Current Affairs 21st August 2017

Current Affairs 21st August 2017 - Important Points

• Rahul Doshi crowned as ‘Child Genius’ in UK on - 20th August 2017
•  Action against violators of sex determination laws by - Bombay HC
• Nagaland Government constitutes committee to review Nagaland Municipal Act 2001 on - 20th August 2017
• Delegation of Powers to Border Roads Organisation approved by - Union Ministry of Defence
• Lost WWII wreckage of warship USS Indianapolis found in Pacific on - 18th August 2017
• 40% reservation for girls at Navodaya schools planned by - Union Government
• New state of matter discovered by - A group of Scientists
• First three of 24 fast track courts for Maharashtra to be set up in Mumbai, Thane stated on - 19th August 2017

Current Affairs 21st August 2017 - Details

Rahul Doshi crowned as ‘Child Genius’ in UK on - 20th August 2017

A 12-year-old Indian-origin boy, Rahul Doshi, was crowned as the UK’s ‘Child Genius’ in a popular television quiz competition on 20th August 2017.
Rahul Doshi, who a few days ago became an overnight sensation after answering all questions correctly in previous rounds, won the Channel 4 show 'Child Genius' by defeating his nine-year-old opponent Ronan 10-4 in the program's finale.
The school boy from north London grabbed the title by answering a question on 19th Century artists John Everett Millais and William Holman Hunt.
The boy is believed to be having an IQ of 162 which is higher than Stephen Hawking and Albert Einstein, impressed with the knowledge of his chosen subject on "Edward Jenner's medical innovation and methodology in 18th Century England".
Rahul, whose ambition is to become a financial adviser, had revealed his strategy for the final as: "The key is to block out everything else and be calm. So just focus on your goal. His was to answer as many questions as he could correctly and that helped him stay calm and do quite well in the early stages."

 Action against violators of sex determination laws by - Bombay HC

The Bombay High Court has raised its concern on declining sex ratio in the Maharashtra state.
The court stated that matters pertaining to sex determination violation laws cannot be decided on lighter node. There was a case highlighted where doctor filed an anticipatory bail application, as he was allegedly involved in a sex determination racket and the bail was rejected by Justice T V Nalawade.

 The Judge stated that the female child ratio has come down to about 800 in Maharashtra alone.
Hence, the state has strictly abided by the Pre-conception and Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act. To ensure compliance of the same, the doctors involved in such cases are also being jailed. Further, Justice T V Nalawade stated that it is clear that due to such circumstance, people are resorting to go out of the state and the present case is one of such incidents.

 The doctor in question was allegedly conducting sex determination tests and illegal abortions in a hospital run by him in a town in Solapur district, which is located on the Maharashtra and Karnataka border.

Nagaland Government constitutes committee to review Nagaland Municipal Act 2001 on - 20th August 2017

The Nagaland Government constituted a six member committee to review the Nagaland Municipal Act 2001 on 20th August 2017.  This decision was taken during the state cabinet meeting.

This committee is headed by Additional Chief Secretary (Home) Temjen Toy as the convenor and its five members are Commissioner of Nagaland Sentiyanger Imchen, Secretary of Justice & Law Khanrinla, Commissioner & Secretary of Municipal Affairs M Patton,Director of Municipal Affairs Toshi Mannen and the Commissioner of Taxes.

Major task of the committe is to consult all tribal hohos and stakeholders to review the Municipal Act and submit its report within three months from the date of notification of its constitution.
Key Highlights

• Nagaland government is contemplating to rewrite the Nagaland Municipal Act to ensure smooth election to the Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) in the state as there is no women reservation in the Act.
• In the starting of 2017, the state had witnessed unrest and protests by tribal outfits against the
• Urban Local Body (ULB) election which was scheduled to be held on 1st February 2017.
• The protests were aiming to introduce 33 percent reservations for women in ULB elections.

Delegation of Powers to Border Roads Organisation approved by - Union Ministry of Defence

The Union Ministry of Defence has decided to delegate administrative and financial powers to the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) right up to the level of Chief Engineer and Task Force Commander on 20th August 2017.
The step was taken to avoid delays on account of references between the Head Quarters Director General Border Roads (HQ DGBR), the Chief Engineer and between HQ DGBR and the Ministry.
The Union Ministry of Defence aims to bring transformational changes in the BRO in order to improve the pace of execution of works pace and to achieve the desired outcomes as per the requirement of the Armed Forces.

