18 June 2015 Daily current affairs / GK / GA: Introduction of Bureau of Indian Standards Bill, 2015 in coming session of Parliament approved at Union Cabinet Meeting chaired by PM Narender Modi. Bureau will perform its functions through a Governing Council consisting of President and other members.
Role :
- Mandatory certification regime: Empower government to bring mandatory certification regime for articles, processes or services which it considers necessary.
- Simplified conformity assessment schemes: In order to allow ease of doing business, the bill allows multiple types of simplified assessment schemes. It includes Self Declaration of Conformity (SDOC) against any standard which will give multiple simplified options to manufacturers.
- Mandatory hallmarking: provisions related to compulsory hallmarking of precious metal articles. Strengthening penal provisions: It will help for better and effective compliance of law and enable compounding of offences for violations.
Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) gave its approval for inclusion of Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh in the list of States to be covered under the National Dairy Plan- I (NDP-I).
- It also extended the implementation period for two years up to 2018-19 to achieve key outputs of National Dairy Plan- I.
- Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh are newly formed States which are inhabited by tribal population having substantial milch animal population and have the potential for coverage under NDP-I.
Beno Zephine, 25-year-old from Chennai became the first 100 percent visually challenged person to be inducted into the Indian Foreign Service.
- Former diplomats have hailed the decision to allow 100 per cent visually challenged people into the service.
- She was working as a probationary officer for state bank of India.
10th Navlekhan Award of Bharatiya Jnanpith was awarded to Hindi writers Babusha Kohli and Upasana on 16 June 2015.
Note :
- They were awarded for poemPrem Gilhari Dil Akhrot and novel Ek Zindagi Ek Ek Script Bhar
- The awards ceremony held at India Habitat Centre, New Delhi
Odisha State Co-operative Bank to launch the ‘Bank on Wheels’ to help farmers get loans on their doorstep.
- The Centre has provided assistance of Rs 6 crore, at the rate of Rs 30 lakh for each vehicle, to agriculture department for the scheme under Rashtriya Krishi Bikas Yojana.
- Twenty vans with ATM facility will move around 20 remote and tribal pockets in Keonjhar, Koraput, Kalahandi, Mayurbhanj, Sundargarh and Sambalpur districts for the purpose.
Senior IAS officer G Gurucharan gets additional charge as Director General, Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) for three months.
- Gurucharan is a 1982-batch IAS officer of Karnataka cadre. Presently, he is serving as an Additional Secretary in Department of Food and Public Distribution.
Union Cabinet approved increasing India’s solar power capacity target under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission (JNNSM) to 1 Lakh Mega Watt (MW) by 2022.
- 1 Lakh Mega Watt (MW) target principally will comprise of 40,000 MW from Rooftop and 60,000 MW through Large and Medium Scale Grid Connected Solar Power Projects.
- India will become one of the largest Green Energy producers in the world by surpassing several developed countries after meeting this ambitious target.
Bikhare Khyalat by Prof Abdul Haq was presented to the Vice-President M Hamid Ansari on 18 June 2015.
- The book is an Urdu translation of Mohammed Iqbal’s writing in English tiltedStray Reflections.
- The book contains old jottings based on Iqbal’s impressions of the books he was reading at that time, his thoughts and feelings about the environment in which he lived, and reminiscences of his student days.
Union Government decided to increase the number of workdays under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) from 100 days to 150 days in drought-affected areas of the country.
Note : Earlier in February 2014, previous government led by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the number of workdays under MNREGA was increased from 100 days to 150 days for tribal areas who have received land rights under the Forest Rights Act, 2006.
Veteran leader of Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) Sharad Pawar re-elected as the President of the Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA). In the biennial polls held for the post, Pawar defeated Vijay Patil by 34 votes to retain the president’s post.
Chief Economic Adviser (CEA) led committee to recommend the possible rates of Goods & Services Tax (GST), slated to be introduced from April 1 next year.
- While making recommendations, this Committee would take into account expected levels of growth of economy, different levels of compliance and broadening of tax base under GST.
- The Committee would also analyse the sector-wise and State-wise impact of GST on the economy.
Parliament of Japan (Diet) on 17 June 2015 passed a bill to lower the voting age from 20 to 18.
- The bill that seeks revision of the public office election law was passed by the House of Councilors (upper house) after being approved in the House of Representatives (lower house).
- The legislation will come into effect during the 2016 Upper House Election and will add about 2.4 million new potential voters to Japan’s current voting population of 104 million.
Operation Doga : Foolproof security arrangements made at the venue of the International Yoga Day event on Rajpath this weekend. ‘DOGA’ is a combination of the words, dog and Yoga – in line with the magnitude of the deployment of security dogs for the purpose.
- The ITBP, nominated as the national ‘centre for excellence’ for sniffer and police dogs training, has put on job a special breed of Belgian Shepherd, ‘Malinois’, who gained prominence across the world after they reportedly participated in the strike of the U.S. Navy SEAL commandos on Al-Qaida chief Osama Bin Laden.
