India improves its childhood index ranking
- India has improved its ranking in the world childhood index but stays at a poor 113th position in the list of 175 countries indexed by global child rights group, Save the Children.
- The report, titled “End of Childhood”, commends India’s achievements in reducing the rate of child marriages.
- Nutrition, infant mortality and child labour remained issues of grave concern in India.
FIFA lifts suspension on Guatemala
- FIFA lifted a suspension imposed on Guatemala over its failure to comply with anti-corruption rules.
- The suspension prevented Guatemalan teams from participating in international competitions such as the Gold Cup, the Central American Games and the CONCACAF Champions League.
- FIFA imposed ban on Guatemala in October 2016.
Manufacturing PMI growth slows in May
- Activity in India’s manufacturing sector grew at a weaker pace in May according to the Nikkei India Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI).
- This index is based on the survey conducted among purchasing executives in over 400 companies.
- The report also mentioned that the latest upturn signalled a marginal improvement in the manufacturing sector.
Railways Organizes Workshop ‘Mission Raftar’
- Ministry of Railways conducted a one day workshop “Mission Raftaar” aimed at raising the average speed of freight trains and coaching trains in New Delhi.
- Issues such as punctuality, rolling stock, removing bottlenecks in terms of traffic, elimination of unmanned level crossings were discussed at the workshop.
- Mission Raftaar’ aims at doubling the average speed of freight trains.
First IAF Commanders’ Conference inaugurated
- The First biannual IAF Commanders’ Conference of 2018 was inaugurated today by Raksha Mantri Nirmala Sitharaman at Air Headquarters.
- Commanders will discuss the operational, maintenance and administrative takeaways identified during the Exercise and the way ahead.
- The commanders’ conference was also attended by Minister of State for Defence Subhash Bhamre and Defence Secretary Sanjay Mitra.
Home Minister launches Online Analytical Tool
- Union Home Minister launched an Online Analytical Tool to facilitate closer monitoring of the flow and utilisation of foreign contributions received by various organisations.
- This web-based tool enables decision-makers in various Departments of Government to scrutinise source of foreign funds and their actual use in India.
- It has analytical features to conduct data mining and exploration.
Flight Test of SFDR conducted successfully
- The technology demonstrator flight test of ‘Solid Fuel Ducted Ramjet (SFDR)’ propulsion based missile has been carried out successfully from Chandipur, Orissa on May 30.
- The SFDR is a surface-to-air missile developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation in collaboration with Russia.
- The new technology will help both surface-to-air and air-to-air missiles perform better.
India, Singapore announce 14 agreements
- India and Singapore announced 14 business-to-business and business-to-government agreements.
- The agreements include on supporting India’s innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem and promoting Indian innovation abroad, to set up Indian institutes of skills on waste water management and recycling.
- It also included the promotion of ‘Make-in-India’ in Singapore and ASEAN.
Haryana to have one-stop centres for women
- Each district of Haryana will now get one-stop centres (OSCs) to facilitate integrated services for women affected by violence.
- The aim of these centres is to facilitate integrated services for women affected by violence.
- These services would include police assistance, medical aid, psycho-social counselling etc.
- One stop centre is 100% centrally sponsored scheme under the Nirbhaya Fund.
Kerala cartoonist wins international award
- Kerala cartoonist Thomas Antony has won an international award, in the best caricature category.
- Antony, currently working as Executive Artist of Malayalam daily ‘Metro Vaartha’, is among the nine winners at the 13th edition of the World Press Cartoon awards.
- The awards are given to the best works published in 2017 in newspapers and magazines from around the world.
Intra-State e-waybills to be implemented
- The e-waybill system for intra-State movement of goods will be implemented for the final eight States.
- The new system would be implemented for intra-State transport in Chhattisgarh, Goa, Jammu & Kashmir, Mizoram, Odisha, Punjab, Tamil Nadu and in West Bengal.
- E-way bill operations are compulsory for inter-state movement of goods throughout the nation and intra-state movement.
Methane dunes found on Pluto
- Pluto is covered with surprising dunes made of methane ice, which have formed relatively recently despite the frigid dwarf planet’s very thin atmosphere, international researchers have said.
- Pluto’s atmosphere has a surface pressure 100,000 times lower than Earth.
- The dunes were spotted with NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft.
Govt approves construction of 1.5 lakh houses
- The Centre has approved construction of 1.5 lakh houses for urban poor under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Urban).
- The approval was given in the 34th meeting of the Central Sanctioning and Monitoring Committee.
- Under the PMAY(U), the Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry targets construction of 1.2 crore houses for urban poor by 2022.
Government meets fiscal deficit target
- Government has met its fiscal deficit target for 2017-18 at 3.53% of the Gross Domestic Product.
- Government in the Budget had revised the fiscal deficit target for 2017-18 to 3.5% from the earlier estimate of 3.2%.
- For the current fiscal year, government estimates to trim the deficit to 3.3% of GDP.
- Fiscal deficit is the difference between total revenue & total expenditure of the government
PM Modi launched 3 Indian digital payment apps
- Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the International Rupay Card, Bhim app and UPI enabled remittance App by State Bank of India in Singapore.
- The RuPay digital payments system was linked up with Singapore’s 33-year-old Network for Electronic Transfers (NETS).
- Singapore branch of the SBI is the first to launch this new mode of remittance in collaboration with NPCI
Indian economy grew 7.7%
- The Indian economy grew 7.7% in the January-March quarter of 2017-18 on account of robust performance in manufacturing, construction and service sectors as well as good farm output according to the Central Statistics Office.
- However, the economic growth slowed to 6.7% in 2017-18 compared to 7.1% in 2016-17.
- The previous high GDP growth of 8.1% was recorded in April-June quarter of 2016-17.
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