1. SN Sahai appointed as Home Secretary of Delhi
Senior IAS officer Sanjeev Nandan (SN)Sahai was appointed as the Home Secretary of Delhi. Sahai is a 1986 batch Union Territory cadre officer. Sahai succeeded senior IAS officer Dharam Pal, who was removed as Home Secretary in June 2015 by the AAP government.
Sahai is the Finance Secretary of Delhi and had played crucial role in preparing budget for Delhi government.
2. Rahul Bhatnagar appointed as MD and CFO of Bharti Enterprises
Rahul Bhatnagar was appointed as the Managing Director (MD) and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Bharti Enterprises. He will report to Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chairman of Bharti Enterprises.
Bhatnagar succeeded Manoj Kohli, who has assumed the role of Executive Chairman of SBG Cleantech, a Joint Venture between SoftBank, Bharti and Foxconn for renewable energy.
As a MD and CFO of the company, Rahul will build strategic business value proposition for Bharti’s non-telecom businesses. He will be responsible for further strengthening the financial management processes and governance of these businesses and will lead new business development for the group.
3. Sriram Kalyanaraman appointed as MD and CEO of National Housing Bank
Sriram Kalyanaraman was appointed as Managing Director (MD) and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of National Housing Bank (NHB) for a period of Five Years. With this, Kalyanaraman became the first person form the Private Sector to head a Public Sector Financial Institution.
Presently, Kalyanaraman is Director-Business Development of Equifax Credit Information Services. Prior to joining Equifax, Sriram was Director of Business Clients and Asset Products at Deutsche Bank India.
About National Housing Bank (NHB)
National Housing Bank (NHB) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Reserve Bank of India (RBI). It was set up on 9 July 1988 under the National Housing Bank Act, 1987.
It was established with an objective to operate as a principal agency to promote housing finance institutions both at local and regional levels and to provide financial to such institutions.
4. Operation Smile led to tracing of 44 missing children in Uttarakhand
Operation Smile, a unique initiative of Ghaziabad Police to track missing children, was in news in second week of July 2015. It came in news after Uttarakhand police under the operation was able to trace at least 44 missing children from various parts of the state within a week.
In another development, the police and the district administration of Dharmapuri, Tamil Nadu has constituted five special teams to spearhead ‘Operation Smile.’
The Operation Smile was launched by the Ghaziabad Police in 2014 with an aim to search and restoration of missing children with their families. Under the operation, the police was able to recover 227 missing children within 30 days of launch.
As part of Operation Smile, Ghaziabad police first sensitized and trained 100 police officers of various ranks about issues related to missing children, POSCO Act, Juvenile Justice Act and Protection of Child Rights Acts and then sent them to various parts of the country including Delhi, Jaipur, Haridwar, Gurgaon, Mumbai and Kolkata to recover missing children in relation to FIRs lodged in Ghaziabad.
Later, after seeing the success of the operation launched by Ghaziabad Police, the Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh in a letter written to all States on 12 December 2014 asked all states to emulate the campaign.
5. Lord Kamlesh Patel became first British-Asian appointee to ECB Management Board
Professor Lord Kamlesh Patel of Bradford OBE was appointed as an independent member on the 14-member board of the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB).
With this, he became the first British Asian to join the ECB Management Board which is chaired by Colin Graves and the President of the Board is Giles Clarke CBE.
Lord Patel, who currently sits in the House of Lords as a Labour Peer will replace Lord Morris of Handsworth who is stepping down from the Board after serving for eleven years as an ECB Director.
6. Climate Change to be the theme of Science Express in 2015
Climate Change was announced as the theme of 2015 Science Express. This was announced during the first meeting of Science Express Climate Change Special (SECCS) chaired by Union Minister of Science and Technology Dr Harsh Vardhan in New Delhi.
The meeting was held to decide the overall contours of the theme and elicit suggestions from volunteers and experts involved in the running of the Express.
About Science Express
• It is a unique science exhibition mounted on a 16-coach AC train.
• Its focus is on spreading awareness about science and technology among students from schools and colleges and general public at large.
• It has been travelling across India successfully since 2007.
• It is a joint initiative of three Ministries and Departments – Ministry of Railways, the Department of Science & Technology and Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change.
• From 2007 to 2011, the train was running as Science Express displaying the world of micro and macro cosmos, spreading the awareness about strengths of science in meeting global challenges, including latest discoveries and innovations in the field of modern science.
• In the year 2012, Science Express was redesigned on the theme Biodiversity and since then it has been running as Science Express Biodiversity Special (SEBS).
7. Goa to host the Youth Delphic Games in February 2016
Goa will host the fifth Youth Delphic Games in February 2016. The announcement was made in June 2015. The motto of the 2016 Games is Celebrating Arts and Cultures.
Started a 100 years after the modern edition of the Olympics, the youth edition of the Delphic Games will be hosted in India for the first time from 1 February to 14 February 2016 in Goa.
The Youth Delphic Games are held at every four years and invites participants of the age group of 15 to 25 years. The games will include competitions in six categories:
• Musical arts and sounds (singing, instrumental music, electronic sounds)
• Performing arts (dance, theatre, circus, puppetry)
• Language arts (literature, poetry, moderation)
• Visual arts (painting, graphics, sculpture, installation, fashion, photography)
• Social arts (communications, Internet, media, pedagogic, didactic)
• Ecological arts & architecture (urban planning, landscaping, preservation and conservation of nature, monuments)
The games will attract 125 countries with over 7000 participants for the 2016 Games.
