Daily Current Affairs : 5th January 2016 GK / GA

Jan 7, 2016

Daily Current Affairs 5th January 2016 GK / GA: Jharbhoom.nic.in, land bank web portal inaugurated by Jharkhand Government.

The portal is intended for providing land related information to investors.
With this, anyone would be able to get info about the land available at the district and circle area level with a click of mouse.

Akshay Kothari named as India Country Manager of LinkedIn.

India has one of the largest userbase for LinkedIn with more than 400 millions members globally.
He will replace Nishant Rao who has quit the company in October last year to join cloud based customer support software firm Freshdesk as its COO.

Former CJI Sarosh Homi Kapadia passes away.

He was 68 and survived by wife, a son and a daughter.
He was enrolled as an advocate at the Bombay High Court in 1974.
On 18 December 2003, he was appointed as a judge of the Supreme Court.
On 12 May 2010, he was sworn in as the 38th Chief Justice of India by the President Pratibha Patil. He retired on 29 September 2012.

SC directed Government to make Gujarat State Cooperative Tribunal functional.

Supreme Court directs Gujarat Govt to fill up the vacant posts including that of judicial members, which is bone of contention.
Further, the court directed that the tribunal cannot be allowed to be non-functional.
The ruling was made by a bench headed by Chief Justice of India TS Thakur.

Marry Barra appointed as Chairman of General Motors BoDs.

BoDs stands for : Board of Directors
He will succeed Theodore Solso and will continue serving as the Lead Independent Director of the Board.
Earlier, Barra was serving as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of GM since January 2014.

Coasta Novel Prize 2015 for Book “A God in Ruins” goes to Kate Atkinson.

He became first author to receive the Costa Novel prize three times.
Earlier he won the award for his books Life After Life in 2013 and Scenes at the Museum in 1995.
She studied English literature at the University of Dundee and obtained her master’s degree in 1974.
Costa Book Awards is one of the United Kingdom’s most prestigious and popular literary prizes.

Toilets made mandatory to contest Panchayat polls in Bihar.

Toilets will be made mandatory requirement to contest panchayat elections in Bihar.
This declaration means that no one can contest the Bihar panchayat elections scheduled in 2016 without having a toilet at their home.
SEC said that candidates have to give an undertaking regarding status of toilet by 1 January 2016 in their home.

Union Govt to launch River Information System for Inland Waterways.

The system is expected to improve navigation in Indland Waterways as the government is set to expand the network across the country through the National Waterways Bill, 2015.
The bill was passed by the Lok Sabha on 21 December 2015 and is pending with the Rajya Sabha.
It will be utilized for real time monitoring of ships plying on the inland waterways network.
It will provide remote communication with vessels and real time meteorological data which will be available online.

Nokia completes acquisition of Alca Lucent for 15.6 billion euro.

Alca Lucent is a French telecom equipment company.
The deal was worth 15.6 billion billion euro signed in 2014 and later approved by Europeam commission.
With this acquisition, Nokia holds 79.32 percent of outstanding Alcatel-Lucent shares and at least 78.97 percent of the French company’s voting rights.

Bus Service between India and Nepal resumes after 27 years.

India-Nepal Bus Service was suspended 27 years ago in the wake of the Indo-Nepal Trade and Transit Treaty.
The service runs between Kanchanpur in Nepal, which is close to Banbasa border in Champavat district of Uttarakhand, and Anand Vihar ISBT in Delhi.
To travel in these buses, no special documents are required as both the countries share open border.

Filippo Grandi appointed as UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

He will succeed Antonio Guterres who has worked for more than 10 years and his tenure ended last week.
He was worked in refugee and political affairs in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia, began his five-year term as UN High Commissioner for Refugees on January 1.

26^th Lal Bahadur Shastri Hockey Tournament won by ONGC.

ONGC defeated Indian Railways 3-0 in final match held at the Shivaji Stadium in New Delhi.

Four new elements addition to complete seventh row of Periodic Table : IUPAC

IUPAC stands for, “International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry”.
IUPAC announced discovery and assignment of elements with atomic numbers 113, 115, 117 and 118.
The decision was taken by the IUPAC as the four elements met the discovery of elements of the IUPAP/IUPAC Transfermium Working Group (TWG) 1991 Discovery Criteria.

About New Elements :

All these four elements are synthetic in nature.
They were discovered by scientists belonging to the USA, Russian and Japan and complete the 7th row of the periodic table of the elements.
113 – Temporary working name and symbol are ununtrium and Uut respectively. It was discovered by the scientists belonging to RIKEN research laboratory in Japan.
115: ununpentium, Uup are the temporary working name and symbol respectively.
117: ununseptium, Uus are the temporary working name and symbol respectively. They were discovered by scientists belonging to Russia and the USA in collaboration
118 – It has ununoctium and Uuo as the temporary working name and symbol respectively.

Kamlesh Chandra Panel on Gramin Dak Sevaks formed by Department of posts

One man committee headed by Kamlesh Chandra formed to study issues related to Gramin Dak Sevaks including Wage structure and service conditions.
Kamlesh Chandra is a retired member of the postal Services Board who will head the panel.
He will be assisted by T Q Mohammad, a senior administrative grade officer, as the secretary.
It will examine the system of branch post offices, engagement conditions and the existing structure of wage and emoluments paid to gramin sevaks and recommend necessary changes.

PM Modi inaugrated Indian Science Congress in Mysuru.

Theme of this edition (103rd) of the ISC is “Science & Technology for Indigenous Development in India”. The Congress will continue till January 7.
After inaugural of the Congress by Modi, eminent scientist CNR Rao will deliver the Bharat Ratna M Visvesvaraya Lecture on ‘Doing Science in India’ on the opening day on January 3.

Sachin Tendulkar appointed as Brand Ambassador for Novo Nordisk’s diabetes campaign.

Novo Nordisk is Danish pharmaceutical company.
Company announced Indian cricket star Sachin Tendulkar as brand ambassador for the disease awareness campaign ‘Changing Diabetes’ initiated by it in India.