The Daily Brief – 17th October, 2016

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  • China has successfully launched its longest-ever manned mission by taking two astronauts Jing Haipeng (50) and Chen Dong (37) into the orbit. They were launched on board of Shenzhou-11 (heavenly vessel) spacecraft from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre near the Gobi Desert in northwest China. Both astronauts will spend a month aboard an experimental space laboratory, Tiangong-2 that was launched last month.
  • A historic global climate deal was reached in Kigali, Rwanda at the Twenty-Eighth Meeting of the Parties to the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer (MOP28). The ‘Kigali Amendment’ which amends the 1987 Montreal Protocol aims to phase out Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), a family of potent greenhouse gases by the late 2040s. 197 countries including India have agreed to a timeline to reduce the use of HFCs by roughly 85% of their baselines by 2045.
  • The five-nation group of emerging economies BRICS has agreed to set up an independent BRICS Credit Rating Agency in its efforts to challenge western hegemony in the world of finance. It was announced during the 8th BRICS summit held in Goa, India.
  • The International Day for the Eradication of Poverty is observed globally on 17 October for eradication of poverty throughout the world. The United Nations had declared 17 October as the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty by adopting a resolution on 22 December 1992.

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  • The eighth BRICS summit was held in Goa from 15 to 16 October 2016. The summit concluded with the adaptation of the Goa Declaration. The two day summit was attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Brazilian President Michel Temer and South African President Jacob Zuma. The theme for the summit was “Building Responsive, Inclusive and Collective Solutions”.
  • World Food Day is observed globally on 16 October to mark the foundation of Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations in 1945.
  • Bhutan’s Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay has expressed support for India in relation to the surgical strikes carried out along the LoC.
  • After a decade-long struggle, athlete Santhi Soundarajan, who was stripped of her silver medal won at the 2006 Asian Games because she failed a controversial gender test, is set to get a permanent job as a coach with the Sports Development Authority of Tamil Nadu. The State government has decided to appoint the runner as an athletic coach.
  • NITI Aayog member V.K. Saraswat has called for an overhaul of India’s steel policy framed in 2012 as the country is unlikely to meet the target to raise capacity to 300 million tonnes a year by 2025. Though India is now the third largest steelmaker in the world, a global glut and a surge in cheap imports from China, Russia, Korea and Japan has dented the domestic industry’s fortunes. In a paper on the need for a new steel policy, the NITI Aayog member has called for a new policy to be drafted under the guidance of the government think-tank that examines that entire value chain of the steel industry, from raw materials to taxation and logistics costs that have hindered growth.
  • India’s Ajay Jayaram lost to second seed Tzu Wei Wang of Chinese Taipei at the final of the Dutch Open badminton tournament.
  • Sourabh Verma clinched the men’s singles title at the Chinese Taipei Masters, after defeating Daren Liew in the final of the event.

Today’s Quiz

  1. Where was the Twenty-Eighth Meeting of the Parties to the Montreal Protocol held?





2. Where was the 8th BRICS Summit held this year?





3. When is World Food Day observed?





4. When is the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty observed?





5. Who is currently serving as Brazil's President, having replaced Dilma Roussef?





6. _____ , who was stripped of her silver medal won at the 2006 Asian Games because she failed a controversial gender test, is set to get a permanent job as a coach with the Sports Development Authority of Tamil Nadu.





7. Which country is the third largest steelmaker in the world?





8. ____ clinched the men’s singles title at the Chinese Taipei Masters this year.









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