8. Union Home Ministry extended the ‘disturbed area’ status of Nagaland for one more year
Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) in first week of July 2015 extended the ‘disturbed area’ status of Nagaland for one more year. The ‘disturbed status’ area became effective from 30 June 2015 and will be in effect until 30 June 2016.
The Home Ministry in its notification said that the government is of the opinion that the entire state is in such a "disturbed" and "dangerous" condition that the use of armed forces in aid of civil power is necessary.
Complete Nagaland was declared as a disturbed area for a period of one year in exercise of the powers conferred to Union Government by Section 3 of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act 1958.
The decision came almost a month after NSCN-(Khaplang), the dominant Naga rebel group, attacked an army convoy in Manipur’s Chandel district and killed 18 soldiers.
Since 2005, the Nagaland government by citing the falling levels of insurgency-related incidents or deaths has been seeking removal of the 'disturbed' area tag from the state.
9. Union Railway Ministry launched Mobile ticketing app for suburban commuters
Union Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu launched a mobile ticketing app for unreserved tickets that will cover 35 stations between the 123 km long Churchgate-Dhauroad suburban section in Western Railway. The ministry also launched two other IT-based initiaves including a SMS destination alert service for premier trains and an e-ticketing portal in Hindi.
About Mobile Ticketing Application
The mobile ticketing application for unreserved tickets aims to facilitate a hassle free travel for lakhs of daily passengers in Mumbai.
Developed by Centre for Railway Information Systems, the paperless unreserved ticketing feature in mobile application aims to eliminate the need for printing of unreserved tickets.
The app works on both Android and Windows platform.
It can be downloaded from Google Play Store or Windows Store by the user.
The application provides necessary on-screen alerts to guide the passenger during the booking process.
Payment for the ticket is done through the railway wallet feature in the App. After booking the ticket, the passenger will get ticket confirmation screen which will contain limited information about the ticket.
10. Union Sports Ministry constituted Ashwini Nachappa committee to study status of SAI training centers
The Union Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports constituted an eight member committee to study status of Sports Authority of India (SAI) training centers across the country.
The committee will be headed by former athlete Ashwini Nachappa and includes Pullela Gopi Chand as a member among others.
The committee was formed against the backdrop of suicide attempt by four girl inmates at the Sports Authority of India (SAI) SAG Water Sports centre at Alappuzha, Kerala in May 2015 that resulted in death of one girl trainee.
The committee was mandated to recommend measures to ensure that such incidents do not occur in future.
Before finalising on its recommendations, the committee will study the issues related to management of athletes stress levels, quality of food served, timely availability of dietary supplements among others. The committee is mandated to submit its report within 3 months.
11. Indian Army dedicated Prerna Sthal at Hussainiwala to the nation
Indian Army2015 dedicated the monument named Prerna Sthal at Hussainiwala to the nation. The commemorative monument was built to honour the sacrifice of soldiers of India.
The newly constructed Prerna Sthal is located at the gateway of the memorial to Shaheed Bhagat Singh at Hussainiwala, a village in Firozpur district of Punjab, India, where Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru were cremated on 23 March 1931.
The monument was dedicated to the nation amidst the musical notes played by the buglers of the Last Post from the roof of the historical Hussainiwala railway station. General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Western Command, Lt Gen KJ Singh laid the inaugural wreath and observed a two minute silence as a mark of respect to the martyrs.
12. Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka entered Guinness World Records for spending 804 days on ISS
Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka in the first week of July 2015 entered Guinness World Records for spending most number of days in the space. He achieved the feat by spending 804 days on the International Space Station (ISS).
He surpassed cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev, also a Russian, record of 803 days, nine hours and 41 minutes in the space which Sergei achieved across six missions from 1998 to 2005.
Padalka, who is also the commander of the crew on the ISS, is scheduled to return to earth in September 2015. It means he would have spent a total of 877 days in space by then.
ISS is a space station that was launched in 1998. It is the largest artificial satellite body that orbits earth nearly 400 km above the surface and it can be seen with naked eye. ISS moves at a very high speed and it completes 15.54 orbits per day.
13. Telangana government, ICRISAT signed MoU to improve profitability of farmers
Telangana government and International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to improve profitability of farmers.
The MoU was signed by C Parthasarathi, Secretary and Agri-Production Commissioner; Jayesh Ranjan, Secretary, IT, Electronics & Communications; and ICRISAT Director General David Bergvinson.
Highlights of the MoU
* Under this MoU, the organisation will provide Information and Communication Technology (ICT)-based knowledge sharing platforms and other agricultural innovation initiatives to farmers in order to improve their productivity.
* The partnership will explore areas of collaboration in the field of digital agriculture along agriculture value chain and also explore the possibilities of ICRISAT playing an active role in the T Hub (an incubator launched by the Telangana government).
* The partnership will help launch innovative digital platforms that aim to revitalise information dissemination in rural areas, provide expert systems for providing real time advisories and ensure better access to market information by small-holder farmers in the state.
