Facts in News (FIN) : May 16 – May 31

• Marking prescription-only antibiotics with a red line
• To curb their irrational use and create awareness on the dangers of taking antibiotics without being prescribed
• Launched in February this year by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare
• The Global Review on Antimicrobial Resistance in its final report has appreciated India’s Medicines with the Red Line campaign on antibiotics

• A programme by Himachal pradesh government
• Purpose to speed up developmental works and government schemes through effective implementation at grassroots level
• Focus on five key areas viz. primary education, forest rights, health and sanitation, campaign against drugs and skill development and women Empowerment

• Gujarat government launched the program to improve public facilities in the villages
• 6,000 villages in the state are open defecation free under Swachh Bharat Abhiyan

• Odisha Governor SC Jamir promulgated Odisha Official Language (Amendment) Ordinance, 2016 for use of Odia language as a tool for communication in official matters
• As per the promulgation the state government to formulate laws to implement the Odisha Official Language Act 1954
• Article 345 of the Indian Constitution deals with the official language of a state. It empowers state legislature to adopt ‘any one or more of the languages in use in the State or Hindi as the language or languages to be used for all or any of the official purposes’ of the concerned State.

• Unified Mobile Application for New-age Governance
• The project is being developed by the union ministry of communications and information technology’s national e-governance division
• Some of the services which will be available under UMANG are, National scholarship, Healthcare applications, Passport Seva, Women Safety (Nirbhaya),  E-Post, Crime and criminal tracking, Network and systems, Commercial tax/GST, Income tax, CBSE/State education boards, E-Municipality, IRCTC, Utility bills, Mother and child tracking, Public distribution system, Transport Vahan/Sarathi, e-Court, m-Kisan, Land records, PF/NPS

• Agreement between India and WHO
• For Global promotion of Traditional Systems of Medicine
• Aims at promoting the quality, safety and effectiveness of service provision in traditional and complementary medicine
• It will deliver, for the first time, WHO benchmark document for training in Yoga, and WHO benchmarks for practice in Ayurveda, Unani and Panchakarma

• First World Conference on Tourism for Development held in Beijing, China
• Theme ‘Tourism for Peace and Development’ to advance the contribution of tourism to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).
• The event will be jointly organized by the Government of the People’s Republic of China and the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO)
• Beside this, China, as chair of the G20, will also host the 7th G20 Tourism Ministers’ Meeting under the theme “Sustainable Tourism – An Effective Tool for Inclusive Development”.

• Hosted by New Delhi, India
• Theme “Women: Uplifting and Uniting the World”
• The WEF is a mega marquee global event hosted by ALL Ladies League (ALL), the world’s largest league of women.
• In the 2016 WEF, 1500 Women from 75 countries and all walks of life will meet to discuss social empowerment, leadership, economic, business and social issues like innovation, start-ups, leadership, entrepreneurship, business and globalization, diplomacy, sustainable development, peace and spirituality, social empowerment, environment and art.

• Held in Lumbini, Nepal to mark the 2,560th birth anniversary of Lord Buddha.
• Theme “Lumbini, Nepal: the birthplace of Lord Buddha and the fountain of Buddhism and world peace”.
• The main purpose of organising the event is to highlight Lumbini as birthplace of Lord Buddha and the fountain of Buddhism, in the international arena, to establish Lumbini as the centre for interfaith and peace dialogue as well as developing Nepal as the fountain for world peace.

• First World Humanitarian Summit held at Istanbul, Turkey inaugurated by UN Secretary-General
• To better coordinate support for and drive investment in education for children and youth affected by humanitarian emergencies and protracted crises
• UNICEF launched new fund ’Education Cannot Wait’ fund at the World Humanitarian Summit (WHS)
• UNICEF-United Nations program provides long-term humanitarian and developmental assistance to children and mothers in developing countries
• Headquarters of UNICEF: New York City, New York, United States

• Launched by World Bank Group
• To quickly mobilize funds to tackle global disease outbreaks and create a new insurance market for pandemic risk
• It is expected to bring the much needed coordination and speed for future global disease outbreak response efforts
• [Pandemic- (of a disease) prevalent over a whole country or the world]

• Constituted to review and give recommendations on Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) roadmap
• It will also examine the need and feasibility of aligning the fiscal expansion or contraction with credit contraction or expansion respectively in the economy
• On April 29, 2016, NK Singh was conferred with the 2nd class Gold and Silver of the Order of the Rising sun by the Japanese Government

• The P-Notes are typically instruments issued by registered foreign institutional investors to overseas investors, who wish to invest in Indian markets without registering themselves directly in India to save on time
• Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has recently made mandatory for Participatory Notes (P-Notes) users to follow Indian anti-money laundering laws and report any suspicious transactions immediately.

