27th May, 2022 Current Affairs
Archana Lakkavajula
NATIONAL
SC appoints 3-member Committee to oversee the functioning of AIFF
- The Supreme Court appointed a three-member Committee of Administrators (CoA) headed by former top court judge A. R. Dave to manage the affairs of the All India Football Federation (AIFF) and adoption of its constitution in line with the National Sports Code and model guidelines.
- The COA (Committee of Administrators) will include two previous members — Dr. SY Qureshi, former Chief Election Commissioner, and Bhaskar Ganguly, former captain of the Indian Football Team, in addition to Retired Justice Dave, according to a bench of Justices DY Chandrachud, Surya Kant, and PS Narasimha.
- The top court stated that the current state of affairs in the AIFF is not conducive to the federation’s legitimate governance. It instructed the CoA to assume control of the AIFF immediately and oversee the AIFF’s approval of the constitution.
Kolkata becomes First Metro City to get its Biodiversity Register
- Kolkata is the first metro city in the country to prepare a detailed register of biodiversity.
- Kolkata Municipal Corporation released the People’s Biodiversity Register (PBR), a document with details about the floral and faunal varieties in the city as well as its land use and human activities.
- The document is prepared by the biodiversity management committee (BMC) of the civic body under the supervision of the state biodiversity board and with help from NGOs. Chandigarh and Indore are other important cities which have prepared the document.
- The 520-page biodiversity register of Kolkata, a copy of which is with The Telegraph, has documented 138 species of trees, 26 types of Chinese vegetables, 33 species of medicinal plants and about 100 other plant species.
- The report also documented around 290 animal species, including about 70 species of butterflies, 47 varieties of fish, 84 varieties of birds and 22 varieties of mammals, based on the data sourced from 144 wards in the city.
- The report covers hotspots such as the East Kolkata Wetlands and Rabindra Sarobar.
INTERNATIONAL
China, Russia veto US led push for more UN sanctions on North Korea over its renewed ballistic missile launches
- China and Russia vetoed a U.S.- led push to impose more United Nations sanctions on North Korea over its renewed ballistic missile launches.
- According to media reports, the remaining 13 council members voted in favor of the U.S. drafted resolution that proposed banning tobacco and oil exports to North Korea.
- The vote came a day after North Korea fired three missiles, including one thought to be its largest inter-continental ballistic missile, following US President Joe Biden's trip to Asia.
- Citing the council's silence on North Korea, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield said, it is time to stop providing tacit permission and to start taking action.
- However, Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said that he did not believe UN action would be very conducive to engagement with North Korea.
- China has also been urging the United States to take action to entice Pyongyang to resume talks that have been stalled since 2019.
- Over the past 16 years, the Security Council has steadily and unanimously, stepped up sanctions to cut off funding for Pyongyang's nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programmed. It last tightened sanctions on Pyongyang in 2017.
Bangladesh to conduct its first digital census from June 15-21
- More than 3.7 lakh enumerators, 64 thousand supervisors and 4,500 officials will conduct the first Digital Census of Bangladesh between the 15th and 21st of June.
- Inaugurating a programme for the training census officials in Dhaka, Finance Minister A. H. M. Mustafa Kamal urged the people to make the 6th Population and Housing Census of the country a success by providing the required information to the enumerators.
- The census activities would be conducted through a web-based integrated census management system with real-time monitoring of the process. The data collected through the census would be kept encrypted to ensure the security of personal information.
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Param Porul supercomputer inaugurated at NIT Tiruchirappalli
- A supercomputer named Param Porul was inaugurated at NIT Tiruchirappalli under National Supercomputing Mission (NSM).
- The NSM is a joint initiative of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and the Department of Science and Technology (DST). Param Porul supercomputing facility is established under phase two of the national supercomputing mission to facilitate computational research.
- The Param Porul is based on direct contact liquid cooling technology to obtain high-power usage effectiveness and thereby reducing the operational cost.
- Multiple applications from various scientific domains such as Weather and Climate, Bioinformatics, Computational Chemistry, Molecular Dynamics, Material Sciences, Computational Fluid Dynamics etc. have been installed on the system for the benefit of researchers.
- The system is equipped with a mix of CPU nodes, GPU nodes, high memory nodes, high throughput storage and high-performance Infiniband interconnect to cater for the computing needs of various scientific and engineering applications.
AWARDS
Indian novel ‘Tomb of Sand’ wins International Booker Prize
- Indian writer Geetanjali Shree and American translator Daisy Rockwell won the International Booker Prize for “Tomb of Sand”.
- Originally written in Hindi, it’s the first book in any Indian language to win the high-profile award, which recognizes fiction from around the world that has been translated into English.
- The 50,000-pound ($63,000) prize money will be split between New Delhi-based Shree and Rockwell, who lives in Vermont.
- “Tomb of Sand” is published in Britain by a small publisher Tilted Axis Press. It was founded by translator Deborah Smith, who won the 2016 International Booker for translating Han Kang’s “The Vegetarian” to publish books from Asia.
SPORTS
IBA Women’s World Boxing Championships: Turkey topped medal tally
- The 12th edition of the 2022 International Boxing Association (IBA) Women’s World Boxing Championship (WWBC) was held at Başakşehir Youth and Sports Facility, Istanbul, Turkey.
- The event saw the participation of 310 Boxers from 73 nations. Belarusian and Russian boxers were not allowed to compete at the event after a ban as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
- India for the first time in the past four years, had won a total medal tally of 3, which includes one Gold and two Bronze.
- The India Boxer Nikhat Zareen( from Nizamabad, Telangana) won the gold in the flyweight (52kg) division with 5-0 points against Thailand’s Jitpong Jutamas. With this win, she became the fifth Indian women boxer to win the World Championship.
- The other two Indian women boxers Manisha Moun (Haryana) and Parveen Hooda (Haryana) had won the bronze medals in the 57kg and 63kg categories respectively.
Books & Authors
Ruskin Bond’s book titled ‘Listen to Your Heart: The London Adventure’ Released
- A new book titled “Listen to Your Heart: The London Adventure” authored by Ruskin Bond, was published by Penguin Random House India (PRHI) on Ruskin Bond’s 88th birthday (19th May 2022).
- Ruskin Bond, India’s famous Children’s book author, was born in Kasauli (Himachal Pradesh) and grew up in Jamnagar (Gujarat), Dehradun (Uttarakhand), New Delhi and Shimla (Himachal Pradesh)
- His latest book, Listen to Your Heart: The London Adventure, was released on his 88th birthday, gives readers a peek into the four years he spent in the Channel Islands and England. The fifth – and final – volume of his memoir, talks about how he muses over his loneliness, switches jobs, falls in love, befriends the ocean and relentlessly chases his big dream of becoming a famous writer.
Published date : 27 May 2022 06:37PM