* It will also enable state government to create new economic opportunities through digital agriculture and enable to create direct linkages between consumers and farmers.
Senior IAS officer Sanjeev Nandan (SN)Sahai was appointed as the Home Secretary of Delhi. Sahai is a 1986 batch Union Territory cadre officer. Sahai succeeded senior IAS officer Dharam Pal, who was removed as Home Secretary in June 2015 by the AAP government.Sahai is the Finance Secretary of Delhi and had played crucial role in preparing budget for Delhi government.
2. Rahul Bhatnagar appointed as MD and CFO of Bharti Enterprises
Rahul Bhatnagar was appointed as the Managing Director (MD) and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Bharti Enterprises. He will report to Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chairman of Bharti Enterprises.
Bhatnagar succeeded Manoj Kohli, who has assumed the role of Executive Chairman of SBG Cleantech, a Joint Venture between SoftBank, Bharti and Foxconn for renewable energy.
As a MD and CFO of the company, Rahul will build strategic business value proposition for Bharti’s non-telecom businesses. He will be responsible for further strengthening the financial management processes and governance of these businesses and will lead new business development for the group.
3. Sriram Kalyanaraman appointed as MD and CEO of National Housing Bank
Sriram Kalyanaraman was appointed as Managing Director (MD) and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of National Housing Bank (NHB) for a period of Five Years. With this, Kalyanaraman became the first person form the Private Sector to head a Public Sector Financial Institution.
Presently, Kalyanaraman is Director-Business Development of Equifax Credit Information Services. Prior to joining Equifax, Sriram was Director of Business Clients and Asset Products at Deutsche Bank India.
About National Housing Bank (NHB)
National Housing Bank (NHB) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Reserve Bank of India (RBI). It was set up on 9 July 1988 under the National Housing Bank Act, 1987.
It was established with an objective to operate as a principal agency to promote housing finance institutions both at local and regional levels and to provide financial to such institutions.
Operation Smile, a unique initiative of Ghaziabad Police to track missing children, was in news in second week of July 2015. It came in news after Uttarakhand police under the operation was able to trace at least 44 missing children from various parts of the state within a week.
In another development, the police and the district administration of Dharmapuri, Tamil Nadu has constituted five special teams to spearhead ‘Operation Smile.’
The Operation Smile was launched by the Ghaziabad Police in 2014 with an aim to search and restoration of missing children with their families. Under the operation, the police was able to recover 227 missing children within 30 days of launch.
As part of Operation Smile, Ghaziabad police first sensitized and trained 100 police officers of various ranks about issues related to missing children, POSCO Act, Juvenile Justice Act and Protection of Child Rights Acts and then sent them to various parts of the country including Delhi, Jaipur, Haridwar, Gurgaon, Mumbai and Kolkata to recover missing children in relation to FIRs lodged in Ghaziabad.
Later, after seeing the success of the operation launched by Ghaziabad Police, the Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh in a letter written to all States on 12 December 2014 asked all states to emulate the campaign.
5. Lord Kamlesh Patel became first British-Asian appointee to ECB Management Board
Professor Lord Kamlesh Patel of Bradford OBE was appointed as an independent member on the 14-member board of the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB).
With this, he became the first British Asian to join the ECB Management Board which is chaired by Colin Graves and the President of the Board is Giles Clarke CBE.
Lord Patel, who currently sits in the House of Lords as a Labour Peer will replace Lord Morris of Handsworth who is stepping down from the Board after serving for eleven years as an ECB Director.
6. Climate Change to be the theme of Science Express in 2015
Climate Change was announced as the theme of 2015 Science Express. This was announced during the first meeting of Science Express Climate Change Special (SECCS) chaired by Union Minister of Science and Technology Dr Harsh Vardhan in New Delhi.
The meeting was held to decide the overall contours of the theme and elicit suggestions from volunteers and experts involved in the running of the Express.
About Science Express
• It is a unique science exhibition mounted on a 16-coach AC train.
• Its focus is on spreading awareness about science and technology among students from schools and colleges and general public at large.
• It has been travelling across India successfully since 2007.
• It is a joint initiative of three Ministries and Departments – Ministry of Railways, the Department of Science & Technology and Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change.
• From 2007 to 2011, the train was running as Science Express displaying the world of micro and macro cosmos, spreading the awareness about strengths of science in meeting global challenges, including latest discoveries and innovations in the field of modern science.
• In the year 2012, Science Express was redesigned on the theme Biodiversity and since then it has been running as Science Express Biodiversity Special (SEBS).
7. Goa to host the Youth Delphic Games in February 2016
Goa will host the fifth Youth Delphic Games in February 2016. The announcement was made in June 2015. The motto of the 2016 Games is Celebrating Arts and Cultures.
Started a 100 years after the modern edition of the Olympics, the youth edition of the Delphic Games will be hosted in India for the first time from 1 February to 14 February 2016 in Goa.
The Youth Delphic Games are held at every four years and invites participants of the age group of 15 to 25 years. The games will include competitions in six categories:
• Musical arts and sounds (singing, instrumental music, electronic sounds)
• Performing arts (dance, theatre, circus, puppetry)
• Language arts (literature, poetry, moderation)
• Visual arts (painting, graphics, sculpture, installation, fashion, photography)
• Social arts (communications, Internet, media, pedagogic, didactic)
• Ecological arts & architecture (urban planning, landscaping, preservation and conservation of nature, monuments)
The games will attract 125 countries with over 7000 participants for the 2016 Games.
Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) in first week of July 2015 extended the ‘disturbed area’ status of Nagaland for one more year. The ‘disturbed status’ area became effective from 30 June 2015 and will be in effect until 30 June 2016.
The Home Ministry in its notification said that the government is of the opinion that the entire state is in such a "disturbed" and "dangerous" condition that the use of armed forces in aid of civil power is necessary.
Complete Nagaland was declared as a disturbed area for a period of one year in exercise of the powers conferred to Union Government by Section 3 of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act 1958.
The decision came almost a month after NSCN-(Khaplang), the dominant Naga rebel group, attacked an army convoy in Manipur’s Chandel district and killed 18 soldiers.
Since 2005, the Nagaland government by citing the falling levels of insurgency-related incidents or deaths has been seeking removal of the 'disturbed' area tag from the state.
9. Union Railway Ministry launched Mobile ticketing app for suburban commuters
Union Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu launched a mobile ticketing app for unreserved tickets that will cover 35 stations between the 123 km long Churchgate-Dhauroad suburban section in Western Railway. The ministry also launched two other IT-based initiaves including a SMS destination alert service for premier trains and an e-ticketing portal in Hindi.
About Mobile Ticketing Application
The mobile ticketing application for unreserved tickets aims to facilitate a hassle free travel for lakhs of daily passengers in Mumbai.
Developed by Centre for Railway Information Systems, the paperless unreserved ticketing feature in mobile application aims to eliminate the need for printing of unreserved tickets.
The app works on both Android and Windows platform.
It can be downloaded from Google Play Store or Windows Store by the user.
The application provides necessary on-screen alerts to guide the passenger during the booking process.
Payment for the ticket is done through the railway wallet feature in the App. After booking the ticket, the passenger will get ticket confirmation screen which will contain limited information about the ticket.
10. Union Sports Ministry constituted Ashwini Nachappa committee to study status of SAI training centers
The Union Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports constituted an eight member committee to study status of Sports Authority of India (SAI) training centers across the country.
The committee will be headed by former athlete Ashwini Nachappa and includes Pullela Gopi Chand as a member among others.
The committee was formed against the backdrop of suicide attempt by four girl inmates at the Sports Authority of India (SAI) SAG Water Sports centre at Alappuzha, Kerala in May 2015 that resulted in death of one girl trainee.
The committee was mandated to recommend measures to ensure that such incidents do not occur in future.
Before finalising on its recommendations, the committee will study the issues related to management of athletes stress levels, quality of food served, timely availability of dietary supplements among others. The committee is mandated to submit its report within 3 months.
11. Indian Army dedicated Prerna Sthal at Hussainiwala to the nation
Indian Army2015 dedicated the monument named Prerna Sthal at Hussainiwala to the nation. The commemorative monument was built to honour the sacrifice of soldiers of India.
The newly constructed Prerna Sthal is located at the gateway of the memorial to Shaheed Bhagat Singh at Hussainiwala, a village in Firozpur district of Punjab, India, where Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru were cremated on 23 March 1931.
The monument was dedicated to the nation amidst the musical notes played by the buglers of the Last Post from the roof of the historical Hussainiwala railway station. General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Western Command, Lt Gen KJ Singh laid the inaugural wreath and observed a two minute silence as a mark of respect to the martyrs.
12. Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka entered Guinness World Records for spending 804 days on ISS
Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka in the first week of July 2015 entered Guinness World Records for spending most number of days in the space. He achieved the feat by spending 804 days on the International Space Station (ISS).
He surpassed cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev, also a Russian, record of 803 days, nine hours and 41 minutes in the space which Sergei achieved across six missions from 1998 to 2005.
Padalka, who is also the commander of the crew on the ISS, is scheduled to return to earth in September 2015. It means he would have spent a total of 877 days in space by then.
ISS is a space station that was launched in 1998. It is the largest artificial satellite body that orbits earth nearly 400 km above the surface and it can be seen with naked eye. ISS moves at a very high speed and it completes 15.54 orbits per day.
13. Telangana government, ICRISAT signed MoU to improve profitability of farmers
Telangana government and International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to improve profitability of farmers.
The MoU was signed by C Parthasarathi, Secretary and Agri-Production Commissioner; Jayesh Ranjan, Secretary, IT, Electronics & Communications; and ICRISAT Director General David Bergvinson.
Highlights of the MoU
* Under this MoU, the organisation will provide Information and Communication Technology (ICT)-based knowledge sharing platforms and other agricultural innovation initiatives to farmers in order to improve their productivity.
* The partnership will explore areas of collaboration in the field of digital agriculture along agriculture value chain and also explore the possibilities of ICRISAT playing an active role in the T Hub (an incubator launched by the Telangana government).
* The partnership will help launch innovative digital platforms that aim to revitalise information dissemination in rural areas, provide expert systems for providing real time advisories and ensure better access to market information by small-holder farmers in the state.
* It will also enable state government to create new economic opportunities through digital agriculture and enable to create direct linkages between consumers and farmers.
