Current Affairs 28th August 2017

Current Affairs 28th August 2017 - Important Points

• Production of Light Combat Helicopter at HAL inaugurated by - Union Government
• India wins South Asian Football Federation Under-15 Championship on - 27th August 2017
• 'Cleanliness is Service' campaign announced by - PM Narendra Modi
• Who has been crowned first Miss TransQueen India? - Nitasha Biswas
• Biosensor to detect kidney disorder developed by - IIT Researchers
• Justice Dipak Misra sworn in as 45th Chief Justice of India on - 28th August 2017
• World Badminton Championship won by - Nozomi Okuhara
• Who has been appointed as CEO of Uber Technologies Inc? - Dara Khosrowshahi
• Lewis Hamilton wins 2017 Belgian Grand Prix on - 27th August 2017

Current Affairs 28th August 2017 - Details

Production of Light Combat Helicopter at HAL inaugurated by - Union Government

Union Defence Minister Arun Jaitley launched the production of 5.8-tonne category Light Combat Helicopter (LCH), designed by state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) on 26th August 2017.
A procurement of Rs 2911 crore has been cleared by The Defence Ministry for 15 LCHs as a Limited Series Production (LSP) order, with estimated cost of Rs 200 crore per helicopter. However, the final cost comes out to Rs 231 crore per LCH at 2017-18 prices, earlier in November 2016. HAL is responsible for the designing, development and manufacturing of these LCHs.
Key Highlights of the Light Combat Helicopter (LCH)

• HAL has custom-designed the 5.8-ton LCH to give fire support to the army on the northern borders at the mountainous deployment areas, which can be as high as 6 kilo metres.
• LCH will be providing crucial fire support to army with its 20-millimetre turret gun and 70-millimetre rockets at such rarefied altitudes where the shortage of oxygen is hinderance for the troops to carry heavy weapons into battle.
• LCH has already demonstrated the capability to land and take off from Siachen Range (sic) with considerable fuel,loadand weapons which are beyond any other combat helicopter.
• Operational roles under the extremely odd weather conditions can be carried out by these helicopters at different altitudes from sea level, cold weather, hot weather desert and Himalayan altitudes.
• The high-altitude performance of the LCH originates from twin Shakti engines that were designed by French helicopter engine maker Turbomeca for HAL and were built in Bengaluru.
• The helicopters have a narrow fuselage in which two pilots sit one-behind-the-other in an armoured cockpit that is capable to protect them from small arms firing.

India wins South Asian Football Federation Under-15 Championship on - 27th August 2017

The India football team defeated Nepal 2-1 to win the South Asian Football Federation (SAFF) Under-15 Championship at the ANFA Complex, Satdobato in Nepal on 27th August 2017. Bangladesh bagged third and Bhutan captured fourth place in the tournament. Bangladesh’s Foysal Ahmed (6 goals) was declared the top scorer of the tournament while India’s Vikram Pratap Singh was selected as the Best Player of the tournament. Bangladesh has been awarded with the Fair Play Award.

More about SAFF U-15 Championship

• It is an international football competition contested by the national teams of the members of the South Asian Football Federation.
• The first edition of the tournament took place in August 2011 in Nepal.
• The tournament was known as the SAFF U-16 Championship previously.
• Since most teams used to send their U-15 team, the tournament’s name was officially changed to U-15 tournament.
• It was the 4th edition of the tournament in 2017.

'Cleanliness is Service' campaign announced by - PM Narendra Modi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the launching of 15-days 'Cleanliness is Service' campaign on 27th August 2017 ahead of the 2nd October 2017 (Gandhi Jayanti). This announcement was made during the radio program'Mann Ki Baat'.

PM Modi asked people to undertake the Cleanliness is Service/Swachchta Hi Seva campaign in order to promote the creation of an environment of  cleanliness while marking the third anniversary 'Swachch Bharat' program that was launched on 2nd October 2014. The campaign shall be on the lines of 'Jal Seva, Yahi Prabhu Seva'. The campaign can be undertaken utilising the festivals like Navratra, Diwali and Durga Puja.

The campaign will get promoted through social media in the form of short film competitions, essay competitions in any language and painting competitions. Other than this, PM Modi also announced that this year, Gandhi Jayanti will be celebrated as 'Swachch Do Aktoobar, Clean 2nd October'.

More than 230 thousand villages have been declared 'Open Defecation Free' as on date and about 67 percent population has toilets now.

Who has been crowned first Miss TransQueen India? - Nitasha Biswas

Nitasha Biswas, a transwoman from Kolkata was crowned the first Miss TransQueen India on 27th August 2017 in the competition was held in Gurugram, Haryana. She is currently pursuing Masters in Business Management in Kolkata, West Bengal.
Miss Transsexual Australia 2017 Laeticia Phylliscia Raveena had crowned the first Miss TransQueen India on the occasion. In addition to that, Manipur’s Loiloi was crowned the first runner-up while Ragasiya.k from Chennai bagged the second runner-up position. Biswas will now be going to Thailand for Miss International Queen, while Loiloi will be competing at Miss Transsexual Australia.

More about Miss TransQueen India

• It is the first ever transgender beauty contest of India.
• The aim of the beauty pageant is to support and empower gifted young transgender women to achieve their full potential.
• The contest came up as a platform for beauty and pride of LGBT community and help young, socially deprived transwomen to showcase their diversity, talent, intelligence and beauty.

Biosensor to detect kidney disorder developed by - IIT Researchers

Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) Bombay and Indore Researchers have developed a biosensor jointly that makes it possible to detect kidney disorders in less than eight minutes.
The biosensor can accurately measure both the pH and urea concentration with a single urine drop.
According to researchers who developed the biosensor, it will be helping make a point-of-care test to determine whether kidneys are functioning normally or not. The Department of Biotechnology (DBT) and the Department of Science and Technology (DST) funded the study. The journal, Scientific Reports has published the results.

