7 july 2015 daily current affairs / GK / GA: Inshore patrol vessel Rani Durgavati inducted into the Coast Guard here on Friday at a ceremony.
- Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief of the Eastern Naval Command, Vice-Admiral Satish Soni, was the chief guest.
- Rani Durgavati, the third in a series of five inshore patrol vessels of the Coast Guard, is named after the legendary Gond Queen who defeated the army of Baz Bahadur of the Mughal Army.
- Hindustan Shipyard Ltd which had built 174 ships and repaired 2,000 vessels across the range, including submarines.
ICRISAT launched the Green Phablet, priced at $300 (about Rs. 18,600), for farmers in Telangana.
- Farmers will be provided with customised tips on their phablet on the kind of agricultural inputs required for their field.
- Based on the specific soil health of their small chunks of lands, scientists at the International Crops Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) and Government of Telangana would send timely messages to the farmers through the phablet.
- The institute would maintain servers to safe keep the information. And even if a user loses his device, he would be able to get back the information in no time.
- ICRISAT Director-General David Bergvinson signed a tripartite agreement with the Departments of Agriculture and Information Technology to collaborate in transforming agriculture using digital technologies.
- Addressing a gathering later, Telangana IT Minister KT Rama Rao said that there was a need to bring down the cost of the device to Rs. 10,000 to make it affordable for farmers.
Skipper Mithali Raj became the first from the country and overall second to reach the 5000-run milestone in one-day internationals scripting a new chapter in the history of Indian women’s cricket.
- Before Mithali, only English woman Charlotte Edwards had completed 5000 runs in ODIs.
- She playedunbeaten knock of 81 in Bengaluru on Monday guiding the team to 8-wicket victory over New Zealand, thereby leveling the five-match series 2-2.
- With the help of her pivotal innings, India chased down the target of 220 only in 44.2 overs.
- Mithali fabulous innings was decorated with 10 well-timed boundaries.
Nine-dash line was in news as the International Criminal Court (ICC) on 7 July 2015 began hearing a case brought by the Philippines against China on territorial claims in the South China Sea.
- Nine-dash line is a demarcation line initially used by China to claim major ports of South China Sea
- The nine-dash line also known as U-shaped line refers to the demarcation line which was initially used by China for their claims of the major port of the South China Sea (SCS).
- Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei claim that they have been bisected by China’s nine-dash line.
- This is the first time that the disputed South China Sea came under international legal scrutiny, despite Beijing officially refusing to take part in the case. Philippines filed the case against China in 2013.
President Pranab Mukherjee today inaugurated a ‘Nakshatra Vatika’ in the gardens of Rashtrapati Nilayam in Hyderabad, one of the Presidential Retreats.
- He took a round of the garden and watered a plant representing ‘Surya’ or the Sun God.
- He was accompanied by Governor of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh E S L Narasimhan and Telangana Deputy Chief Minister Mohammad Ali, an official release said.
- The garden will be open to public along with other gardens of the Nilayam in the first week of January 2016.
- The layout of ‘Nakshatra Vatika’ has been developed in various geometrical combinations corresponding to the Sree Chakra of Vedic astrology on a 0.91 acre plot.
- Each square is planted with a particular tree or plant variety that represents the respective planet and is placed as per the astronomical direction. The first inner circular band is divided in 12 small circles at parts of 30A each corresponding to the 12 Rashi (zodiac sign). Each has a plant that represents the particular zodiac sign.
Former Finance Minster of China Jin Liqun nominated by China to be the first president of the Beijing-backed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).
- At present, Jin (65) is Secretary General of AIIB’s interim secretariat.
- Earlier, he has held positions at the World Bank and was the first Chinese national to serve as a vice president at the Japan-controlled Asian Development Bank (ADB).
- Before joining AIIB in 2014, Jin was chairman of China International Capital Corporation, one of the mainland’s largest investment banks.
- He holds a master’s degree in English Literature from the Beijing Foreign Studies University and was a Hubert Humphrey Fellow in Boston University’s economics graduate programme.
