Current Affairs 21st June 2017

Current Affairs 21st June 2017

• 219 new potential planets spotted by - NASA's Kepler space telescope
• Travis Kalanick resigned as Uber CEO on - 21st June 2017
• Resignation given by Anil Kumble as - Head coach of Indian Cricket team
•  India and ADB sign USD 275 million loan agreement signed between ADB and India for - Upgrading small towns in Madhya Pradesh
• Historical agreement signed between India and Portugal to - Promote cooperation in field of archives
• China's largest power project in Russia started operation on - 20th June 2017
• Qatar Airways announced World's Best Airline at - 2017 Skytrax World Airline Awards

 Current Affairs 21st June 2017

219 new potential planets spotted by - NASA's Kepler space telescope

NASA's Kepler space telescope has spotted 219 new potential planets, among which at least 10 are almost the same size as that of the Earth with conditions suitable to live life.  Kepler has detected around 50 planets out of them more than 30 planets have been verified.
Important Highlights

• The new data is the detailed catalog and most comprehensive release of potential exoplanets from Kepler's first four years of data.
• Planets located outside solar systems are called Exoplanets.
• The data is also the final catalog from the spacecraft's view of the patch of sky in the Cygnus constellation.
• This data will be helping scientists to determine what planetary populations - from rocky bodies equivalent to the size of Earth, to gas giants equivalent to the size of Jupiter - make up the galaxy's planetary demographics.
• One research group used the Kepler data to make precise measurements of thousands of planets, the results of which suggest two distinct size groupings of small planets.
• The team found a clean division in the sizes of rocky, Earth-size planets and gaseous planets which are smaller than Neptune.
• Few planets falling between the groupings were also located.
• The results have very important implications on the search for life.
• The Kepler space telescope hunts for planets by detecting the change in their brightness, as brightness likely drops when a planet is transiting from its front.

Travis Kalanick resigned as Uber CEO on - 21st June 2017

Travis Kalanick, the Chief Executive Officer of Uber announced his resignation from the post on 21st June 2017.
This decision was taken by him after a group of major Uber investors demanded his immediate resignation.
Kalanick said, “I love Uber more than anything in the world and at this difficult moments in my personal life I have accepted
the investors’ request to step aside so that Uber can go back to build rather than be distracted with another fight.” Kalanick will be staying on Uber’s board of directors and control a majority of its voting shares.

Important Highlights

• The ride-hailing company has been hit by a barrage of scandals and controversy over the past year.
• The company’s troubles included widespread allegations of sexual harassment, a video showing where Kalanick engaging in a heated argument with a driver, a major lawsuit claiming intellectual property theft from Google’s Waymo self-driving car unit and up-roaring over an executive to obtain the medical records of a woman who was raped by a driver in India.
• The company also fired more than 20 employees recently as a result of an investigation related its work culture.
• Born on 6th August 1976, Kalanick is an American businessman and computer programmer.
• He co-founded two a peer-to-peer file sharing service companies between 1998 and 2007, Red Swoosh and Scour Exchange , both of them didn’t do very well.
• Uber was co founded by him in 2009.
• His name was featured on the Forbes list of the 400 richest Americans in 2014 at 190th position, with an estimated net worth of US$6.3 billion.

Resignation given by Anil Kumble as - Head coach of Indian Cricket team

Anil Kumble, cricket thinker and the legendary cricketer resigned from the post of head Coach of the Indian Cricket team on 20th June 2017.

Key Highlights

• His resignation came just four days before the limited overs tour to the Caribbean (West Indies team) begins.
• During this trip to the Caribbean, MV Sridhar who is the general manager of cricket operations, will be supervising the team.
• Sanjay Bangar, the batting coach and R Sridhar, the fielding coach will continue in their respective roles.
• Kumble gave resignation in London where he went to attend the chief executives meeting of the ICC. He is the chairman of the ICC’s cricket committee.
• After resigning from the post, Kumble through a tweet informed that the he was informed for the first time yesterday [i.e. 20th June] by the BCCI that the captain had reservations with his style and about his continuing as a head coach.
• He also stated that though BCCI attempted to resolve the misunderstandings between the captain kohli and him but it was clear that the partnership was not to be able to maintain, and therefore he believed it was best for him to move on.

