Current Affairs

  Indian Railways (IR) has announced that it will become a net-zero carbon emitter by 2030. The move will be a part of India’s strategy to combat climate change. The announcement was made by railways and commerce minister Piyush Goyal at the India Energy Forum by CERAWEEK in New Delhi. India is the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases after the US and China, and is among countries most vulnerable to climate change. Indian railways is the world’s largest railway network. It has a rail network of around 1,25,000km under single management. IR is to go green by setting up solar power generation capacities in its large tracts of land along its network.
Source: The Livemint

  Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs has launched a revamped and streamlined programme to attract investments into India and strengthen Make in India through manufacture and other operations under the bond scheme, of Customs Act, 1962. The Section enables conduct of manufacture and other operations in a customs bonded warehouse. The scheme has been modernized with clear and transparent procedures, simplified compliance requirements ICT-based documentation and account keeping, by the issue of Manufacture and Other Operations in Warehouse Regulations 2019. CBIC has collaborated with Invest India to launch a dedicated microsite for providing information and promoting the scheme and for the facilitation of investors. The site can be accessed at www.investindia.gov.in/bonded-manufacturing.
Source: The News on AIR

  Margaret Atwood and Bernardine Evaristo have jointly won the 2019 Booker Prize after judges flout the rules by declaring a tie. The Booker rules say the prize must not be divided, but the judges insisted they could not separate Atwood’s – ‘The Testament’ and ‘Girl, Woman, Other’ by Evaristo, who is the first black woman to win the prestigious award since its creation in 1969. British Indian novelist Salman Rushdie’s tragicomic ‘Quichotte’ was among the six books shortlisted for the prize. This was the fifth time that the Mumbai-born novelist was shortlisted, including the 1981 win where he bagged the award for “Midnight’s Children”.
Source: The News on AIR

  Union Road Transport & Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari inaugurated a conference on ‘One Nation One Tag – FASTag’ in New Delhi to roll out the process for having a unified electronic system across the country. Under this system the same FASTag affixed on the windscreen of a vehicle can be used to pay toll across all toll plazas in the country.
Source: The DD News

  The first National Hindi Science writers conference 2019 started in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh with an aim to promote the use of Hindi and other Vernacular languages in science writing. The conference is organised at Dr Shakuntala Mishra National rehabilitation university was inaugurated by the speaker of the state assembly Hriday Narayain Dixit. A dedicated website WWW.VIGYANLEKHAN.COM has been prepared for this event.
Source: The News on AIR

  IIT Madras will collaborate with ExxonMobil on Research in Energy and Biofuels. The 5-year joint-research agreement focuses on biofuels, data analytics, gas conversion and transport, and is intended towards finding low-emission solutions. ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Company (EMRE) for research on energy and biofuels is the research and engineering arm of ExxonMobil Corporation, a leading global oil, natural gas, and petrochemicals company. ExxonMobil works with over 80 universities around the world. India is the 3rd highest producer of agro-residues globally with the surplus potential of over 230 million tonnes per year after China and Brazil. India’s huge biofuel potential is expected to get realized shortly with the ‘new biofuel policy’ of Government of India, which targets to convert the country’s biofuel industry into a $15.6 billion economy.
Source: The Hindu

  The 2nd phase of an Indo-Dutch project called Local Treatment of Urban Sewage Streams for Healthy Reuse, or LOTUS-HR was launched at Barapullah drain in New Delhi. This project was launched by Minister of Science and Technology Harsh Vardhan and the Dutch Royal couple, Netherlands King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima. The (LOTUS-HR) project was set up in 2017 at the Sun Dial Park here as part of a collaboration between the governments of India and the Netherlands.
Source: The Business Standard

  Secretary Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) Guruprasad Mohapatra launched the website and mobile application L2Pro India [Learn to Protect, Secure and Maximize Your Innovation] on Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs). The website and app have been developed by Cell for IPR Promotion and Management (CIPAM)-DPIIT in collaboration with Qualcomm and National Law University (NLU), Delhi. The website and app will be very useful to the startup community which holds great promise for India and its economy. The modules of this e-learning platform will aid and enable youth, innovators, entrepreneurs and small and medium industries (SMEs) in understanding IPRs for their ownership and protection, integrate IP into business models and obtain value for their R&D efforts. The L2Pro has been successfully implemented in Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy and France, benefiting immensely from close collaboration with respective IP organizations and public research institutions. The learning app has been customized for India in order to ensure that innovation which is fundamental to startups are protected, managed and commercialised.
Source: The Economic Times

  Indian shuttler Priyanshu Rajawat wins the men’s singles title at the Bahrain International Series Badminton at Isa Town, Bahrain. 17-year-old Rajawat beat top-seed Jason Anthony Ho-Shue from Canada in the finals 16-21, 21-7, 21-12 in the summit clash. Indian mixed double pair of Juhi Dewangan and Venkat Gaurav Prasad also finished at the top. They defeated Thailand’s Pannawat Theerapanitnun and Kanyanat Sudchoeichom 21-18, 21-16 in 34 minutes to bag the gold medal.
Source: The News on AIR

  The International Cricket Council (ICC) has changed the super-over rule for all its major events following the uproar over the outcome of the men’s World Cup final this year when England was declared winners against New Zealand on boundary count. As per new rule, in case of a super over tie, there will be a repeated super over until one team has more runs than the other.
Source: The News on AIR


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