Current Affairs 2nd May 2017

Current Affairs 2nd May 2017 - Important Points

•  THAAD missile defense system operational in - South Korea
• Tarang Sanchar web portal for information on Mobile Tower Radiation launched by - DoT
• INSA Medal for Young Scientist 2017 winners announced in - Last week of April
• Padma Venkataraman bestowed with - Avvaiyar award
• First city in world to get its own Microsoft Font - Dubai
• First north-eastern club to win 2016-17 I-League - Aizawl FC

Current Affairs 2nd May 2017 - Details

 THAAD missile defense system operational in - South Korea

The United States (US) Military's missile defence system THAAD became operational in South Korea on 2nd May 2017. The Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) has reached an initial intercept capability to defend against North Korean missiles.  However, THAAD will not going to be fully operational for a period of months.

More about THAAD

• THAAD missile defence system has been designed to intercept and destroy ballistic missiles.
• It shoots down short and medium-range ballistic missiles in the terminal phase only of their flight.
• It uses hit-to-kill technology - where kinetic energy of the missile destroys the incoming warhead.
• It has a range of 200 km and an altitude of 150 km.

 Tarang Sanchar web portal for information on Mobile Tower Radiation launched by - DoT

The Department of Telecom (DoT) launched 'Tarang Sanchar’ web portal on 2nd May 2017, a portal that will allow people to track radiation emitted from mobile towers within a locality and check their compliance with the stipulated norms. The portal will help in clearing people doubts on mobile towers and emissions from them.

Important Highlights

• Status of the towers will be available to the users through this portal. 
• Normally, government conducts test on random basis, but with this portal, test of specific tower could be done on payment.
• People can check the radiation level of specific towers by paying a fee of Rs 5000 for the test to be conducted by the government.
• It will empower consumers to know, at the click of the mouse, about the towers working in a particular area and whether they are compliant to the Electro Magnetic field (EMF) emission norms as defined by the government.

INSA Medal for Young Scientist 2017 winners announced in - Last week of April

The Indian National Science Academy (INSA) announced the names of the recipient of the INSA Medal for Young Scientist 2017 in the last week of April 2017. A total of 30 scientists have been chosen for this prestigious award.

Interesting Highlights

• The award, consisting of a bronze medal and cash award of 25000 will be given to the recipients during INSA’s anniversary meeting scheduling in December 2017.
• The award was instituted by the Indian National Science Academy in 1974.

Do you know?

The INSA Young Scientists Award is considered to be the highest recognition of creativity,promise, and excellence in a young scientist. 

Padma Venkataraman bestowed with - Avvaiyar award

The Tamil Nadu government conferred the 2017 Avvaiyar Award to Padma Venkataraman, a social worker and daughter of former Indian President, the late R Venkataraman on 2nd May 2017. Chief Minister K Palaniswami of Tamilnadu honoured Padma with the award for her efforts in the field of women’s welfare and the rehabilitation of leprosy-affected people since the past 30 years.

More about the Avvaiyar Award

• The award was started by late Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa in 2012 named after Tamil poetess Avvaiyar.
• It aims to honour women who have done excellent service in the areas of social reform, women's development, culture, media, inter-faith harmony, and administration etc.
• The award was conferred to M Sarada Menon, founder of Schizophrenia Care and research Foundation (SCARF) for the welfare of mentally challenged in 2016.
• The prize carried a cheque of Rs 1 lakh, 8 gm gold medal and a certificate.

 First city in world to get its own Microsoft Font - Dubai

Dubai became the first city in the world to get its own Microsoft Font on 1st may 2017. Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Dubai's Crown Prince and Chairman of the Executive Council launched The Dubai Font. The Executive Council of Dubai also enabled individuals to download the font from the website: www.dubaifont.com and integrate it to the system for free.

Interesting Facts about Dubai Font

• It is the first typeface developed by Microsoft for Dubai.
• The font is available in three styles as 'Dubai', 'Dubai Medium' and 'Dubai Light' and can be in Italics, Underlined and Bold also.
• The font is now available to more than 100 million users of Microsoft Office 365 around the globe.
• Dubai Font is presently designed for more than 180 countries and 23 languages integrating Arabic and Latin typefaces and will expand over the next phase to include more languages.
• It can also be downloaded for free in Open Type and Webfont formats for both Windows and Mac OS platforms.

First north-eastern club to win 2016-17 I-League - Aizawl FC

Aizawl FC defeated Shillong Lajong FC to grab the 2016-17 I-League in Shillong, Meghalaya on 30th April 2017. After this, Aizawl FC became the first ever north-eastern club to win the title. It was the 10th edition of the I-League held at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in Shillong.

Important Highlights

• The Hero I League is an Indian professional league for men's association football clubs.
• It is contested by 10 clubs presently.
• It operates on a promotion system and relegation with the I-League 2nd Division as well as a system of direct-entry.
• It was established in 2007 as the ONGC I-League and is a successor to the previous National Football League.
• Since the league established, a total of five clubs have been crowned champions of the I-League.
• 2016-16 I-League winner was Bengaluru FC.