1. SN Sahai appointed as Home Secretary of Delhi
Senior IAS officer Sanjeev Nandan (SN)Sahai was appointed as the Home Secretary of Delhi. Sahai is a 1986 batch Union Territory cadre officer. Sahai succeeded senior IAS officer Dharam Pal, who was removed as Home Secretary in June 2015 by the AAP government.
Sahai is the Finance Secretary of Delhi and had played crucial role in preparing budget for Delhi government.
2. Rahul Bhatnagar appointed as MD and CFO of Bharti Enterprises
Rahul Bhatnagar was appointed as the Managing Director (MD) and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Bharti Enterprises. He will report to Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chairman of Bharti Enterprises.
Bhatnagar succeeded Manoj Kohli, who has assumed the role of Executive Chairman of SBG Cleantech, a Joint Venture between SoftBank, Bharti and Foxconn for renewable energy.
As a MD and CFO of the company, Rahul will build strategic business value proposition for Bharti’s non-telecom businesses. He will be responsible for further strengthening the financial management processes and governance of these businesses and will lead new business development for the group.
3. Sriram Kalyanaraman appointed as MD and CEO of National Housing Bank
Sriram Kalyanaraman was appointed as Managing Director (MD) and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of National Housing Bank (NHB) for a period of Five Years. With this, Kalyanaraman became the first person form the Private Sector to head a Public Sector Financial Institution.
Presently, Kalyanaraman is Director-Business Development of Equifax Credit Information Services. Prior to joining Equifax, Sriram was Director of Business Clients and Asset Products at Deutsche Bank India.
About National Housing Bank (NHB)
National Housing Bank (NHB) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Reserve Bank of India (RBI). It was set up on 9 July 1988 under the National Housing Bank Act, 1987.
It was established with an objective to operate as a principal agency to promote housing finance institutions both at local and regional levels and to provide financial to such institutions.
4. Operation Smile led to tracing of 44 missing children in Uttarakhand
Operation Smile, a unique initiative of Ghaziabad Police to track missing children, was in news in second week of July 2015. It came in news after Uttarakhand police under the operation was able to trace at least 44 missing children from various parts of the state within a week.
In another development, the police and the district administration of Dharmapuri, Tamil Nadu has constituted five special teams to spearhead ‘Operation Smile.’
The Operation Smile was launched by the Ghaziabad Police in 2014 with an aim to search and restoration of missing children with their families. Under the operation, the police was able to recover 227 missing children within 30 days of launch.
As part of Operation Smile, Ghaziabad police first sensitized and trained 100 police officers of various ranks about issues related to missing children, POSCO Act, Juvenile Justice Act and Protection of Child Rights Acts and then sent them to various parts of the country including Delhi, Jaipur, Haridwar, Gurgaon, Mumbai and Kolkata to recover missing children in relation to FIRs lodged in Ghaziabad.
Later, after seeing the success of the operation launched by Ghaziabad Police, the Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh in a letter written to all States on 12 December 2014 asked all states to emulate the campaign.
5. Lord Kamlesh Patel became first British-Asian appointee to ECB Management Board
Professor Lord Kamlesh Patel of Bradford OBE was appointed as an independent member on the 14-member board of the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB).
With this, he became the first British Asian to join the ECB Management Board which is chaired by Colin Graves and the President of the Board is Giles Clarke CBE.
Lord Patel, who currently sits in the House of Lords as a Labour Peer will replace Lord Morris of Handsworth who is stepping down from the Board after serving for eleven years as an ECB Director.
6. Climate Change to be the theme of Science Express in 2015
Climate Change was announced as the theme of 2015 Science Express. This was announced during the first meeting of Science Express Climate Change Special (SECCS) chaired by Union Minister of Science and Technology Dr Harsh Vardhan in New Delhi.
The meeting was held to decide the overall contours of the theme and elicit suggestions from volunteers and experts involved in the running of the Express.
About Science Express
• It is a unique science exhibition mounted on a 16-coach AC train.
• Its focus is on spreading awareness about science and technology among students from schools and colleges and general public at large.
• It has been travelling across India successfully since 2007.
• It is a joint initiative of three Ministries and Departments – Ministry of Railways, the Department of Science & Technology and Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change.
• From 2007 to 2011, the train was running as Science Express displaying the world of micro and macro cosmos, spreading the awareness about strengths of science in meeting global challenges, including latest discoveries and innovations in the field of modern science.
• In the year 2012, Science Express was redesigned on the theme Biodiversity and since then it has been running as Science Express Biodiversity Special (SEBS).
7. Goa to host the Youth Delphic Games in February 2016
Goa will host the fifth Youth Delphic Games in February 2016. The announcement was made in June 2015. The motto of the 2016 Games is Celebrating Arts and Cultures.
Started a 100 years after the modern edition of the Olympics, the youth edition of the Delphic Games will be hosted in India for the first time from 1 February to 14 February 2016 in Goa.
The Youth Delphic Games are held at every four years and invites participants of the age group of 15 to 25 years. The games will include competitions in six categories:
• Musical arts and sounds (singing, instrumental music, electronic sounds)
• Performing arts (dance, theatre, circus, puppetry)
• Language arts (literature, poetry, moderation)
• Visual arts (painting, graphics, sculpture, installation, fashion, photography)
• Social arts (communications, Internet, media, pedagogic, didactic)
• Ecological arts & architecture (urban planning, landscaping, preservation and conservation of nature, monuments)
The games will attract 125 countries with over 7000 participants for the 2016 Games.