• As part of an MoU signed between India’s EXIM Bank  and IDB, IDB announced to open its first branch in India at Ahmedabad
• An international financial institution was established in 1975
• IDB is headquartered at Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
• IDB’s main objective is to foster the economic development and social progress of member countries as well as the Muslim community in accordance with principles of Shariah (Islamic law)
• The bank has 56 Islamic countries as its members

• China’s remote sensing satellite to carry out land surveys and disaster relief, land surveys, crop yield estimates
• Launched from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in northwestern China’s Gobi Desert

• A Chinese missile
• Capable of hitting targets 3,400 miles away
• Concerns were raised by the US as it is a threat to major U.S. military installations and stability in the Pacific Rim

• Built by Australian researchers
• New microscope will pave the way to study human, animal and plant samples, as well as computer chips and pharmaceutical drugs, without damaging or changing them

• An indigenous Advanced Air Defence interceptor missile
• Capable of destroying any incoming hostile ballistic missile
• India has become the fourth country to have successfully developed this anti-ballistic missile system, after United States, Russia and Israel

• Indigenously developed nuclear capable missile by DRDO
• Range of 350 km also capable of carrying 500 kg to 1,000 kg of warheads and is thrusted by liquid propulsion twin engines also nine-metre-tall.
• It uses advanced inertial guidance system with manoeuvring trajectory to hit its target.
• DRDO developed Prithvi is India’s first indigenously-built ballistic missile. It is one of the five missiles under the country’s Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme.

• Hypersonic International Flight Research and Experimentation
• A joint program of the US Department of Defense and Australian Defence Science and Technology Organization
• The “purpose of this program is to investigate fundamental hypersonic phenomena and accelerate the development of aerospace vehicle technologies deemed critical to long range precision strike” by using an “affordable, accessible, prototype experimentation strategy
• Scientists from HIFiRE are developing an engine that can fly at mach 7

• A scramjet (supersonic combusting ramjet) is a variant of a ramjet airbreathing jet engine in which combustion takes place in supersonic airflow
• But a ramjet decelerates the air to subsonic velocities before combustion
• Australian military jointly with United States Military research team successfully blasted off a hypersonic technology in Australia.

• An indigenously developed Fecal Incontinence (FI) management system.
• The medical device has been developed by Department of Biotechnology (DBT) and is implemented at AIIMS and IIT Delhi in collaboration with International partners such as Stanford University (USA), Queensland University of Technology (Australia), etc.
• The Fecal incontinence (FI) is a medical condition marked by inability to control one’s bowel movements, causing stool (feces) to leak unexpectedly from the rectum. It affects nearly 100 million bedridden patients worldwide.

• Indigenously built Fast Attack Craft
• Indian Navy commissioned it for deployment of coastal patrol and surveillance operations along the East Coast of India
• This is the first Follow-on Water Jet Fast Attack Craft
• Measures 48 meters in length, can achieve speeds in excess of 30 knots also weighing 320-tonne
• Named after an island in the Andaman Islands group
• Mahatma Gandhi Marine National Park is a national park of India in Wandoor on the Andaman Islands
• The park was created to protect marine life such as the corals and nesting sea turtles prevalent in the area
• Tarmugli, the largest island of the park, is covered with thick mangrove vegetation, sand covered beaches, uprooted trees and sheet rocks

• Obstetric fistula is one of the most serious and tragic injuries that can occur during childbirth. It is a hole between the birth canal and the bladder or rectum caused by prolonged, obstructed labour without treatment
• Treatable by a medical professional, requires a medical diagnosis
• International Day to End Obstetric Fistula was observed worldwide on 23 May 2016 to raise awareness about obstetric fistula. The Day was observed for the first time in 2013
• Theme of 2016: “End fistula within a generation”

• Classified as Class 2B(possibly carcinogenic-cancer causing) by the International Agency for  Research on Cancer(IARC)
• Recently All India Bread manufacturers association voluntarily stopped using potassium bromate and potassium iodate as additives in bread
• US and India have not banned it yet

• Stands for Voice-over-LTE, and essentially, it is a technology that makes it possible for voice calls to be carried over LTE networks.
• Right now, LTE networks only carry data, leaving voice calls to be carried by older 3G networks. With VoLTE, voice and data will travel through the same network.