Important highlights

• Administrative Approval of Works: According to the earlier delegation of powers, a Chief Engineer in the BRO could give administrative approval of works only up to Rs. 10 crore which was only for the departmental works, on the other hand the ADGBR had powers to grant administrative approval only up to Rs. 20 crore for the departmental works.
• All administrative approvals were given by DGBR, who had powers up to Rs. 50 crore only for contractual works.
• For both departmental and contractual mode of execution, a Chief Engineer of BRO will grant administrative approval up to Rs. 50 crore, DGBR up to Rs. 100 crore and ADGBR up to Rs. 75 crore, approved by The Ministry of Defence.
• Tendering Process: According to the earlier delegation of powers, a Chief Engineer in the BRO had the power to accept the execution of contracts only up to Rs. 10 crore, while ADGBR had powers up to Rs. 20 crore, above than that all tenders had to be sent to DGBR.
• To speed up the tendering process, the Ministry of Defence has now increased the powers of Chief Engineer to accept bidding with contract cost up to Rs. 100 crore and that of ADGBR for the contract cost of up to Rs. three hundred crore.
• With this delegation, the entire tendering process including accepting of bids would be completed at the level of Chief Engineer/ADGBR for a majority of the contracts.

Lost WWII wreckage of warship USS Indianapolis found in Pacific on - 18th August 2017

A team of civilian researchers led by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen discovered the wreckage of World War II warship USS Indianapolis 18000 feet below  the surface in the Pacific Ocean, nearly after 72 years on 18th August 2017. Others had also tried to locate the Indianapolis before, but all efforts were vain.

USS Indianapolis Sinking

• USS Indianapolis went missing after a Japanese submarine drowned it in the final days of World War II.
• The Indianapolis was sunk just in 12 minutes, making it impossible for that to deploy life-saving equipment and send even a distress signal.
• Before the attack, the warship completed a secret mission on 30th July 1945 by delivering components of the atomic bomb used in Hiroshima that brought an end to the war in the Pacific.
• Most of the ship's sailors and Marines survived the sinking, but unfortunately  surrendered to exposure, drowning, dehydration and shark attacks. Out of those 1196 sailors, only 316 survived and out of them, 22 are alive today.
• The wreck was located by the expedition crew of Paul Allen's Research Vessel Petrel, a 250 foot vessel equipped with high-tech equipment capable of diving to 6 kilometers.
• After an eight-year chase, Paul Allen's team of researchers also discovered the Japanese battleship Musashi in the Philippine's Sibuyan Sea in 2015.

40% reservation for girls at Navodaya schools planned by - Union Government

The Union Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi announced that the Union Government has decided to proffer 40 percent reservation for girls at 100 Navodaya-type schools and five higher education institutes it plans to set up for minority community students in August 2017.
Naqvi stated that the government is mulling to open the 100 Navodaya-type schools in minority focused areas of India. This plan is made to empower the communities with dignity. The government will give 40 percent reservation to girls from the communities in the schools and also in the institutes to ensure they complete their education.

Important highlights

• This decision was taken after a high-level panel formed by the Maulana Azad Education Foundation (MAEF), in its report recently recommended a three-tier model to handle educational backwardness among minorities especially among the Muslims.
• The suggested model has included creating infrastructure to spread education at primary, secondary and tertiary levels by opening 211 schools, 25 community colleges and five institutes.
• This panel has suggested that the proposed schools could also work on the patterns of Kendriya Vidayala or Navodaya Vidyalaya.
• Rural students are selected and provided with quality education, which is among the best education in the country under the Navodaya Vidyalaya system.
• These schools are also provided with food and lodging facilities.

 New state of matter discovered by - A group of Scientists

Scientists discovered a potential new state of matter that may help explaining the phenomena like superconductivity. This study was published in the journal Nature recently.
Important Highlights

• Researchers from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in the U.S. have showed that among superconducting materials in high magnetic fields, the phenomenon of electronic symmetry breaking is common.
• The ability to find similarities and dissimilarities among classes of materials with phenomena such as this helps in establishing the necessary ingredients that cause novel functionalities such as superconductivity.
• It is observed that The intense-magnetic-field state of the heavy fermion superconductor CeRhIn5 has displayed a state in which the material’s electrons are aligned in such a way that  apparently reduce the symmetry of the original crystals.
• It is actually something that appears to be universal among unconventional superconductors.

First three of 24 fast track courts for Maharashtra to be set up in Mumbai, Thane stated on - 19th August 2017

The Law and Judiciary Department issued an order to set up of the first three of 24 fast track courts for Maharashtra in two of its most populous cities on 19th August 2017.
One of the courts would be set up in Mumbai and the other two would be set up in Thane. The courts would be dealing with heinous crimes like rape and murder.
These courts were recommended by the 14th Finance Commission to strengthen judicial systems in the States. After this, the Center has ordered to set up 1800 such courts across the country within the next five years.

Besides this, other recommendations of the Commission included mediation centers, more family courts, centers for dispute resolution, technical staff for scanning and digitisation, law schools and more Lok Adalats.

As far as the funding for these courts is concerned, the Center has set aside ?4114 Crore for the project. While UP will be granted ?488 Crore, Maharashtra, which is placed second on the list of beneficiary States, was allocated ?469 Crore to establish the fast track courts.
Other states including Gujarat is allocated ?400 Crore, Bihar ?338 Cr and Madhya Pradesh ?306 Cr respectively.