8. Union Home Ministry extended the ‘disturbed area’ status of Nagaland for one more year
Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) in first week of July 2015 extended the ‘disturbed area’ status of Nagaland for one more year. The ‘disturbed status’ area became effective from 30 June 2015 and will be in effect until 30 June 2016.
The Home Ministry in its notification said that the government is of the opinion that the entire state is in such a "disturbed" and "dangerous" condition that the use of armed forces in aid of civil power is necessary.
Complete Nagaland was declared as a disturbed area for a period of one year in exercise of the powers conferred to Union Government by Section 3 of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act 1958.
The decision came almost a month after NSCN-(Khaplang), the dominant Naga rebel group, attacked an army convoy in Manipur’s Chandel district and killed 18 soldiers.
Since 2005, the Nagaland government by citing the falling levels of insurgency-related incidents or deaths has been seeking removal of the 'disturbed' area tag from the state.
9. Union Railway Ministry launched Mobile ticketing app for suburban commuters
Union Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu launched a mobile ticketing app for unreserved tickets that will cover 35 stations between the 123 km long Churchgate-Dhauroad suburban section in Western Railway. The ministry also launched two other IT-based initiaves including a SMS destination alert service for premier trains and an e-ticketing portal in Hindi.
About Mobile Ticketing Application
The mobile ticketing application for unreserved tickets aims to facilitate a hassle free travel for lakhs of daily passengers in Mumbai.
Developed by Centre for Railway Information Systems, the paperless unreserved ticketing feature in mobile application aims to eliminate the need for printing of unreserved tickets.
The app works on both Android and Windows platform.
It can be downloaded from Google Play Store or Windows Store by the user.
The application provides necessary on-screen alerts to guide the passenger during the booking process.
Payment for the ticket is done through the railway wallet feature in the App. After booking the ticket, the passenger will get ticket confirmation screen which will contain limited information about the ticket.
10. Union Sports Ministry constituted Ashwini Nachappa committee to study status of SAI training centers
The Union Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports constituted an eight member committee to study status of Sports Authority of India (SAI) training centers across the country.
The committee will be headed by former athlete Ashwini Nachappa and includes Pullela Gopi Chand as a member among others.
The committee was formed against the backdrop of suicide attempt by four girl inmates at the Sports Authority of India (SAI) SAG Water Sports centre at Alappuzha, Kerala in May 2015 that resulted in death of one girl trainee.
The committee was mandated to recommend measures to ensure that such incidents do not occur in future.
Before finalising on its recommendations, the committee will study the issues related to management of athletes stress levels, quality of food served, timely availability of dietary supplements among others. The committee is mandated to submit its report within 3 months.
11. Indian Army dedicated Prerna Sthal at Hussainiwala to the nation
Indian Army2015 dedicated the monument named Prerna Sthal at Hussainiwala to the nation. The commemorative monument was built to honour the sacrifice of soldiers of India.
The newly constructed Prerna Sthal is located at the gateway of the memorial to Shaheed Bhagat Singh at Hussainiwala, a village in Firozpur district of Punjab, India, where Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru were cremated on 23 March 1931.
The monument was dedicated to the nation amidst the musical notes played by the buglers of the Last Post from the roof of the historical Hussainiwala railway station. General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Western Command, Lt Gen KJ Singh laid the inaugural wreath and observed a two minute silence as a mark of respect to the martyrs.
12. Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka entered Guinness World Records for spending 804 days on ISS
Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka in the first week of July 2015 entered Guinness World Records for spending most number of days in the space. He achieved the feat by spending 804 days on the International Space Station (ISS).
He surpassed cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev, also a Russian, record of 803 days, nine hours and 41 minutes in the space which Sergei achieved across six missions from 1998 to 2005.
Padalka, who is also the commander of the crew on the ISS, is scheduled to return to earth in September 2015. It means he would have spent a total of 877 days in space by then.
ISS is a space station that was launched in 1998. It is the largest artificial satellite body that orbits earth nearly 400 km above the surface and it can be seen with naked eye. ISS moves at a very high speed and it completes 15.54 orbits per day.
13. Telangana government, ICRISAT signed MoU to improve profitability of farmers
Telangana government and International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to improve profitability of farmers.
The MoU was signed by C Parthasarathi, Secretary and Agri-Production Commissioner; Jayesh Ranjan, Secretary, IT, Electronics & Communications; and ICRISAT Director General David Bergvinson.
Highlights of the MoU
* Under this MoU, the organisation will provide Information and Communication Technology (ICT)-based knowledge sharing platforms and other agricultural innovation initiatives to farmers in order to improve their productivity.
* The partnership will explore areas of collaboration in the field of digital agriculture along agriculture value chain and also explore the possibilities of ICRISAT playing an active role in the T Hub (an incubator launched by the Telangana government).
* The partnership will help launch innovative digital platforms that aim to revitalise information dissemination in rural areas, provide expert systems for providing real time advisories and ensure better access to market information by small-holder farmers in the state.
