International Organizations, Defence, Books & Authors, World History

Notes:
Pinaka is a multi-barrel rocket launcher (MBRL) developed by the Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO) for the Indian Army. The DRDO began developing the Pinaka in the late 1980s as an alternative to Russian-made systems. The Pinaka can fire 12 rockets and is designed to engage targets at a range of up to 40 km. It was used extensively by the Army during the Kargil War.
The Pinaka is named after “Pinaka”, the bow of Lord Shiva.

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The World Bank’s headquarters are in Washington, D.C. It is the largest development bank in the world and works through the World Bank Group, whose original institution, the IBRD, was established at the 1944 Bretton Woods Conference. The institution is closely associated with global development finance, but its main office has remained in Washington, D.C.

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The Indian Army Day is celebrated on 15 January every year in India. It is celebrated in recognition of Lieutenant General K. M. Cariappa who took over as the first Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Army from General Sir Francis Butcher, the last British Commander-in-Chief of India, on January 15, 1949.

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“A Brief History of Time” is a book written by physicist Stephen Hawking. It was first published in 1988, and it covers a wide range of topics in cosmology and theoretical physics. The book became a bestseller and has been translated into over 40 languages.

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The Group of 77 (G-77) was established on 15 June 1964 by seventy-seven developing countries signatories of the “Joint Declaration of the Seventy-Seven Countries” issued at the end of the first session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in Geneva.

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“Mein Kampf” was written by Adolf Hitler, the leader of Nazi Germany. The book’s title translates to “My Struggle” in English, and it served as Hitler’s autobiographical manifesto and political ideology. Hitler wrote this two-volume work while he was in prison in the early 1920s, and it outlines his beliefs, goals, and views on various subjects, including his virulent anti-Semitism, Aryan supremacy, and his vision for a totalitarian state.

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SAARC Charter of Democracy was adopted at Dhaka. SAARC headquarters is at Kathmandu,Nepal.

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The proposal to celebrate Gandhi’s birth anniversary as International Day of Non-Violence was taken to UN by Iranian Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi. United Nations General Assembly voted to establish 2 October as the International Day of Non-Violence in 2007.

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The 40+9 Recommendations are related to the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). The FATF is an intergovernmental body that sets international standards to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing. The 40+9 Recommendations are the international standards for combating these illegal activities.
The FATF first issued its Forty Recommendations in 1990. In 2004, the FATF published the Ninth Special Recommendations (SR). These recommendations further strengthened the international standards. In February 2012, the FATF revised the 40 and IX Recommendations. The revised recommendations integrated the SR on terrorist financing with measures against money laundering. The revised recommendations covered issues such as the financing of weapons of mass destruction.
The FATF Recommendations are not binding in the way a law or contract would be.