Current Affairs 17th August 2018

Current Affairs 17th August 2018 - Important Points

• ‘Digital Screens’ at 22 stations launched by - Railway Ministry
• Atal Bihari Vajpayee passed away on - 17th August 2018
•  EIU released Global Liveability Index 2018 on - 14th August 2018
• Mario Abdo Benitez sworn in as new President of Paraguay on - 15th August 2018
• SC directs Tamil Nadu to consider reducing water level at Mullaperiyar dam on - 16th August 2018
• Nandula Raghuram elected as Chair of International Nitrogen Initiative on - 13th August 2018

 Current Affairs 17th August 2018 - Details

‘Digital Screens’ at 22 stations launched by - Railway Ministry

The Union Ministry of Railways launched ‘Digital Screens’ to spread awareness about Indian Railways Heritage on 15th August, 2018.

The move is in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision to create digital museums at stations using QR code.

The project, initiated on a pilot basis, is aiming to showcase the legacy of Indian Railways through one to two-minute-long movie clips on digital LED screens at the railway station's entrance gate and also at different comfort areas.

Important Highlights

• The ‘digital screens’ were made operational at 22 stations on August 15th at the occasion of India’s Independence Day.
• The digital screens have been set up currently at Coimbatore, Lucknow, New Delhi, Sealdah, Jaipur, Agra Cantonment, Hazrat Nizamuddin, Howrah,Varanasi and other railway stations.
• These short films will be showcasing heritage buildings, locomotives and much more to make people aware of the rich heritage of Indian Railways.
• In addition to that, QR code based posters on Railway Heritage are also being displayed at these stations.
• The passengers can also do the scanning of the QR code on their mobile to view a streaming video on their mobile on various facades of the Railway heritage.

Atal Bihari Vajpayee passed away on - 17th August 2018

Former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee passed away at 05:05 pm on 16th August, 2018 following a prolonged illness at the AIIMS, New Delhi. He was 93 at the time of death. On 11th June 2018, he was admitted in AIIMS on 11th June, 2018.

 Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the first non-Congress Prime Minister to serve a full five-year tenure.
Vajpayee served three terms as the Prime Minister of India.
He served the first term in 1996 for 13 days only. During his second term in 1998-1999, he served for complete 13 months. In his final and third term, he served the nations for complete five years between 1999 to 2004.

 EIU released Global Liveability Index 2018 on - 14th August 2018

The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) released the Global Liveability Index 2018, the ranking of 140 global cities based on their living conditions on August 14th, 2018. The EIU is part of UK magazine ‘The Economist’ and and it provides forecasting and advisory services through research and analysis.

Important Highlights of the Index

• Capital Vienna of Austria has been ranked as the world’s most liveable city, displacing Australian city of Melbourne, which had held the record as the most liveable city for seven consecutive years.
  Rounding off the top 3 are Melbourne, Vienna,Osaka as the most liveable cities.
• Three Canadian cities made it into top 10 this year - Toronto, Vancouver and Calgary.
• Syrian capital of Damascus is still at the bottom of 140 cities despite the report noted that it has witnessed “a stabilisation in its dramatic decline in liveability”.
• In Bangladesh, Dhaka is the second worst city and Pakistan’s capital Karachi was ranked as the 4th worst city.

Mario Abdo Benitez sworn in as new President of Paraguay on - 15th August 2018

Colorado Party’s Mario Abdo Benitez was sworn in as the new President of Paraguay for a five-year term on August 15th, 2018. Benitez clinched the top place after defeating his closest rival, Efrain Alegre from the liberal opposition alliance, by four percentage points  in the elections of nation, which were held in April 2018.

The oath of office at a ceremony in the capital Asuncion was taken by him and it was attended by hundreds of dignitaries including seven heads of state. He also replaced Horacio Cartes, who was also from the conservative Colorado Party.

After the results, the right-wing Colorado Party, which has dominated Paraguayan politics for decades, will going to be maintaining its hold on power again.

SC directs Tamil Nadu to consider reducing water level at Mullaperiyar dam on - 16th August 2018

The Supreme Court directed the Tamil Nadu government to consider lowering the water level at Mullaperiyar dam to 139 feet from the current 142 feet on 16th August, 2018. The directive comes considering the "grave" flood situation in all the 14 districts of Kerala.

The Supreme Court also ordered the National Crisis Management Committee to meet on 16th August over Mullaperiyar Dam storage and management and file a report on the matter on the very same day.

The SC bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justice Indu Malhotra took a serious note of the grim flood situation in Kerala and asked the sub-committee to hold an urgent meeting on 17th August 2018 morning with the presence of  Centre's National Crisis Management Committee and the Chief Secretaries of Tamil Nadu and Kerala through a video-conference if physical presence of officials is not possible due to any reason.

Important Highlights

• The bench stated that an effort has to be made to bring down the water level of the Mullaperiyar dam to 139 feet so that it would help people living downstream not to be in constant fear.
• The Tamil Nadu government had opposed the plea with regard to bringing down the water level in the dam,mentioning that the inflow of water presently is over 12,000 cusec in contrast to the outflow of 5,000 cusec.
• The bench said this was not the time to go into the past and efforts have to be made to deal with the situation risen at present.
• The bench also directed that the displaced and affected people to be given adequate relief with an immediate effect.
• It also directed the committee and the NCMS to come out with a disaster management plan and asked Tamil Nadu and Kerala governments to implement with the panel decisions.

Nandula Raghuram elected as Chair of International Nitrogen Initiative on - 13th August 2018

Indian scientist and academician Nandula Raghuram has been elected as the Chair of the International Nitrogen Initiative (INI), a global policy making initiative on 13th August, 2018.

After this appointment, Raghuram has become the first Indian and Asian to be elected to the Chair of INI. He will be succeeding Mark Sutton of the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Edinburgh. The new chairs will take up their roles on 1st January, 2019.

More about Nandula Raghuram

• He is a professor at the GGS Indraprastha University, New Delhi and specialises in the biological determinants of nitrogen use efficiency in crops.
• He has earlier served as the President of the Indian Nitrogen Group which was co-founded by him only.
• He also worked as the Director of the South Asian Nitrogen Centre while serving these diverse posts, he facilitated interdisciplinary  international consultations on the research and policy aspects of reactive nitrogen and other nutrients in industry, agriculture and environment.
• He was the Editor-in-Chief of the Physiology, Springer journal, and Molecular Biology of Plants.