More about conventional kidney tests

• To check the proper functioning of kidneys, doctors generally need an estimate of urea and pH, as most kidney disorders result in reduced pH and a higher concentration of urea.
• At present, patients have to undergo two tests in order to detect urea accurately.
• In addition to that, the results can be affected by the contaminating components in urine such as ascorbic acid,calcium, chloride, sodium and potassium, that can further make the tests inaccurate.
  New Biosensor test
• Three researchers-Rashmi Chaudhari, Abhijeet Joshi, and Rohit Srivastava have developed the new biosensor that can detect both pH and urea.
• It is prepared by encapsulating an enzyme urease and a molecule FITC-dextran in alginate microspheres.
• The combination of the enzyme and the molecule release fluorescence colour in response to chemical reaction with urea and changes in pH when urine is added.
• The fluorescence minimizes if pH is acidic and increases incase it is alkaline, and this intensity change of fluorescence  helps to calculate the values of pH and urea.

Justice Dipak Misra sworn in as 45th Chief Justice of India on - 28th August 2017

Justice Dipak Misra was sworn in as the 45th Chief Justice of India (CJI) on 28th August 2017.
President Ram Nath Kovind administered his oath. Justice Misra will be retiring on 2nd October 2018. Justice Misra succeeds Chief Justice Jagdish Singh Khehar who demitted office on 27th August 2017. After this, Misra became the third from Odisha to take charge as the Chief Justice of India (CJI).

More about Justice Dipak Misra

• Born on 3rd October 1953, Justice Dipak Misra was enrolled as an advocate in 1977 and practiced in Criminal, Revenue, Constitutional, Civil, Service and Sales Tax matters in the Orissa High Court.
• He was appointed as an Additional Judge of the Orissa High Court on 17th January 1996.
  Later on 3rd March 1997, he was transferred to the Madhya Pradesh High Court.
• After becoming a permanent Judge in December 1997, Justice Misra assumed charge as the Chief Justice of Patna High Court on 23rd December 2009.
• He then took charge of the office of the Chief Justice of Delhi High Court on 24th May 2010.
  Justice Misra was elevated to the Supreme Court on 10th October 2011.

World Badminton Championship won by - Nozomi Okuhara

Nozomi Okuhara of Japan defeated PV Sindhu 19-21, 22-20, 20-22 to claim the 2017 BWF World Championships on 27th August 2017. Badminton Championship final match was held at Emirates Arena in Glasgow, Scotland. It was Sindhu's first appearance in final in the World Championship and also her best performance ever. This was a third medal for the Rio Olympics silver-medallist at Worlds, having won bronze two times in 2013 and 2014 after losing at the semifinal stage in both of the editions.

More about PV Sindhu

• Pusarla Venkata Sindhu is an Indian professional badminton player, born on 5th July 1995.
• Sindhu is currently world no 4 in the BWF World Ranking.
• She became the first Indian woman to win an Olympic silver medal at the 2016 Summer Olympics.
• She is one of the two Indian badminton players to ever win an Olympic medal other than Saina Nehwal.
• She was honoured with India's fourth highest civilian honor, the Padma Shri in March 2015.

More about BWF World Championships

• It is a badminton tournament sanctioned by BWF (Badminton World Federation).
• The tournament offers the most ranking points along with Summer Olympic Games.
• The tournament started in 1977 and was held once every three years until 1983.
• The tournament was changed to an annual event on the Badminton World Federation calendar with the  goal to give more chances for the players to be crowned as official World Champions starting 2006.

Who has been appointed as CEO of Uber Technologies Inc? - Dara Khosrowshahi

Dara Khosrowshahi was appointed as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Uber Technologies Inc on 27th August 2017. The Uber Board approved his appointment. Before his appointment, Khosrowshahi was serving as the Chief Executive Officer of travel company Expedia Inc. He will be responsible to improve Uber's image by fixing tussles among rebuilding employee morale, investors and creating a profitable business after seven years of loss.

He succeeds Travis Kalanick, Uber's co-founder who was expelled as CEO in June 2017 after shareholders representing about 40 percent of the company's voting power signed a letter asking him to resign due to growing concern over his behaviour.
More about Dara Khosrowshahi

• Iran-born American Khosrowshahi graduated with an engineering degree from Brown University.
• Prior to joining billionaire Barry Diller at IAC during the dot-com boom, he also served a short-term in investment banking at Allen & Co.
• While serving Expedia for more than a decade, Khosrowshahi led acquisitions by expanding IAC’s Expedia in online travel with takeovers of Orbitz and HomeAway.

Lewis Hamilton wins 2017 Belgian Grand Prix on - 27th August 2017

Lewis Hamilton won the 2017 Belgian Grand Prix of Formula One (F1) on 27th August 2017 held at Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps Stavelot, Belgium.

Result of 2017 Belgian Grand Prix

First Position: Lewis Hamilton from United Kingdom of Mercedes Second Position: Sebastian Vettel from Germany of Ferrari  Third Position: Daniel Ricciardo from Australia of Red Bull Racing-TAG Heuer

More about Lewis Hamilton

• Born on 7th January 1985, Lewis Hamilton is a British racing driver, races in Formula One for the Mercedes AMG Petronas team.
• A three-time Formula One World Champion, he is considered the best driver of his generation and widely regarded as one of the greatest Formula One drivers in the history of the sport oftenly.
• He won his first World Championship title with McLaren in 2008 before moving to Mercedes, where he won back-to-back titles in 2014 and 2015.
• He is also the only driver who won at least one Grand Prix in every season he has competed in.