Current Affairs Questions & Answers - June 30, 2017

ANSWER: Thomas Cook India Group

Explanation:
Thomas Cook India Group, the holding company of Fairfax in India, has acquired five destination management companies of Kuoni Group for ₹125 crore.

The acquisition will deliver greater synergies and growth opportunities across inbound, outbound, MICE and corporate travel businesses.

In April, the company had entered into an agreement with Kuoni to acquire these businesses located in Asia, Australia, Middle East, Africa and Americas and the deal closed on June 29, 2017.

The acquisition will enable Thomas Cook India Group to expand its global footprint to 21 countries in 4 continents.

These companies include Asian Trails in Asia Pacific, Allied T Pro in North America, Desert Adventures in Middle East, ATM in Australia and Private Safaris across Southern and Eastern Africa.

With the addition of 17 new countries through the acquisition, Thomas Cook India Group’s travel business network had expanded significantly adding 1,000 crore to the company’s top line and ₹25 crore to profit before tax (PBT).

Prior to this acquisition, the Group’s Thomas Cook (India), SOTC Travel, TCI-SITA and Kuoni Hong Kong had a network spanning 4 countries which include India, Sri Lanka, Mauritius and Hong Kong.

Post acquisition, The Thomas Cook India Group’s employee strength has gone up to 6,500 people in 21 countries. It has a combined revenue of ₹8,700 crore.

The acquisition of a significant part of Kuoni’s Global Destination Management network represents an important milestone for a rapidly growing Thomas Cook India Group.

ANSWER: Ahmedabad

Explanation:
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has inaugurated the centenary celebrations of Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad.

The Prime Minister has also released the coin and postal stamp in the honour of Shrimad Rajchandraji on his 150th birth anniversary at Abhay Ghat.

Shrimad Rajchandraji was the guru to Mahatma Gandhi

Sabarmati Ashram: Know More

- Sabarmati Ashram otherwise called as Gandhi Ashram, Harijan Ashram, or Satyagraha Ashram is located on the banks of the River Sabarmati.

- Sabarmati Ashram served as one of the residences of Mahatma Gandhi for twelve long years. The ashram has been declared as a national monument by the Indian government.

- Gandhiji started the Dandi march also called as Salt Satyagraha from Sabarmati Ashram on 12 March 1930.

Shrimad Rajchandraji: Know More

- Shrimad Rajchandra is a Jain poet, philosopher, scholar and reformer born in the year 1867 in Vavania near Morbi.

- His mother was a Jain and father a Vaishnava Hindu.

- He was the spiritual guide to Mahatma Gandhi. He is known for his teachings on Jainism.

- He has written a large number of letters and commentaries and also translated some religious texts. He was known for performing Avdhan, a memory retention and recollection test which gained him popularity.

ANSWER: NALSA

Explanation:
NALSA has launched a web application for free Legal Services to Prisoners at the conference held at Indian Law Institute, New Delhi.

The Conference saw the participation of Member Secretaries and administrative officers of 18 State Legal Services Authorities.

The Legal Services Management System has been developed by the National Informatics Centre (NIC).

The State Legal Services Authorities and District Legal Services Authorities will feed into the web application the data for each individual prison inmate in the jails within their jurisdiction.

The feeds will have details regarding the representation of prisoners through a counsel in the court.

The software will also help in generating reports showing the total number of inmates, the number of inmates unrepresented, the number of inmates represented by legal services lawyers and the number of inmates represented by private lawyers.

All this information can be generated State wise, District wise and also with respect to each jail.

The software is also capable of generating information with regard to prisoners eligible for bail under Section 436-A Cr. P.C.

Importance of the App

• The web application will help in making the legal services system more transparent.
• It would be useful for all the concerned authorities to monitor the grant of legal aid to the prisoners to make sure that all prisoners are represented right from their first day in the court.

NALSA: Know More


• NALSA provides for free legal aid inter-alia to all persons in custody.
• It has been constituted under the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987.
• It provides services of free legal aid in civil and criminal matters for the poor and marginalised people who cannot afford the services of a lawyer in any court or tribunal.
• Its aim is to ensure that opportunities for securing justice are not denied to any citizen by reasons of economic or other disabilities.
• NALSA also identifies specific categories of marginalised and excluded groups and formulates various schemes for implementation of legal service programmes.
• It also organises Lok Adalats for amicable settlement of disputes.

ANSWER: Krishna R Urs

Explanation:
U.S. President Donald Trump has appointed an Indian-American named Krishna R Urs as the new US Ambassador to Peru.

Krishna R Urs is a career service American diplomat who has served at seven US embassies as well in several senior leadership positions in Washington, DC.

At present, he is serving as Charge d’ Affaires of the US Embassy in Madrid, Spain.

Earlier, he has also served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Transportation Affairs and Chief US Government Aviation Negotiator at the Department of State (2010 to 2014)

Krishna R Urs has specialisation in economic issues and has extensive policy experience in the Andean region of South America.

He had earned his MS from the University of Texas and a BS from Georgetown University.

ANSWER: Kerala

Explanation:
Loknath Behera was on 28 June 2017 appointed as the Director General of Police (DGP) of Kerala as incumbent TP Senkumar will retire as the state DGP on 30 June 2017.

