Daily Current Affairs, 26th June 2019

1) Day of the Seafarer: 25 June

•The International Maritime Organization observes 25 June as the Day of the Seafarer. This year the day will be celebrated to highlight the opportunities for women in a wide range of maritime careers and professions, but the focus will be very firmly on one aspect of that community i.e. seafarers.

2) International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking: 26 June

•The United Nations observe 26 June as the International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking.

•The day is celebrated by the United Nations as an expression of its determination to strengthen action and cooperation to achieve the goal of an international society free of drug abuse.

•Theme: Health for Justice, Justice for Health.

3) Communication gadgets to fishing vessels

•The Indian Space Research Organisation has distributed 250 NavIC Messaging Receivers to fishermen of Kerala on a trial basis.

•The device will provide Emergency Warning Alerts like cyclone, high waves and Tsunami and also provides information on Potential Fishing Zone and International boundary crossing based on the position information from NavIC.

4) Ann Sarnoff becomes the first female CEO of Warner Bros

•WarnerMedia, part of AT&T Inc, has appointed Ann Sarnoff as the chief executive officer of Warner Bros.

•Ann Sarnoff has become the first female CEO of Warner Bros. She will be replacing Kevin Tsujihara.

5) K Natarajan to be the new director general of Indian Coast Guard

•Krishnaswamy Natarajan has been appointed as the next director general of Indian Coast Guard. He will replace the incumbent Rajendra Singh who is retiring after three and a half years of illustrious service.



•K. Natarajan joined the Coast Guard on January 18, 1984, and holds a Masters Degree in Defence and Strategic Studies from Madras University.

6) Kerala tops health rankings: NITI Aayog report

•Kerala has topped in NITI Aayog’s Health Index followed by Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra. Also, Haryana, Rajasthan and Jharkhand showed the maximum improvement of health outcomes from base to reference year.

•The health index has been developed by NITI Aayog, with technical assistance from the World Bank, in consultation with the ministry of health and family welfare.

•The report ranks the states and Union territories innovatively on their year-on-year incremental change in health outcomes, as well as, their overall performance with respect to each other.

7) Telangana hosts International Seed Testing Association (ISTA) congress

•Telangana hosts 32nd edition of the International Seed Testing Association congress. This is the first edition of ISTA congress to be held in Asia.

•Scientists, policy makers, researchers and members of public and private seed industry from over 80 countries are participating in the congress.

•The eight-day congress would have the main event for three days and technical committee meetings/sessions would be held over the next five days.

8) RBI’s committee recommendations for MSME sector

 

RBI’s U.K. Sinha led committee give the following recommendations for MSME sector:

•The creation of a distressed asset fund, with a corpus of Rs 5,000 crore, structured to assist MSME units in clusters.

•The formation of a government sponsored Fund of Funds of Rs 10,000 crore to support venture capital and private equity firms investing in MSMEs.

•SIDBI should deepen credit markets for MSMEs in underserved districts and regions.

•SIDBI should develop additional instruments for debt and equity to crystallize new sources of funding for MSMEs and MSME lenders.

•The PSBLoansIn59Minutes.com portal should cater to new entrepreneurs, who lacks information like GSTIN, income-tax returns and bank statement

•The threshold of loan should be enhanced up to Rs 5 crore.

•The introduction of adjusted priority sector lending guidelines for banks to specialize in lending to a specific sector, doubling the collateral free loan limit to Rs 20 lakh and providing insurance coverage to MSME employees by the government.

9) 31.4% of Indian children will be stunted by 2022: Food and Nutrition Security Report

•Recently released Food and Nutrition Security Report stated that 31.4% of Indian children will be stunted by 2022. Which means one in every three Indian childrenunder five years will be stunted by 2022.

•In States like Bihar (48%) and Uttar Pradesh (46%), almost one in two children are stunted, while it is only one in five children in Kerala and Goa (20% each).

•The report is prepared by the UN World Food Programme in collaboration with the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation.

10) Beekeeping Development Committee Report

The Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister set up a Beekeeping Development Committee under the Chairmanship of Bibek Debroy to identify ways of advancing beekeeping in India. Some of the recommendations in the report include:

•Recognizing honeybees as inputs to agriculture and considering landless beekeepers as farmers.

•Institutionalizing the National Bee Board and rename it as the Honey and Pollinators Board of India.

•Plantation of bee friendly flora at appropriate places and engaging women self help groups in managing such plantations.

•Training and development of beekeepers by state governments.

•Development of national and regional infrastructure for storage, processing and marketing of honey and other bee products.

•Simplifying procedures and specifying clear standards for ease of exporting honey and other bee products.