Sale (PoS) Devices that work with minimal power, connect to central banking servers through GPRS, thereby reducing the operational costs considerably. Our micro ATM solution enables the unbanked rural people to easily access micro banking services in a very effective manner.

International

Pakistan tops in 2016 Malware Infection Index, India ranked 8th:

i. Pakistan has topped in the list of 19 countries figuring in the 2016 Malware Infection Index (MII) in the Asia-Pacific region. 
ii. The index for the Asia-Pacific region was released by technology giant Microsoft in which India was placed at 8th position.
iii. Top 10 Countries: Pakistan (1st), Indonesia (2nd), Bangladesh (3rd), Nepal (4th), Philippines (5th), Cambodia (6th), India (8th), Sri Lanka (9th) and Thailand (10th).
iv. The index has also identified the top three most encountered malware in this region. They are Gamarue, a malicious computer worm that is commonly distributed via exploit kits and social engineering.
v. Trojans Skeeyah and These trojans can steal personal information, give hackers access to your PC or download more malware.
vi. The findings in the index were based on data from the Microsoft Malware Protection Centre (MMPC) and the Microsoft Security Intelligence Report (SIRv20).

Mexico backs India’s bid for NSG membership:

i. Mexico, a member of the 48-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), pledged its support for India’s membership in the nuclear anti-proliferation group. 
ii. Earlier, the US also supported India’s NSG membership and backed its early entry into other non-proliferation regimes, the Australia Group and Wassenaar Arrangement. 
iii. India is also poised to join the Missile Technology Control Regime.

Sports

International Tennis Federation bans Maria Sharapova for two years:

i. The International Tennis Federation (ITF) has banned former Russian World No. 1 tennis playerMaria Sharapova for two years over doping charges
ii. In January 2016 during the Australian Open she was tested positive for banned drug meldonium, a substance that has been added in the forbidden list by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) on 1 January 2016. Since then she was provisionally banned.

Meldonium: It is a medical drug (also known as Mildronate) given to patients suffering from heart and circulatory conditions for enhancing their physical capacity and mental function. Its use mainly leads to production more red blood cells (RBCs) in the body in order to increase oxygen supply to muscles for enhancing endurance.

iii.Rio Olympics-bound Tintu Luka (27-year) has won a silver medal in 800 metres in the Josef Odlozil Memorial Athletics Meet in Czech Republic.