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- Indian Railways awarded the unique strategy adopted by Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) called ‘Plan Bee’ to keep wild elephants away from train tracks, the ‘Best Innovation Award’ in Indian Railways for the 2018-19 fiscal. The prize is comprises of a citation and a cash award of Rs.3 lakh. Plan Bee is an amplifying system that imitates the buzz of a swarm of honey bees to keep wild elephants away from railway tracks.
- A fortnightly bulletin of the National Museum of Indian Cinema as “NMIC Bulletin“, brought out by the Films Division was launched in Mumbai, Maharashtra. NMIC are not just about artefacts kept in them but are also about witnessing journey that made cinema possible as well as about narrating untold stories behind those cinemas. This bulletin will help market Indian cinema better. India produces largest number of films in the year.
- Appointments Committee of Cabinet headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi appointed Arun Kumar, Additional Secretary and Financial Advisor, Union Ministry of Civil Aviation as the new Director General (DG) in Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) in rank and pay of Additional Secretary. The 1989 batch IAS officer will succeed B S Bhullar.
- In a recent study by researchers from Indian Institute of Public Health (IIPH), Gurugram on ‘Size, composition and distribution of human r resource for health in India: New estimates using National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) and Registry institutions’ data’ has revealed that India has an adequate number of health professionals. Density of Total Health Workers: is estimated to be 29 per 10,000 populations which is close to WHO’s minimum threshold of 22.8.
- The French government is set to impose green tax of up to €18 on plane tickets for all flights from airports in France to fund less-polluting transportation projects. It will only be applied on outgoing flights and not those flying into country. This new measure by France is expected to bring in about €182 million per year to its economy which will be invested in greener transport infrastructures, mainly rail.
- The 2nd India-Russia Strategic Economic Dialogue (IRSED) was held in New Delhi under chairmanship of Dr. Rajiv Kumar, Vice-Chairman of NITI (National Institution for Transforming India) Aayog and Mr. TimurMaksimov, Deputy Minister of Economic Development of Russian Federation. India-Russia Strategic Economic Dialogue was established after a bilateral MoU signed between India’s NITI Aayog and Russia’s Ministry of Economic Development of Russian Federation during 19th edition of Annual India-Russia Bilateral Summit which was held on 5 October 2018, in New Delhi.
- In a recently held Union Cabinet meeting decision was taken to ban on Sikh fundamentalist organisation ‘The Sikhs for Justice’ (SFJ) under Section 3 of Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) for its alleged anti-national activities. It is a US-based Pro-Khalistani group that was formed in 2007. UAPA was first framed in 1967, and since then it has been amended twice- first in 2008 and then in 2012.
Today’s Quiz