• Indigenously made Fast Patrol Vessel was commissioned into Coast Guard at Kochi by the Coast Guard Commander
• meaning ‘first ray of sun’, and will be based at Porbandar under the administrative and operational control of North West Coast Guard Region.
• The 50 meter vehicle displaces 421 tonnes and can go at a maximum speed of 33 knots with an endurance of 1500 nautical miles.

• Eld’s deer also known as the thamin or brow-antlered deer, is an ENDANGERED species of deer indigenous to Southeast Asia
• The Manipur brow-antlered deer is found in Manipur, India. It is called SANGAI in Manipur
• It is the state animal of Manipur
• Sangai is now restricted to the Keibul Lamjao National Park (KLNP) in the Southeastern fringe of Loktak Lake in Manipur
• While walking on the floating biomass(phumdis), Sangai often balances itself which looks as if it is dancing on the green grassland and therefore popularly called as “dancing deer” of Manipur

• A non-venomous snake
• Boa species endemic to India, Pakistan and Iran
• Its tail looks like a head
• Capturing snakes and using them for display and entertainment is banned and a punishable offence under the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972

• J&K Wildlife Department has spotted eight Himalayan brown bears in Kargil’s Drass Sector
• Himalayan brown bear is also known as the Himalayan red bear and  Isabelline bear.
• In the IUCN list of VULNERABLE category animals the bear is included

• Is a measure of how hot it really feels when the relative humidity is factored in with the actual air temperature

• Theme is: “Mainstreaming Biodiversity; Sustaining People and their Livelihoods”
• International Day of Biodiversity May 22
• The theme emphasizes people’s’ livelihoods and sustainable development in across the domain of activity, including economic sectors such as agriculture, forestry, fisheries and tourism
• The 13th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP 13) to be held in Cancun, Mexico from 4 to 17 December 2016

• The Himachal Pradesh government has recently launched an artificial propagation programme for rehabilitation and conservation of Golden Mahseer fish.

• To breed the fish and release its fingerlings into the wild
• The Golden mahseer is known as the tiger of Indian rivers
• The population of the golden mahseer is declining in the state due to various reasons viz. construction of dams, barrages, pollution, indiscriminate fishing of brood and juvenile fish, introduction of exotic species and habitat deterioration.
• It has been declared ENDANGERED by the IUCN

• Awarded with the ‘India Biodiversity Award 2016‘
• It’s in Arunachal Pradesh
• The Hornbill Nest Adoption Programme of the Pakke Tiger Reserve was awarded the prize under the one of its four categories titled- conservation of threatened species.

• Justice Naveen Sinha has been sworn-in as the new Chief Justice of Rajasthan High Court.
• Prior to this appointment, he was the Chief Justice of the Chhattisgarh High Court since July 2014.

• A PhD student at IIT Kharagpur, recently conferred with European Materials Research Society’s Young Scientist Award at EMRS 2016 Spring Meeting Lille France
• The award based on her outstanding contribution to materials science and nanotechnology, particularly nano-patterning of soft films and surfaces
• Nano-lithography is a common method used in nano-patterning

• Legendary Gujarati folk singer passed away due to age-related ailments in Junagadh. She was 80.
• She was awarded Padma Shri in 1991
• Besides folk songs and garba songs, Diwaliben had also lent her voice to several film songs

• Sikkim Chief Minister Pawan Chamling was  honoured with ‘Yug Kavi Siddhicharan Award’ -literary award
• His contributions towards promoting Nepali literature in India
• 105th birth anniversary of the late poet Shrestha

• Ancient remains of 1st century B.C. Buddhist site found
• Three Mounds studded with brickbats and pottery in red colour. The mounds were formed on huge boulders on which a brick-built stupa was raised

• World’s largest single rooftop stretch of 42 acre solar power plant of 11.5 Mw capacity was installed in India
• 11.5 MW solar plant is installed on nearly 42 acres of rooftop of open shed
• Took nearly six months to make the world record
• Project at: Beas in Punjab

• First Maritime Security Dialogue between India and the United States was recently held at Jawaharlal Nehru Bhawan, New Delhi.
• The discussion focused on strategic maritime security issues such as Asia-Pacific maritime challenges, naval cooperation and multilateral engagement.
• Both the sides agreed for “white shipping” technical arrangement to improve data sharing on commercial shipping traffic and Navy-to-Navy discussions on submarine safety and anti-submarine warfare.

