Current Affairs 3rd December 2017

Current Affairs 3rd December 2017 - Important Points

• India awarded for its effort to combat illegal wildlife trade on - 30th November 2017

• International Storytellers Festival inaugurated in New Delhi on - 1st December 2017

• International Day of Persons with Disabilities 2017 observed across the globe on - 3rd December 2017

• 300 fossilised pterosaur eggs discovered by - A team of Paleontologists

Current Affairs 3rd December 2017 - Details

India awarded for its effort to combat illegal wildlife trade on - 30th November 2017

India on 30th November 2017 was awarded with the Certificate of Commendation for its ideal enforcement action in its regional and global effort to fight against illegal wildlife trade.
The award was granted to the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau by the Secretary General of Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora at the 69 Standing Committee conference of CITES at Geneva, Switzerland.
India was the alone recipient of the Certificate of Commendation at the esteemed conference. The convention currently has 183 countries from across the world as its signatories.
The news was shared by Union Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Harsh Vardhan, who declared that the award has been given to WCCB under the Ministry for its efforts in managing and coordinating a species particular wildlife enforcement Operation, codenamed ‘Operation Save Kurma’.

Important Highlights on Operation Save Kurma

• It was organized by the WCCB to fight against the growing illegal trade in live turtles and their parts from India to other destinations abroad.
• The operation was also focused at inviting attention of the enforcement agencies for such illegal trade.
• The operation was inaugurated on 15th December 2016 till 30th January 2017.
• Under the operation, roughly 16, 000 live turtles were grabbed and released back into the wild and approximately 55 suspects included in the illegal trade were detained.
• The WCCB had worked in close coordination with regional law enforcement agencies including State Police and Forest Department, West Bengal Criminal Investigation Department, Karnataka Forest and Police departments, the Special Task Force of Uttar Pradesh Police, and Maharashtra and Rajasthan Forest Departments.

International Storytellers Festival inaugurated in New Delhi on - 1st December 2017

The 7th edition of the 3-day ‘Kathakar: International Storytellers Festival’ was initiated by Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, New Delhi on 1st December 2017.
Kathakar is the only verbal storytelling festival in India and is a part of Ghummakkad Narain- the Travelling Literature Festival which was initiated under the aegis of UNESCO in 2010. The festival is an attempt to not just protect the art form but also produce new audiences for the same.
The associates for this year’s festival are IGNCA of Union Ministry of Culture in Delhi, Heritage Transport Museum, Gurugram and National Centre for the Performing Arts, Mumbai.

Key Highlights

• The festival will have a circus play for the 1st time, performed by children from the slums taught by Swedish Circus master Andreo.
• There will also be stories of Deendayal Upadhyay and Nanaji Deshmukh, admired by the Government of India.
• The festival will also witness Vishal Bharadwaj and Mohit Chauhan comes together for the 1st time to share folk stories via music.
• It will also have 2 puppeteers from Italy and Andhra Pradesh, who are not just experts of their work but also the last ones encouraging and executing the art form.
• The highlight of the initiated session was the release of the book 'Curious Tales from the Himalayas' co-authored by Shaguna Gahilote and Prarthana Gahilote.

More on Kathakar Festival

• Kathakar is an exceptional initiative, to promote the verbal storytelling tradition which has lived across the world.
• It is only verbal storytelling festival in India. It not only focuses to protect the art form but also produce new audiences for same.
• Though performance storytelling has seen an improvement in Europe, in India, only few attempts have been made to contemporize the art form.
• The festival this year will be organized by the cities of Delhi, Gurugram, Noida and Mumbai.

International Day of Persons with Disabilities 2017 observed across the globe on - 3rd December 2017

The International Day of Persons with Disabilities was observed across the world on 3rd December 2017 with the theme ' Transformation towards sustainable and resilient society for all'.

The Day is aiming to promote the people's rights with disabilities in all spheres of society and development and to boost awareness of the situation of persons with disabilities in every aspect of life, be it political, social, economic or cultural.

Important Highlights

• Out of 7 billion world population, more than 1 billion people in the world have some form of disability. It's like 1 in every 7 people is disabled.
• Over 100 million disabled persons are children and they are four times more likely to experience violence than non-disabled children.
• 80 percent of disable people live in the developing countries.
• 50 percent of the disabled persons cannot afford health care

300 fossilised pterosaur eggs discovered by - A team of Paleontologists

A team of Paleontologists have discovered hundreds of fossilised eggs laid by Pterosaurs, a group of extinct winged dinosaurs.
The discovery has unveiled as many as 300 fossilised eggs and skeletons of pterosaurs. Many of the eggs were found to be in a quite well-preserved condition. Some of the eggs contain the most detailed pterosaur embryos ever found.
The discovery was presented by Brazilian and Chinese dinosaur experts at a press conference, after they jointly  analysed the fossils on 30th November 2017. The study findings have been published in the recent issue of Science magazine.
Important Highlights

• The molds and casts of the eggs and the bones found by the team will be putting on display in China’s National Museum
• The fossils were discovered in the northeastern Chinese region of Hami by the Chinese Academy of Sciences back in 2015-2016.
• Some of the embryos found are to be preserved with the bones in a 3-D condition.
• Although scientists have studied pterosaurs for over two centuries, no eggs were discovered until the early 21st century and in the subsequent years, even less than 12 eggs were found.

Did you know?

Pterosaurs were a group of extinct winged dinosaurs that were the first known vertebrates to be able to flyon earth.