Daily GK Update : 24th June 2017

Honors & Awards

1. West Bengal wins prestigious UN Public Service Award

• Chief Minister ‘Mamata Banerjee’ has received the ‘2017 UN Public Service Award’ at a ceremony held in The Hague, Netherlands on behalf of her state govt.
• The award has been given for the 'Kanyashree Prakalpa'.
• Department of Women Development and Social Welfare (DWD&SW), Government of West Bengal has designed the ‘Kanyashree Prakalpa’, a conditional cash transfer scheme with the aim of improving the status and well-being of the girl child in West Bengal by incentivizing schooling of all teenage girls and delaying their marriages until the age of 18 years.
• The West Bengal government was among the 12 institutions from 11 countries that were recognized by the world body on UN Public Service Day.

Note:

• The UN Public Service Awards are given by the world body to institutions from across the world for their innovation and excellence in providing public services.
• It highlights the pivotal role of public services in the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

International Affairs 

2. India & Russia agree to roadmap for development of defense cooperation

• India and Russia have agreed to a roadmap for the development of bilateral defense cooperation at the meeting of the India-Russia Inter-Governmental Commission on Military-Technical Cooperation in Moscow.
• The 17th meeting held under the Co-Chairmanship of the Defence Minister Arun Jaitley (India) and the Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu (Russia).
• The roadmap includes specific activities to be concluded by both sides and aims to enhance cooperation in the field of political and military dialogue, exercises, exchange of visits, military cooperation and training of military personnel.

National Affairs

3. Govt. launches portal on weather information

• The Union Minister of State (IC) Shri Piyush Goyal has launched Weather Portal for Power Sector in association with POSOCO and IMD at the meeting of the Forum of Regulators in New Delhi.
• The portal provides regional weather information to help & manage power distribution for the current day and up to next 7 days.
• The weather information on the portal will also help in better planning for infrastructure availability to ensure cost effective and reliable supply.

4. Maharashtra government to launch ‘My Plant’ mobile app on tree plantation

• Maharashtra Forest Minister ‘Sudhir Mungantiwar’ has announced to launch (on 1^st July) a mobile app named 'My Plant', which would help in recording data about tree plantations in the state.
• Using this app, people and organizations can feed the data about the saplings they have planted with the Forest Department.
• It would help it in creating a database of trees.

Note:

•  The Forest Department has set a target of planting four crore saplings through public participation between 1^st to 7^th

5. Commemorative postage stamp on 50 years of Passports Act released

• The Union ministers Sushma Swaraj and Manoj Sinha unveiled commemorative postage stamp to mark the completion of 50 years of the Passports Act-1967.
• The passport rules have been reformed in the recent past and efforts are being to provide the passport to the citizens at the earliest and at his/her door steps.
• Now, No one should have to travel more than 50 kilometers to get their passport.

6. Maharashtra govt enters into agreement with Ola for skill development

• The Maharashtra govt. entered into an agreement with cab aggregator ‘Ola’ to train 20,000 youth to become micro-entrepreneurs in the field of passenger transport in the next five years.
• The state govt intends to develop skills of youth and create jobs and through the Pramod Mahajan Kaushalya Vikas Yojana, youth in different sectors are being trained to become entrepreneurs.

7. EC disqualifies Narottam Mishra for submitting wrong expenditure accounts in polls

• Election Commission (EC) has disqualified Madhya Pradesh Minister Narottam Mishra for submitting wrong expenditure accounts in the 2008 poll (Datia Assembly constituency).
• Mishra has also been debarred from contesting poll for three years.
• Earlier, he had allegedly published paid news in various newspapers ahead of 2008 Assembly elections without accounting for that expense.

8. Venkaiah Naidu presents 100 volumes of CWMG to Sabarmati Ashram

• The Union Minister ‘Venkaiah Naidu’ has presented the 100 volumes of The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi(CWMG) published by the Publications Division to Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad.
• To ensure that Gandhian thoughts reach the new generation readers, all these restored editions have also been made available as e-Books, and are available for online sale.
• The Publications Division is working in coordination with Gandhian institutions to bring out restored editions of heritage books on Mahatma Gandhi.

Banking & Finance

9. Govt. asks banks to deposit junked notes at RBI by July 20

• The government has permitted banks and post offices to deposit junked Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes with the Reserve Bank by 20^th July this year.
• This is the second window (earlier till 31^st Dec) the govt. has provided to banks, post offices and cooperative banks for depositing the junked notes with RBI.
• They should get the exchange value by credit to the account of such subject to the satisfaction of the RBI of the conditions specified.

Note:

• They should also cite valid reasons for non-deposit of the specified bank notes within the period.

 10. RBI amends Banking Ombudsman Scheme

• The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has extended the scope of Banking Ombudsman Scheme,under which banks could be penalized for miss-selling third-party products like insurance and mutual funds via mobile or electronic banking.
• Now, a customer would also be able to lodge a complaint against the bank for its non-adherence to RBI instructions in India.
• As per the amendment, the pecuniary authority of the Banking Ombudsman to pass an award has been doubled to 20 lakh rupees.

Note:

• ‘Banking Ombudsman’ is a quasi-judicial authority functioning under the Banking Ombudsman Scheme, 2006.
• The authority was created to enable resolution of complaints of customers of banks relating to services rendered by the lenders.

"Thought of the Day"

“ People will never define you for how many times you fall but how many times that you stand up.”

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