• Celebrating the Right to Information, a dark blue memorial has come up in the Beawar town of Rajasthan — where the RTI movement had started 20 years ago

Aims to provide each household access to electricity by 2019

• South Korean author, Han Kang won the 2016 Man Booker International Prize for her novel ‘The Vegetarian’
• The Man Booker Prize is the leading literary award in the English speaking world.
• The winner receives 50000 pound as well as the 2500 pound awarded to each of the shortlisted authors

• The new global flagship report on sustainable urban development launched by UN-Habitat
• It states that a New Urban Agenda is needed to unlock the transformative power of cities
• It says top 600 cities, with 1/5th of the world’s population, produce 60 per cent of global GDP
• Urged the Government of India to build 100 new cities with low infrastructure, denser and low energy to avoid the addition of Greenhouse gases

• HeForShe is a solidarity movement for gender equality developed by UN Women
• Its goal is to engage men and boys as advocates and agents of change for the achievement of gender equality and women’s rights
• A MoU was inked between Department of Posts and United Nations Postal Administration (UNPA) in February this year for HeForShe stamp
• Upon this move the stamps were printed in the form of sheetlet of 20 se-tenants and Miniature Sheet of two stamps
• Se-tenant(philately) stamps or labels are printed from the same plate and sheet and adjoin one another, unsevered in a strip or block. They differ from each other by design, color, denomination or overprint. They may have a continuous design. The word “se-tenant” translates from French as meaning “joined together” or “holding together

• Launched by UNICEF and the European Union launched the campaign
• A new campaign to highlight the importance of education for children affected by emergencies

• A tropical cyclonic storm in the bay of Bengal
• Caused severe flooding in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh

• May 18 to raise awareness on how important museums are in the development of society
• The 2016 theme is “Museums and Cultural Landscapes”

• Reported by World Health Organization about Life Expectancy since 2000
• Increased by 5 years between 2000 and 2015
• Healthy life expectancy – 63.1 years globally
• The increase was in the African Region where life expectancy increased by 9.4 years to 60 years due to improvements in child survival, malaria control and expanded access to antiretrovirals for treatment of HIV
• WHO is Headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland

• 42nd edition of G7 Summit will be held at Ise-Shima, Japan
• Summit will discuss measures to address the global economic slowdown, terrorism, the humanitarian crisis and ongoing conflicts
• The G7 is a group of seven leading industrialised nations viz. Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States

• Ruskin Bond has released two new books both themed on nature
• Bond bagged Sahitya Academy Award in 1992 for Our Trees Still Grow in Dehra in English
• He was also awarded the Padma Shri in 1999 and Padma Bhushan in 2014.

• Rajasthan’s Bundi is all set get an e-municipal council to provide files at a click, and detailed digital mapping with a database of its demographical and geographical information
• The council office would make its revenue by selling accurate data and documents to the other government and non-government departments
• The proposed office comes with solar panels and biometric entry and exit, that allows anyone would be able to view data on screen with a click through an ‘e-processor’

• The traditional Perso-Arabic script of the Kashmiri language

• The Millennium Technology Prize is Finland’s tribute to innovations for a better life
• Millennium Technology Prize is a technology award, whereas the Nobel Prize is a science award, Nobel Prize is awarded for basic research, but the Millennium Technology Prize may be given to a recently conceived innovation which is still being developed
• It is awarded once every two years by Technology Academy Finland
• Frances Arnold of US has won 2016 Millennium Technology Prize

• The Union Human Resource Development (HRD) launched the multilingual knowledge portal www.bharatvani.in
• Bharatvani became the largest online repository of dictionaries in India
• The portal has been launched in 22 scheduled languages, which eventually will be extended to 100 more languages
• It will help the government to showcase the Indian culture and heritage to the world

• The Narikuravar is an indigenous community from Indian state of Tamil Nadu
• Central government approved their inclusion in the list of Scheduled Tribes

• A GPS based device coded in such a way that it alerts the fishermen nearing the coastal borders
• Following frequent instances of fishing crews from Maharashtra and Gujarat being arrested for accidentally crossing international maritime boundaries, a Mumbai-based digital firm and an NGO have come up with a device that will send out an alert when they enter international waters.