Behera’s appointment as state police chief was confirmed by the Pinarayi Vijayan-led Kerala government after the cabinet meeting.

Behera is currently serving as the Director of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau.

He is a 1985 batch Kerala cadre IPS officer.

In May 2017, TP Senkumar was reinstated as DGP of Kerala after an 11-month legal battle, when the Supreme Court directed the Vijayan government to post him back as chief.

Kerala Government had removed and transferred TP Senkumar by citing his ineffective performance due to the delay in investigation in the Jisha murder case and the Puttingal fire tragedy.

ANSWER: Sharjah

Explanation:
UNESCO has named Sharjah as the World Book Capital for 2019. Sharjah was chosen for its efforts to make books accessible to its entire population.

Sharjah was selected to underline the efforts taken by it to make books accessible for reading to as many people as possible, especially the marginalised populations.

It has followed an innovative and inclusive community-focused activity programme to engage people, in particular, the very large migrant population.

Sharjah is the 19th city to be named as World Book Capital by the UNESCO. The earlier cities which were named as World Book Capital are: Madrid (2001), Alexandria (2002), New Delhi (2003), Antwerp (2004), Montreal (2005), Turin (2006), Bogota (2007), Amsterdam (2008), Beirut (2009), Ljubljana (2010), Buenos Aires (2011), Yerevan (2012), Bangkok (2013), Port Harcourt (2014), Incheon (2015), Wroclaw (2016), Conakry (2017) and Athens (2018).

Sharjah has become the first among the Gulf Cooperation Council and third in the Arab world and the Middle East to receive this prestigious recognition.

The GCC countries include Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

Earlier, it has received various accolades like Capital of Arab Culture (1998), Capital of Islamic Culture (2014), and Capital of Arab Tourism (2015) and so on.

World Book Capital City: Know More

• UNESCO has been annually designating a city as World Book Capital City beginning with the designation of Madrid as World Book Capital City in 2001.
• For designating a city, UNESCO invites the International Publishers Association, the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, and the International Booksellers Federation to nominate and take part in deciding the World Book Capital.
• The designation of a city does not include any financial prize.
• It acknowledges the programmes followed by the city dedicated to books and reading.

ANSWER: Both of the above

Explanation:
The words Chana and Chana Dal were on 27 June 2017 added to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). ‘Chana’ means Chickpeas and ‘Chana Dal’ stands for split chickpea lentils.

With this, these Indian food essentials Chickpeas (chana) and the split chickpea lentils (chana dal) join the vast list of more than 600 other words and phrases that have been included in its quarterly update of the Oxford English Dictionary.

The other prominent new entries in the OED include a batch of tennis-related words like “Forced Error”.

A slang ‘Bagel’ has also been added which refers to a score in a set of six games to love, as there is similarity of the numeral zero to the shape of a bagel.

A new sense of ‘woke’, which was shortlisted for ‘Word of the Year’, has also been added. It means alert to racial or social discrimination and injustice.

OED update also includes a new related sense of the verb ‘academise’ which means to convert a school into such an academy.

The latest update also included the word ‘footless’ which means footless drunk, an alternative to the more familiar ‘legless’.

‘To have a canary’ or ‘to lose one’s composure’ have also found their way into the OED’s new list of words.

A new usage of ‘thing’ has also been added into the new list. This new sense of ‘thing’ is often used in questions conveying surprise or doubt, such as ‘how can that be a thing?’

In the scientific words, ‘Zyzzyva+’ has become the latest entry in the dictionary. It means a set of tropical weevils native to South America and typically found on or near palm trees.

Other remarkable entries in the latest update are swimmer (sperm) and son of a bachelor.

In 2016, Oxford Dictionary announced ‘post- truth’ as its Word of the Year.

Since then, the huge increase in usage of the words has motivated lexicographers to add them to the latest edition of ‘OED’.

ANSWER: CIL

Explanation:
A new draft of a New Energy Policy (NEP) prepared by Union Government’s policy think-tank, NITI Aayog, says that India should split the seven units of state-controlled Coal India Limited (CIL) into independent companies.

This action will help the firm to be more competitive.

About 70 percent of India’s power generation is fired by coal.

The country is the world’s third-largest producer and third-biggest importer of coal, which the government wants to change by boosting local coal production.

Fresh coal production should come from private sector mines, the government think-tank NITI Aayog said, adding that the move called for reforms in allocating coal blocks to independent companies specialised in coal mining.

Attempts to break up the world’s biggest coal miner could expect resistance from powerful unions representing the firm’s more than 350000 employees.

The government backed down from a similar proposal in the face of union protests in 2014. One of the unions, which is close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party, is against the move and says it, has the support of about half of Coal India’s workers.

CIL: Know More

• Coal India, the country’s second-biggest employer, is often criticised for being bloated and inefficient. Its output-per-man shift is estimated at one-eighth of Peabody Energy, the world’s largest private coal producer.
• The policy states that Coal India Ltd (CIL) is expected to remain the principal vehicle of coal production in the country in the immediate future.
• But it says that it will have to strive hard to achieve the target of 1 billion tonne production by 2019. However, with subdued demand for coal, we may not require the production level envisaged above.
• A careful assessment of demand for coal-based power is needed so that the over $1 billion annual investment being made by CIL, in raising its production capacity is not left stranded.