* It will also enable state government to create new economic opportunities through digital agriculture and enable to create direct linkages between consumers and farmers.
Senior IAS officer Sanjeev Nandan (SN)Sahai was appointed as the Home Secretary of Delhi. Sahai is a 1986 batch Union Territory cadre officer. Sahai succeeded senior IAS officer Dharam Pal, who was removed as Home Secretary in June 2015 by the AAP government.Sahai is the Finance Secretary of Delhi and had played crucial role in preparing budget for Delhi government.
2. Rahul Bhatnagar appointed as MD and CFO of Bharti Enterprises
Rahul Bhatnagar was appointed as the Managing Director (MD) and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Bharti Enterprises. He will report to Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chairman of Bharti Enterprises.
Bhatnagar succeeded Manoj Kohli, who has assumed the role of Executive Chairman of SBG Cleantech, a Joint Venture between SoftBank, Bharti and Foxconn for renewable energy.
As a MD and CFO of the company, Rahul will build strategic business value proposition for Bharti’s non-telecom businesses. He will be responsible for further strengthening the financial management processes and governance of these businesses and will lead new business development for the group.
3. Sriram Kalyanaraman appointed as MD and CEO of National Housing Bank
Sriram Kalyanaraman was appointed as Managing Director (MD) and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of National Housing Bank (NHB) for a period of Five Years. With this, Kalyanaraman became the first person form the Private Sector to head a Public Sector Financial Institution.
Presently, Kalyanaraman is Director-Business Development of Equifax Credit Information Services. Prior to joining Equifax, Sriram was Director of Business Clients and Asset Products at Deutsche Bank India.
About National Housing Bank (NHB)
National Housing Bank (NHB) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Reserve Bank of India (RBI). It was set up on 9 July 1988 under the National Housing Bank Act, 1987.
It was established with an objective to operate as a principal agency to promote housing finance institutions both at local and regional levels and to provide financial to such institutions.
Operation Smile, a unique initiative of Ghaziabad Police to track missing children, was in news in second week of July 2015. It came in news after Uttarakhand police under the operation was able to trace at least 44 missing children from various parts of the state within a week.
In another development, the police and the district administration of Dharmapuri, Tamil Nadu has constituted five special teams to spearhead ‘Operation Smile.’
The Operation Smile was launched by the Ghaziabad Police in 2014 with an aim to search and restoration of missing children with their families. Under the operation, the police was able to recover 227 missing children within 30 days of launch.
As part of Operation Smile, Ghaziabad police first sensitized and trained 100 police officers of various ranks about issues related to missing children, POSCO Act, Juvenile Justice Act and Protection of Child Rights Acts and then sent them to various parts of the country including Delhi, Jaipur, Haridwar, Gurgaon, Mumbai and Kolkata to recover missing children in relation to FIRs lodged in Ghaziabad.
Later, after seeing the success of the operation launched by Ghaziabad Police, the Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh in a letter written to all States on 12 December 2014 asked all states to emulate the campaign.
5. Lord Kamlesh Patel became first British-Asian appointee to ECB Management Board
Professor Lord Kamlesh Patel of Bradford OBE was appointed as an independent member on the 14-member board of the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB).
With this, he became the first British Asian to join the ECB Management Board which is chaired by Colin Graves and the President of the Board is Giles Clarke CBE.
Lord Patel, who currently sits in the House of Lords as a Labour Peer will replace Lord Morris of Handsworth who is stepping down from the Board after serving for eleven years as an ECB Director.
6. Climate Change to be the theme of Science Express in 2015
Climate Change was announced as the theme of 2015 Science Express. This was announced during the first meeting of Science Express Climate Change Special (SECCS) chaired by Union Minister of Science and Technology Dr Harsh Vardhan in New Delhi.
The meeting was held to decide the overall contours of the theme and elicit suggestions from volunteers and experts involved in the running of the Express.
About Science Express
• It is a unique science exhibition mounted on a 16-coach AC train.
• Its focus is on spreading awareness about science and technology among students from schools and colleges and general public at large.
• It has been travelling across India successfully since 2007.
• It is a joint initiative of three Ministries and Departments – Ministry of Railways, the Department of Science & Technology and Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change.
• From 2007 to 2011, the train was running as Science Express displaying the world of micro and macro cosmos, spreading the awareness about strengths of science in meeting global challenges, including latest discoveries and innovations in the field of modern science.
• In the year 2012, Science Express was redesigned on the theme Biodiversity and since then it has been running as Science Express Biodiversity Special (SEBS).
7. Goa to host the Youth Delphic Games in February 2016
Goa will host the fifth Youth Delphic Games in February 2016. The announcement was made in June 2015. The motto of the 2016 Games is Celebrating Arts and Cultures.
Started a 100 years after the modern edition of the Olympics, the youth edition of the Delphic Games will be hosted in India for the first time from 1 February to 14 February 2016 in Goa.
The Youth Delphic Games are held at every four years and invites participants of the age group of 15 to 25 years. The games will include competitions in six categories:
• Musical arts and sounds (singing, instrumental music, electronic sounds)
• Performing arts (dance, theatre, circus, puppetry)
• Language arts (literature, poetry, moderation)
• Visual arts (painting, graphics, sculpture, installation, fashion, photography)
• Social arts (communications, Internet, media, pedagogic, didactic)
• Ecological arts & architecture (urban planning, landscaping, preservation and conservation of nature, monuments)
The games will attract 125 countries with over 7000 participants for the 2016 Games.
Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) in first week of July 2015 extended the ‘disturbed area’ status of Nagaland for one more year. The ‘disturbed status’ area became effective from 30 June 2015 and will be in effect until 30 June 2016.
The Home Ministry in its notification said that the government is of the opinion that the entire state is in such a "disturbed" and "dangerous" condition that the use of armed forces in aid of civil power is necessary.
Complete Nagaland was declared as a disturbed area for a period of one year in exercise of the powers conferred to Union Government by Section 3 of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act 1958.
The decision came almost a month after NSCN-(Khaplang), the dominant Naga rebel group, attacked an army convoy in Manipur’s Chandel district and killed 18 soldiers.
Since 2005, the Nagaland government by citing the falling levels of insurgency-related incidents or deaths has been seeking removal of the 'disturbed' area tag from the state.
9. Union Railway Ministry launched Mobile ticketing app for suburban commuters
Union Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu launched a mobile ticketing app for unreserved tickets that will cover 35 stations between the 123 km long Churchgate-Dhauroad suburban section in Western Railway. The ministry also launched two other IT-based initiaves including a SMS destination alert service for premier trains and an e-ticketing portal in Hindi.
About Mobile Ticketing Application
The mobile ticketing application for unreserved tickets aims to facilitate a hassle free travel for lakhs of daily passengers in Mumbai.
Developed by Centre for Railway Information Systems, the paperless unreserved ticketing feature in mobile application aims to eliminate the need for printing of unreserved tickets.
The app works on both Android and Windows platform.
It can be downloaded from Google Play Store or Windows Store by the user.
The application provides necessary on-screen alerts to guide the passenger during the booking process.
Payment for the ticket is done through the railway wallet feature in the App. After booking the ticket, the passenger will get ticket confirmation screen which will contain limited information about the ticket.
10. Union Sports Ministry constituted Ashwini Nachappa committee to study status of SAI training centers
The Union Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports constituted an eight member committee to study status of Sports Authority of India (SAI) training centers across the country.
The committee will be headed by former athlete Ashwini Nachappa and includes Pullela Gopi Chand as a member among others.
The committee was formed against the backdrop of suicide attempt by four girl inmates at the Sports Authority of India (SAI) SAG Water Sports centre at Alappuzha, Kerala in May 2015 that resulted in death of one girl trainee.
The committee was mandated to recommend measures to ensure that such incidents do not occur in future.
Before finalising on its recommendations, the committee will study the issues related to management of athletes stress levels, quality of food served, timely availability of dietary supplements among others. The committee is mandated to submit its report within 3 months.
11. Indian Army dedicated Prerna Sthal at Hussainiwala to the nation
Indian Army2015 dedicated the monument named Prerna Sthal at Hussainiwala to the nation. The commemorative monument was built to honour the sacrifice of soldiers of India.
The newly constructed Prerna Sthal is located at the gateway of the memorial to Shaheed Bhagat Singh at Hussainiwala, a village in Firozpur district of Punjab, India, where Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru were cremated on 23 March 1931.
The monument was dedicated to the nation amidst the musical notes played by the buglers of the Last Post from the roof of the historical Hussainiwala railway station. General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Western Command, Lt Gen KJ Singh laid the inaugural wreath and observed a two minute silence as a mark of respect to the martyrs.
12. Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka entered Guinness World Records for spending 804 days on ISS
Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka in the first week of July 2015 entered Guinness World Records for spending most number of days in the space. He achieved the feat by spending 804 days on the International Space Station (ISS).
He surpassed cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev, also a Russian, record of 803 days, nine hours and 41 minutes in the space which Sergei achieved across six missions from 1998 to 2005.
Padalka, who is also the commander of the crew on the ISS, is scheduled to return to earth in September 2015. It means he would have spent a total of 877 days in space by then.
ISS is a space station that was launched in 1998. It is the largest artificial satellite body that orbits earth nearly 400 km above the surface and it can be seen with naked eye. ISS moves at a very high speed and it completes 15.54 orbits per day.
13. Telangana government, ICRISAT signed MoU to improve profitability of farmers
Telangana government and International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to improve profitability of farmers.
The MoU was signed by C Parthasarathi, Secretary and Agri-Production Commissioner; Jayesh Ranjan, Secretary, IT, Electronics & Communications; and ICRISAT Director General David Bergvinson.
Highlights of the MoU
* Under this MoU, the organisation will provide Information and Communication Technology (ICT)-based knowledge sharing platforms and other agricultural innovation initiatives to farmers in order to improve their productivity.
* The partnership will explore areas of collaboration in the field of digital agriculture along agriculture value chain and also explore the possibilities of ICRISAT playing an active role in the T Hub (an incubator launched by the Telangana government).
* The partnership will help launch innovative digital platforms that aim to revitalise information dissemination in rural areas, provide expert systems for providing real time advisories and ensure better access to market information by small-holder farmers in the state.
* It will also enable state government to create new economic opportunities through digital agriculture and enable to create direct linkages between consumers and farmers.
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