IMPORTANT CURRENT AFFAIRS OF OCTOBER 3rd, 2017

IMPORTANT CURRENT AFFAIRS OF OCTOBER 3rd, 2017

1.  President Ram Nath Kovind On 3rd October  embarked on a 4-day visit to Djibouti and Ethiopia.

a.  During his visit to the two African nations, the President is expected to sign agreements on institutionalisation of foreign office consultation and greater economic cooperation with Ethiopia.

b.  Important Points to Note :  

    i.    This is his first trip abroad since taking office.

   ii.    The visit will be the first by an Indian President to Ethiopiaafter then President V V Giri's trip in 1972.

2.  A 6-foot-tall statue of Mahatma Gandhiwas unveiled in Wales to mark his 148th birth anniversary. 

a.  The £65,000 (₹56.5 lakh) statue, which is made of Indian bronze, depicts Gandhi holding a stick in one hand and the 'Bhagavad Gita' in the other. 

b.  The 300-kg statue was unveiled by Indian High Commissioner to the UK, YK Sinha.

c.   About Wales :

    i.    Capital : Cardiff

   ii.    Official Languages : Welsh, English

 iii.    Currency : Pound sterling

 iv.    Monarch (Queen) : Elizabeth II

  v.    First Minister (Leader) : Carwyn Jones AM

3.  Aiming at combatting unrealistic body images, the France has introduced a new law mandating all photoshopped commercial photos to carry a warning that they have been altered.

4.  The British city of Oxford has revoked the 'Freedom of Oxford' honour awarded to Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi over her response to the Rohingya crisis. 

a.  The council which granted the honour to Suu Kyi in 1997 for her "struggle for democracy" said it was "no longer appropriate" for her to hold it. 

5.  The Global Wildlife Programme (GWP) Conference was recently held in New Delhi. 

a.  It was jointly hosted by Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC), World Bank and United Nations Development Programme. 

b.  Theme of GWP Conference 2017 : “Peoples’ participation in wildlife conservation”.

6.  Housing 12.77 lakh of the total 33.69 lakh people authorised to carry weapons all over India (as of December 31, 2016) Uttar Pradesh tops the list of states with active gun licenses. 

a.  Jammu & Kashmir and Punjab stood at 2nd and 3rd positions with 3.69 lakh and 3.59 lakh active licenses.

7.  The Karnataka government On 3rd October  launched the ₹302-crore Mathru Poorna scheme.

a.  Aim of this Scheme : To provide free mid-day meals to pregnant and lactating women in rural areas. 

8.  The Union Government had launched SECURE Himalaya, a six-year project to ensure conservation of locally and globally significant biodiversity, land and forest resources in high Himalayan ecosystem spread over four states viz. Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand and Sikkim.

9.  To chalk out future road map for wildlife conservation, the Union Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC) has unveiled the 3rd National Wildlife Action Plan for 2017-2031.

a.  Note : It is third action plan after first released in 1983 to 2001 and second from 2002 to 2016, that had protected area-centric approach to wildlife conservation.

10.President Ram Nath Kovind has appointed 5-member committee to examine sub-categorisation of Other Backward Classes (OBCs). 

a.  The committee has been established under Article 340 of Constitution under which Mandal commission had recommended 27% reservation for socially and educationally backward classes.

b.  The committee will examine extent of inequitable distribution of benefits of reservation among castes included in broad category of OBCs, especially with reference to OBCs included in the Central list.

c.   Head of the Committee : G. Rohini (Retired Chief Justice of Delhi High Court)

11.      US musician Tom Petty (66) passed away.

a.  Petty was best known as the lead singer of Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers, and his hits included American Girl, Breakdown, Free Fallin', Learning to Fly and Refugee.

12.The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is going to start printing redesigned ₹100 currency notes around April next year.

a.  The existing ₹100 notes will be withdrawn gradually and will remain valid even after the new ones come into circulation.  

13.      American scientists Rainer Weiss, Barry C Barish and Kip S Thorne from the LIGO/VIRGO collaboration, which first detected the gravitational waves, have been awarded the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics. 

a.  Predicted by Albert Einstein in 1916, the ripples in space-time created by colliding black holes were first detected in 2015. 

14.The Meenakshi Temple in Tamil Nadu's Madurai has been named the cleanest iconic place in India under the 'Swachhata Hi Seva' programme.

15.      Brenda Hale has been sworn in as the first female President of the UK's Supreme Court. 

a.  Hale, who had earlier served as Supreme Court's first female Justice in 2009, was also the first woman appointed to be a Law Lord in 2004. 

16.      Brigadier (Retd) B.D. Mishra was On 3rd October  sworn in as Governor of Arunachal Pradesh by Gauhati High Court Chief Justice Ajit Singh at the Raj Bhavan.

a.  He took over from Nagaland Governor Padmanabha Balakrishna Acharya, who was holding additional charge of Arunachal Pradesh after V. Shanmuganathan, who was then holding additional charge of the state, resigned on January 26 following charges of inappropriate behaviour against him.