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Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 6 July 2015

Current Affairs for IAS Exams – 6 July 2015

::National ::

PM Modi’s new initiative ‘Digital India With Laado’ campaign

After its ‘Beti Bachao-Selfie Banao’ initiative caught Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s attention prompting him to announce ‘Selfie with Daughter,’ the Bibipur Panchayat on Sunday launched “Digital India with Laado”, a campaign to replace names of family-heads in the nameplates with their daughter’s moniker.
Under the new campaign, representatives of village panchayat are visiting every household and putting up nameplates bearing the name and email id of the daughter of the house along with the tagline “Digital India With Laado.”
The representatives would visit every home in Jind and convince people to replace names of the head of the house with that of their daughters’, said panchayat sarpanch Sunil Jaglan, who started the campaign by replacing his name with his daughter’s.

Pong Dam home to 12,314 bird species, reveals summer surveyScience

A new survey conducted at Pong Dam has revealed that as many as 12,314 different species of bird find home within the Pong Dam Lake Wildlife Sanctuary. The summer avian count was held on 23 June.
Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (Wildlife-cum-Chief Wild life warden), J.S. Walia, explained that for the survey entire region was divided into 15 blocks with exercise and 40 persons participated in the exercise. People worked in groups consisting of 2-4 members and they traversed every area region of the Sanctuary including land and shores to identify the species living there.
Dominant species observed and counted were the Cattle Egret (3,348), Little Cormorant (2,003), Small Pratincole (1,377), Little Egret (1,305), Red Wattle Lapwing (1,024).
Other important species found breeding in the area and recorded in the lake were the Little Tern (194), Purple Heron (173), Yellow Wattle Lapwing (55), Gull billed Tern (46) and the Great Thick knee (43).
The Pong Dam Lake Wildlife Sanctuary is located in Kangra district and is among 25 wetland sites in India.
Recently it has become the favorite spots for migrant birds coming from Siberia and Central Asia. People also call Pong Dam as “Bird Paradise”.

Mobile cross landlines in rural India (Register and Login to read Full News..)

::International ::

NASA Unveils First Plane to Fly on Mars

NASA has unveiled a boomerang-shaped aircraft that could be the first to take flight on Mars to look for potential landing sites for future manned mission to the red planet.
A prototype of the Preliminary Research Aerodynamic Design to Land on Mars, or Prandtl-m, which is a flying wing aircraft with a twist, is planned to be ready for launch from a high altitude balloon later this year, NASA said.
The Prandtl-m will be released at about at 100,000 feet altitude, which will simulate the flight conditions of the Martian atmosphere, said Al Bowers, NASA Armstrong chief scientist and Prandtl-m programme manager.
The tests could validate how the aircraft works, leading to modifications that will allow it to fold and deploy from a 3U CubeSat in the aeroshell of a future Mars rover.
A CubeSat is a miniature satellite used for space research that is usually about four inches in each dimension, a 3U is three of those stacked together..
Once in the Martian atmosphere, the Prandtl-m would emerge from its host, deploy and begin its mission.

Greece says 'No' to bailout referendum

Voters in cash-strapped Greece overwhelmingly rejected international creditors' tough bailout terms on Sunday, but Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras insisted the result does not mean a "rupture" with Europe despite fears it will end in a "Grexit" from the eurozone.
With the final tally showing the 'No' vote winning by more than 61%, the historic referendum represented a victory for the radical left prime, who said his negotiating position to secure a new debt deal was now greatly bolstered.
As eurozone leaders scrambled to work out their response, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande called a European summit for Tuesday and declared that the Greeks' decision must"be respected".
Thousands of pro-government supporters cheered and hugged each other in central Athens in celebration, although some other Greeks expressed pessimism that Tsipras would be able to deliver on his promises.
Figures released by the interior ministry showed the final tally at 61.31% voting 'No' and 38.69% voting 'Yes'. Participation stood at 62.5%.
Now, Europe faces a near impossible choice between giving debt-laden Greece a chance or pushing it out of the euro and risking global turmoil, analysts said.
European leaders reacted with a mix of dismay and caution to the resounding election results, which also sent the battered single currency plummeting.
In Asian trade, the euro help up against the dollar after dropping in the immediate wake of the vote, changing hands at $1.1024 to claw back some of the losses it suffered in New York electronic trade where it fell at one point to $1.0987.
Tsipras said the creditors -- the ECB, the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) -- would now finally have to talk about restructuring the massive, 240-billion-euro ($267 billion) debt Greece owes them.

Japan joins US-Australia war games amid China tensions (Register and Login to read Full News..)

::Miscellaneous ::

Full findings of UNICEF survey yet to be released

The Ministry of Women and Child Development (WCD) has not published the full findings of a UNICEF-supported Rapid Survey of Children (RSOC) even after one year of its completion.
The original survey reportedly showed that child immunisation coverage in Gujarat dipped under the Narendra Modi government, but the government has contested the findings.
The delay in release has resulted in a political storm, with Ahmed Patel, political secretary to Congress president Sonia Gandhi, shooting off a letter to Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi raising uncomfortable questions on exclusion of survey data on Gujarat.

Key findings

UNICEF’s Head of Nutrition Saba Mebrahtu said that though the survey had hogged attention for only its immunisation-related findings, there was much in it to celebrate as well. “There has been a substantial reduction in child under nutrition by 9 percentage points compared to the findings of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) 3 in 2005-06.
However, the findings pertaining to teenage girl child nutrition are worrying. “There is very little improvement in nutrition levels of girls in the 15-18 age group since NFHS 3.
While 10 years ago, teenage girl under nutrition level stood at 44.3 per cent, RSOC 2013-14 showed it stands at 44.7,” she said, adding that this lack of improvement is across the board.
Publication of the latest RSOC data is significant as most health policy workers are still depending on the decade-old NFHS 3 survey to design their programmes.

::Sports ::

Double delight for Jamaican sprinters

Jamaican sprinters Asafa Powell and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce made up for the absence of injured Usain Bolt by storming to double 100m glory in the Diamond League meet in Paris on Saturday.
But there was heartbreak for Ethiopian Genzebe Dibaba who narrowly missed out on breaking her older sister Tirunesh’s world record in the women's 5,000m.
Powell held his nerve to power through the line in 9.81 seconds, Frenchman Jimmy Vicaut equalling the European record of 9.86sec in second ahead of American Michael Rodgers (9.99).
American Evan Jager led a strong field of Kenyans into the final bend of the men's 3,000m steeplechase, only to come a cropper on the final hurdle to allow Jairus Kipchoge Birech in a world leading 7:58.83.