Current Affairs 10th April 2017

Current Affairs 10th April 2017 - Important Points

• Who has been appointed as India's Ambassador to Germany ? - Mukta Dutta Tomar
• Possible Venus twin discovered by - Astronomers
• First non-white judge at London Court - Anuja Ravindra Dhir of Indian-origin
• Large asteroid 2014 JO25 to fly past Earth on - 19th April
• India's rank in Travel and Tourism Competitive Index of World Economic Forum - 40
• 2016 ACM A M Turing Award won by - Tim Berners-Lee

Current Affairs 10th April 2017 - Details

Who has been appointed as India's Ambassador to Germany ? - Mukta Dutta Tomar

Mukta Dutta Tomar was appointed as India's Ambassador to Federal Republic of Germany on 7th April 2017. 

She will take up the assignment shortly.

More about Mukta Dutta Tomar

• Mukta is a 1984 batch Indian Foreign Service (IFS) officer.
• Tomar is presently working as the Additional Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA).
• She also served as the Consul General of India in Chicago.

 Possible Venus twin discovered by - Astronomers

Astronomers have discovered a Venus-like planet which is 219 light years away. The discovery was made using NASA’s Kepler space telescope. The newly discovered planet has been found closely orbiting a dim, low-temperature star, Kepler-1649. Kepler-1649 is almost one-fifth the diameter of our Sun.

Key Points

• This study was published in AstroNOMICAL Journal.
• The planet is slightly larger than Earth.
• It tightly encircles the dim star, orbits around it in every nine days.
• The tight orbit causes the sunlight reaching the planet to be 2.3 times more than the solar flux on the Earth. 
• The solar flux on Venus is 1.9 times of the terrestrial value.
• According to scientist at SETI Institute,Isabel Angelo, the study of Venus-like planets is becoming increasingly important to understand the habitable zone boundaries of these dwarf stars. 
• She added that if we wish to find life on other Earth-sized worlds, we should get to know the territory properly.

Do you know?

The M dwarf stars are redder and dimmer than the Sun.

First non-white judge at London Court - Anuja Ravindra Dhir of Indian-origin

Indian-origin Anuja Ravindra Dhir became the first non-white judge of the Old Bailey Court of London on 9th April 2017. The Old Bailey Court of London is the Central Criminal Court of London,that houses 15 judges including 10 men and five women.

More about Anuja Ravindra Dhir

• Dhir was born in Dundee, Scotland to Indian immigrant parents and studied in Harris Academy before studying English and Scots law at Dundee University.
• During the schooling days, she was suffered with dyslexia making it difficult for her to read and write.
• After winning a Gray's Inn scholarship in London, she began practicing law in 1989 where she practised for 23 years as prosecutor and defense counsel both.
• In 2010, She was made a Queen’s Counsel.

Large asteroid 2014 JO25 to fly past Earth on - 19th April

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announced on 8th April 2017 that a big asteroid will fly safely past Earth on 19th April 2017 at a distance of about 1.8 million kilometres. Although there is no possibility for the asteroid to collide with Earth, but still this will be a very close approach for an asteroid of this size. The asteroid is named as 2014 JO25.

More about 2014 JO25

• The 2014 JO25 is an asteroid near-earth.
• It was discovered in May 2014 by the Catalina Sky Survey as part of NASA's NEO Observation Program.
• The asteroid measures some 650 meters in size with an optical albedo of 0.25 as measured by NASA's NEOWISE mission.
• Its surface of this asteroid is about twice as reflective as that of the Moon.
• As of now very little is known about the object’s physical properties, even though its trajectory is well known.
• The asteroid will approach Earth from the direction of the Sun and will become visible in the night sky after 19th April 2017.
• It is predicted to brighten to magnitude 11, when it could be visible in small optical telescopes for one or two nights before it fades as the distance from Earth increases.

 India's rank in Travel and Tourism Competitive Index of World Economic Forum - 40

The Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index (TTCI) 2017 was released on 5th April 2017 by the World Economic Forum (WEF). India was ranked 40th among the 136 economies across the globe in the Index. India was at 52nd rank in 2015 and 65th in 2013.

Interesting Highlights

• This Report was published under the theme “Paving the Way for a More Sustainable and Inclusive Future.”
• Spain stands first in the 2017 edition of the TTCI global rankings for the second time, followed by France and Germany.
• Europe and Eurasia are once again the region with the strongest overall T&T competitiveness performance, with six economies in the top 10.
• The Americas is the macro region with the second most improved performance at the aggregate level, with the United States (6th), Canada (9th), Mexico (22nd) and Brazil (27th) all ranking in the top 30.
• The Travel and Tourism competitiveness is improving, especially in developing countries in the Asia-Pacific region particularly.
• India is one of the most improved nations, gained 12 places to reach the 40th position globally.
• India is growing continuously  in international arrivals over the past 15 years, reaching the 8 million marks in 2015.
• International openness with stronger visa policies implementing both visas on arrival and e-visas, have enabled India to rise through the ranks.

 2016 ACM A M Turing Award won by - Tim Berners-Lee

Sir Tim Berners-Lee was honoured with the 2016 ACM A M Turing Award. Berners-Lee received the 2016 Turing Award "for inventing the World Wide Web, the first web browser and the fundamental protocols and algorithms allowing the Web to scale".

Lee is one of the world’s most influential voices for online privacy and government transparency.

About Tim Berners-Lee

• Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee is an English computer scientist.
• He is known as the inventor of the World Wide Web.
• He implemented the first successful communication between a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) client and server via the Internet in Nov 1989.
• He is the holder of the founders chair at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL).
• He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II knighted him for his pioneering work in 2004.
• He has been named in Time magazine's list of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th century.