 India and ADB sign USD 275 million loan agreement signed between ADB and India for - Upgrading small towns in Madhya Pradesh

The Union Government signed USD 275 million loan agreement with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) on 19th June 2017 for improving urban services in 64 small towns in the State of Madhya Pradesh. Joint Secretary under Department of Economic Affairs of Union Ministry of Finance
and LB Sondjaja, Deputy Country Director of ADB’s India Resident Mission signed the loan agreement.
Secretary of Urban Development & Housing Department, Vivek Aggarwal signed the project on behalf of the Madhya Pradesh Government.

Key Highlights

• 
  The project will be carried out in design-build-operate model including 10-years maintenance and operation to ensure better sustainability of financial viability and water service operation.
• The project will develop inclusive, sustainable and climate-resilient water supply in 64 small and medium-sized towns.
• It will also develop sewerage infrastructure and integrated storm water in two heritage towns of Khajuraho and Rajnagar.
• The Madhya Pradesh Government will provide counterpart support of USD 124 million along with the ADB's loan.
• The project will run for almost five years with an expected completion date in June 2022.

Historical agreement signed between India and Portugal to - Promote cooperation in field of archives

India and Portugal signed a Protocol of Cooperation agreement to promote cooperation in the field of archives on 17th May 2017. The information regarding this was published by Press Information Bureau on 20th June 2017. The agreement was signed between the Minister of Culture of the Portuguese Republic in Lisbon, Portugal and the National Archives of India.

Important Points

• The Torre do Tombo (National Archives of Portugal) handed over digital copies of 62 volumes
  of the collection known as ‘Moncoes do Reino’ (Monsoon correspondence) to the National Archives of India in the first step of this agreement.
• These volumes were originally the part of more than 456 those volumes covering the period between 1568 and 1914 and hence form the largest of all record collections in the Goa State Archives.
• The collection consists of direct correspondence from Lisbon to Goa and is a significant primary source to study the Portuguese expansion in Asia, European powers, Portuguese trade rivalries with the Arabs and European relations with neighbouring Kings in South Asia and East Asia.

China's largest power project in Russia started operation on - 20th June 2017

A 483-MW gas-steam Combined Heat and Power (CHP) plant, built by a China-Russia joint venture, officially started operation on 20th June 2017. The CHP is the result of the Huadian-Teninskaya joint project launched by China Huadian Hong Kong Co. Ltd. and Russia's second regional power company TGC-2 in 2011, with a total investment of USD 571 million. The project is seen as a symbol to deepen the cooperation further between Russia and China in the field of electric power.

Important highlights

• The project was designed to generate 3.02 billion KWH of electric energy and 814000 Giga of supply of heat every year.
• The plant is expected to handle the Yaroslavl Province’s chronic problem of power shortages.
• It will bring down Yaroslavl's power deficit from 40-50 percent to 5-15 percent and fully cover its total power demand in hotter months.
• Administration Commission of the State Council (SASAC) and State-owned Assets Supervision will be administrating it for the State Council of the People's Republic of China.
• It produces about 10 percent of China's power along with Datang Group, Huaneng Group, Guodian Group and CPI Group.

Qatar Airways announced World's Best Airline at - 2017 Skytrax World Airline Awards

Qatar Airways was announced the World’s Best Airline at the SKYTRAX 2017 World Airline Awards on 20th June 2017. Travelers rated it as a best airlines across the world in the annual passenger survey.
and after this for the fourth time, this Doha based carrier has won this title. Qatar Airways also won the Best Airline in the Middle East awards , the World’s Best Business Class and the World’s Best First Class Lounge.

About World Airline Awards

• The World Airline Awards are most coveted Quality honor for the airline industry.
• Travelers across the globe take part each year in the world’s largest airline passenger satisfaction survey to finalize the winners.