12th July 2018 Daily Current Affairs

International Current Affairs

• The Sri Lankan Cabinet has unanimously approved a move to bring back capital punishment for drug-related crimes. 
• Note : Sri Lanka stopped hangings in 1976, with death row prisoners spending life terms in jail.
  

National Current Affairs

• For the first time, Rajya Sabha members can speak in any of the 22 languages listed in the eighth schedule of the Constitution, Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naiduhas announced today. 
• The decision will be effective from the upcoming Monsoon Session of the Parliament. 
• Tto reduce air pollution in the city, the Delhi Cabinet today approved the engagement of 1,000 low-floor environment-friendly electric buses. 
• Drawing inspiration from the highly-successful 'Amma' canteens in Tamil Nadu, the Andhra Pradesh government today launched its own 'Anna' canteens across the state.
• The intention behind launching these canteens is to tackle hunger in urban areas. 
• The canteens will offer breakfast, lunch and dinner at Rs 5 a meal.

Banking, Business & Economic Affairs

• NABARD is celebrating it's 36th Foundation Day today. 
• NABARD : National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development
• NABARD is an apex development bank in India having headquarters based in Mumbai.
• It was established on 12 July 1982.
• NABARD Chairman : Dr. Harsh Kumar Bhanwal
• India today formally joined the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). 
• With this India became 69th member of the London-based multilateral lender. 
• Important Details about EBRD :
• Founded in : 1991
• Location : London
• President : Sir Suma Chakrabarti
• Airtel Payments Bank today received the requisite approvals from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to resume taking new customers. 
• The payments bank has also been permitted by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) to resume adding new customers using Aadhaar based eKYC. 
• Note : Earlier Airtel was accused of using Aadhaar-eKYC based process to open payments bank accounts of subscribers without their consent.
• Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries Limited crossed the $100-billion market cap mark today.
• With this, the company will join with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) as the only two $100-billion companies in India. 
• Kylie Cosmetics' 20-year-old Founder Kylie Jenner, with a net worth of $900 million, became the youngest member in Forbes list of America's richest self-made women 2018 released today. 
• Roofing supply company ABC Supply's Diane Hendricks topped the list with $4.9 billion.
• Two Indian-origin women have been featured in the list. They are :
• Computer networking company Arista Networks CEO Jayshree Ullal is ranked 18th with a fortune of $1.3 billion.
• IT consulting firm Syntel Co-Founder Neerja Sethi was ranked 21st with $1-billion fortune. 
• Note : With Kylie will beat Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg as the world's youngest self-made billionaire.
• Zuckerberg, who became the world's youngest billionaire at 23, is currently the world's 5th richest with $76.8 billion wealth.
• According to updated World Bank figures on GDP of countries for 2017, India has become world’s sixth-biggest economy surpassing France to seventh place. 
• India’s gross domestic product (GDP) amounted to $2.597 trillion at the end of 2017, as against $2.582 trillion for France.
• Top 5 biggest economies : 
• United States (US $19.39 trillion)
• China (US $12.23 trillion) 
• Japan (US $4.87 trillion) 
• Germany (US $3.67 trillion) 
• Britain (US $2.622 trillion)

Awards & Honors

• Dr Ravi Mehrotra CBE, Chairman of Foresight Group International Ltd., was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award by Mr Chris Hayman (Chairman, Seatrade) at the Seatrade 30th Anniversary Award Ceremony held at the Landmark, London on June 29th.
• This award recognises recipients who have made a significant and lasting contribution to shipping and the maritime industry.

MOUs & Agreements

• India and United Kingdom has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on cooperation in the sphere of Law & Justice and establishing Joint Consultative Committee. 
• The MoU was signed by Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and UK’s Secretary of State for Justice David Gauke in London.

Science & Technology

• India’s Department of Telecommunications has approved Net Neutrality Rules that ban blocking, throttling, and zero-rating internet data, with some exceptions.
• With this, access to internet will remain unrestricted and non-discriminatory.
• What is Net Neutrality ?
• Net neutrality implies that telecom service providers must treat all internet traffic equally, without any regard to the type, origin or destination of the content. 
• No internet access service provider can block, degrade, slow down or grant preferential speeds to particular content.
• Indian state-owned telecommunications company Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) has became the country's first telephone network to launch 'internet telephony' service, which makes landline work like mobile. 
• BSNL users will be able to call on any network's number by installing BSNL's app 'Wings' on their devices including smartphone, tablet or laptop. 
• Until now, phone calls on mobile apps were possible only within users of a particular app.

New Appointments

• Former Google artificial intelligence (AI) chief John Giannandrea has been appointed as Apple's Chief of Machine Learning and AI Strategy.
• In his new role, he will be overseeing the strategy for AI and machine learning (ML), and the development of Core ML and Apple's digital assistant Siri. 
• US President Donald Trump today appointed Brett Kavanaugh as the new Judge of Supreme Court. 
• He will replace Justice Anthony Kennedy.
• This move ends the hopes of Indian Americans that Amul Thapar would become the first judge from the community to make it to the top court.

Books & Authorsnabar

• The Vice President of India, M. Venkaiah Naidu today released a book titled ‘Two Classical Plays from India’.
• This book is an English translation of Hindi plays written by well-known playwright D.P. Sinha.

Sports Current Affairs

• The Mission Olympic Cell (MOC) of Union Ministry of Sports and Youth Affairs has included entire Men’s Hockey team of India under the Target Olympic Podium Scheme (TOPS). 
• This is first instance that entire team has been made beneficiary of the scheme as earlier only individual athletes from different sports were included as beneficiaries of the scheme.
• TOPS aims at identifying and supporting potential medal prospects for upcoming Olympic Games. 
• This scheme provides selected sportspersons customized training at institutes having world class facilities along with other necessary support