GK & Current Affairs: August 7-9, 2015

Kannada
The Kannada poet and freedom fighter Mr. Kayyara Kinhanna Rai (101) passed away at Badiyadkka in Kasaragod district, Kerala. The excerpts of his works are Shreemukha, Aikyagana, Punarnava, Chethana, Malayala Sahitya Charithre, Sahithya Drusht, etc.

Maharashtra
The global electronics manufacturing giant, Taiwan-based Foxconn Technology Group signed an MoU with the state government of Maharashtra, to set up its manufacturing facility in the state.The company will invest $5 billion in the next five years. At present, Foxconn makes devices for Apple, Huawei, Xiaomi, Black Berry, Kindle e-reader and Motorola.

Flamingo sanctuary
The Maharashtra government has declared the northern part of Thane Creek as a flamingo sanctuary under Section 18 of the Wildlife (Protection Act), 1972. This will be the state’s second marine sanctuary after Malvan. The ‘Mumbai Mangrove Conservation Unit’ under the Mangrove Cell will be responsible for the management of the Sanctuary. The area spreads around 1,690 hectares will includes 896 hectares of mangroves and 794 hectares of adjacent water body and is located on the western bank, between the Airoli and Vashi bridges that connect Mumbai with Navi Mumbai.

Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference
India has decided to boycott 61st Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference (CPU) to be held in Islamabad next month in protest against Pakistan not inviting the Speaker of Jammu and Kashmir Assembly.

Singrauli district
Recently, the Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) commissioned the 500 MW Unit-13 of Vindhyachal Super Thermal Power Station (STPS), Stage-V of National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) in Vindhyanagar in Singrauli district of Madhya Pradesh.

Nai Manzil
The Union Minority Affairs Minister Dr. Najma Heptullah has launched an ambitious scheme “Nai Manzil” for minorities. The scheme seeks to bridge the academic and skill development gaps between madrassas passouts and their mainstream counterparts. The scheme will be beneficial for minority dominated areas specially, Bihar and UP where most of the minority concentrated blocks are in these two states. As per Section 2 (c) of the National Commission for Minorities Act, 1992, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists, Zoroastrians (Parsis) and Jains are notified as minority communities in India.

Ministry of Urban Development
The Swachh Bharat Ranking of 476 cities has released by the Ministry of Urban Development. As per the performance, the top 3 ranked cities of India are Mysore, Thiruchirapalli (Tamil Nadu), and Navi Mumbai (Maharashtra). Among state capitals, Bengaluru comes first (number 7 in the list of all cities) and Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala was on second position (number 8 among all cities) while Patna scored the least at rank 429. The survey was conducted during 2014-15 in all the 476 Class-1 cities in 31 States and Union Territories, each with a population of above one lakh. It was based on assessing total sanitation practices covering a set of parameters viz. the extent of open defecation, solid waste management, septage management, waste water treatment, drinking water quality, surface water quality of water bodies and mortality due to water born diseases, etc. The survey was commissioned by the Ministry of Urban Development as required under the National Sanitation Policy of 2008.

Lukoskin
The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has developed a poly-herbal medicine “Lukoskin” for the treatment of leucoderma (white patches on skin). The ointment has seven ingredients of plants having properties viz. skin photo sensitizer, anti-blister, anti- irritation, anti-septic, wound healing and copper supplementing properties. The oral dose has been formulated to check the emergence of new spots. Leucoderma is also known as Vitiligo.

Larsen and Toubro
The Larsen and Toubro (L&T) has become the first Indian private firm to get license from Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) to manufacture Lakshya, a pilotless target aircraft. L & T will get the technology for its digital version that to be sold to the armed forces. The digital version of Lakshya is advanced version of Lakshya-1 whose flight path can be pre-programmed. Lakshya is a pilotless target aircraft, developed by DRDO.

Tripura
As per section 302 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), the death penalty is given by courts. On this issue, the Tripura Legislative Assembly passed resolution on abolishing death penalty and they send a proposal to the Government of India (GoI) to bring necessary amendments in this Act and provide life imprisonment up to death in case of heinous crimes.