Bihar
- Special status for Bihar set to get renewed focus
- With Nitish Kumar junking the grand alliance and joining hands with BJP again, his fervent plea for a ‘special category’ status for the state and bigger share of 90% by the Centre in the centrally sponsored schemes.
- Officials cited the example of Uttar Pradesh, which is implementing the Centre’s priority programmes with far more vigour since the BJP government took over in the state in March.
INTERNATIONAL
· Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif resigns over Panama Papers verdict.
- Nawaz Sharif resigned as Prime Minister of Pakistan following a decision by the country’s Supreme Court to disqualify him from office.
- He is only the second after former prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani to be dismissed by the Supreme Court.
- Due to a probe into his family’s wealth following the 2015 Panama Papers Mr Sharif’s children to offshore companies.
· Iran successfully launches satellite-carrying rocket.
- Iran successfully launched a satellite-carrying rocketSimorghinto space recently.
- The launch of a “Simorgh” rocket that is capable of carrying a satellite weighing 250 kilograms (550 pounds). “Simorgh” means “phoenix” in Farsi.
- It took place at the Imam Khomeini National Space Station in Semnan, 220 kilometres (138 miles) east of Tehran.
· Amazon’s Jeff Bezos briefly overtakes Gates to become world’s richest.
- Amazon founder Jeff Bezos became the world’s richest person, as a jump in the share price of the US tech giant enabled him to overtake Microsoft founder Bill Gates.
- He is chairman and chief executive of the Seattle-based company, was worth almost $91billions after Amazon’s share price rose more than 1 per cent in morning trading in New York.
- According to Forbes, Gates is the richest person in the magazine’s annual rankings in March for the past four years and for 18 of the past 22 years.
· 29th July – International Tiger Day.
- This year’s International Tiger Day would be celebrated with the slogan ‘Fresh Ecology For Tigers’ Protection’.
- This was first celebrated in 2010 and was founded at an international summit that had been called in response to the shocking news that 97% of all wild tigers had disappeared in the last century, with only around 3,000 left alive.
- Tigers are on the brink of extinction and International World Tiger Day aims to bring attention to this fact and try to halt their decline. International World Tiger Day aims to bring attention to this fact and try to halt their decline.
National
- Ajay Singh wins bronze medal in Asian Youth and Junior Weightlifting Championships.
- India’s Ajay Singh won the bronze medalin Asian Youth and Junior Weightlifting Championships at Kathmandu, taking India’s tally to three.
- He got third place in 77 kgs men’s junior category lifting 143 kgs in the snatch and 172 kgs in clean and jerk.
- Nirupama Devi won bronze in 69 kgs women youth category.
- Konsam Urmila Devi won gold in the 44kg weight category.
- National Centre for Seismology launches ‘India Quake’ – An App for Earthquake Parameter Dissemination.
- Union Minister of Science & Technology, Earth Sciences and Environment, Forests & Climate Change Dr Harshvardhan launched an app “India Quake”on the occasion of Foundation Day of Ministry of Earth Sciences in New Delhi.
- National Centre for Seismology (NCS) operates a national seismological network with 84 stations. These stations are connected to NCS headquarterthrough VSAT for real time data communication.
- In the event of an earthquake, NCS locates them using data from its network and disseminate earthquake parameters to all the concerned government department and other stake holders through SMS, email and fax.
- Punjab govt launches ‘Care Companion Programme’.
- The objective of this scheme is improving patient outcomes through better family engagement and education.
- This innovative program turns hospital hallways/wards into classrooms and taps into the most compassionate and willing resource available for care i.e. the patient’s own family, by teaching the family high-impact medical skills to take care of their loved ones in the hospital and at home.
- Families will learn high-impact health skills for taking care of the new-born baby and post-partum mother, specifically, baby hygiene, thermal care, breastfeeding, and maternal nutrition. The aim is to reduce the number of baby deaths and complications like infections in the first 30 days’ post-discharge, and ensure adoption of long-term health pro motive behaviours.
- Sagar vani Launched by Union Ministry of Earth Science.
- Union Ministry of Earth Science has launched Sagar Vani, an integrated information dissemination system
- It includes Multi Lingual SMS, Voice Call/Audio Advisory, Social Media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.), Mobile Apps (User/Admin modules), email, Fax, GTS, Digital Display Boards, IVRS, Radio/Television broadcast units, Cloud Channels, etc.
- The system also has facility to provide access to various stakeholders (State Fishery Departments, Disaster Management Authorities, NGOs etc.) so that they will be able to further disseminate these ocean information and alerts to the user community. This ‘Sagar Vani’ system compares with the most advanced countries’ services in terms of speed of delivery, diverseness of services and omni channel capabilities. It can disseminate services in local languages using advanced artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning capabilities
- Former Union Minister Ashwani Kumar conferred with Japanese honour
- Former Union Minister Ashwani Kumar was conferred with the Japan’s imperial decoration ‘Order of the Rising Sun’ award for his contribution to fostering Japan-India ties.
Kumar had served as Special Envoy of then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Japan during the visit of the Emperor and Empress of Japan to India in December 2013, and contributed to the success of the visit.