The Daily Brief – 8th September, 2016

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• International Literacy Day is observed on 8th September every year to emphasize the importance of literacy. This year would be the 50th year that the day is being commemorated, since its establishment in 1966 by the UNESCO.
• The first edition of the Internet of Things Congress, 2016, began in Bangalore, Karnataka. The congress aims to bring together key stakeholders across the value chain to collaborate share a common roadmap for implementation of the Internet of Things (IoT). IoT is an internetworking of physical devices, vehicles, buildings and other items—embedded with electronics, software, sensors and network connectivity. The internetworking has ability to transfer data over a network without requiring human-to-human or human-to-computer interaction.
• India has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Greece to allow unlimited number of flights into each other’s countries and has also initiated the air service agreement for open skies. With this, Greece becomes first country with which India has inked an open sky arrangement under its new civil aviation policy. Under the new civil aviation policy, India plans to enter into ‘open sky’ air service agreements (ASA) with SAARC countries and with countries beyond 5,000 km radius from Delhi.
• India and Kazakhstan are holding a joint bilateral military exercise called PRABAL DOSTYK-16. The exercise began in the Karaganda region of Kazakhstan. The primary aim of the exercise will be to enhance interoperability while undertaking Counter Terrorism & Counter Insurgency Operations in rural & semi-urban environments under the umbrella of the United Nations.
• The Union Government has approved 450 crore rupees for Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and Sikkim under the Swadesh Darshan scheme. The corpus we utilised for the development of the Heritage circuit in Madhya Pradesh and Uttarakhand, the Ramayana Circuit in Uttar Pradesh, the North East Circuit in Sikkim and the Coastal Circuit of Tamil Nadu.
• The Nobel Prize Series has launched a long-term India programme to stimulate students’ creative thinking and engagement in science. A memorandum of understanding was signed by Nobel Media and the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) for hosting the Nobel Prize Series in India for five years. The first will be held in January 2017 in Gandhinagar, Gujarat. It will coincide with the Vibrant Gujarat summit held by the State government. Nobel laureates will be invited for discussions on the theme of ‘Vibrant Gujarat Science for Humankind’ and ‘Science as the Engine for Economic Growth’.
• India and Japan have pledged to strengthen ties in the key areas of counter-terrorism, civil nuclear cooperation, trade and investment as Prime Minister Narendra Modi held talks with his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe.
• Twenty-two prominent citizens, including retired bureaucrats and judges have written a letter to President Pranab Mukherjee and called for “meaningful talks” on Kashmir. Seeking confidence building measures, they sought withdrawal of laws like the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act and the Disturbed Areas Act, and sought the ban of pellet guns.
• Tasmania, an island State of the Commonwealth of Australia, is seeking to deepen trade ties and collaborate with Kerala in areas like skill development, renewable energy and tourism. A Tasmanian trade delegation has called upon Kerala Chief Minister to hold talks in this regard.
• Murad Lala, an oncologist from Mumbai, has achieved the distinction of scaling the Mt. Everest alone. He is perhaps the only Indian doctor to have achieved this feat.
• The Supreme Court has ordered States and Union Territories to upload, on police or government websites, First Information Reports (FIRs) within 24 hours of their registration in police stations. In doing so, the Court has upheld the  right of an accused to information, and put a check on  the authority of the police to deprive a person of his liberty.
• The Indian Railways has introduced the surge pricing system on the Rajdhani, Duronto and Shatabdi trains with effect from September 9. Under the new ‘flexi fare system’, usually followed by airlines, the base fare of tickets will increase with the rising demand. The new fare structure will, however, not be applicable to 1AC and executive class coaches. While the first 10 per cent of the seats will be sold at the normal fare, the base fare will increase by 10 per cent with every 10 per cent of berths sold.
• Combining technology and innovation, a 36-year-old software engineer-turned-farmer, V. Govindaraj, has successfully produced a record output of cucumber from a land measuring just 2,000 square metres in Madurai, Tamil Nadu.
• C.K. Asnani has has taken charge as Chairman and Managing Director of Uranium Corporation of India Limited (UCIL), an undertaking of the Department of Atomic Energy.
• The Boeing Company has entered into a contract with Tata Advanced Materials Ltd (TAML), a subsidiary of Tata Industries Ltd, to source composite interior closeout panels for its P-8 aircraft. The panels to be supplied by TAML will cover the interior wall structure of the aircraft.
• Indian open water swimming champion Bhakti Sharma, who set a world record by swimming 1.4 miles in 52 minutes in the Antarctic Ocean, is seeking monetary help through an online crowdfunding platform, so as to participate in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
• Kei Nishikori has defeated Andy Murray to reach the US Open Semi Finals. The other semi finalists are Juan Del Potro, Stanislaus Wawrinka, and Novak Djokovic. Serena Williams has also defeated Simona Halep to reach the Semi Finals. The other semi finalists are Angelique Kerber, Caroline Wozniacki, and Karolina Pliskova.
• Google has switched on a new undersea cable that will quicken its services, such as YouTube and its cloud computing platform, in Asia.
• Pakistan-born Abid Qureshi could be the first Muslim to be a federal judge of the U.S if the Senate confirms his nomination. President Barack Obama nominated Mr. Qureshi for the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, continuing with his efforts to diversify the ethnic composition of the country’s judiciary.
• French woman Isabelle Dinoire, who received the world’s first partial face transplant in 2005, has passed away.

• The UN Charter, the seminal treaty of the United Nations, has now been translated into Sanskrit. The United Nations Charter was signed on June 26 1945, in San Francisco, at the conclusion of the United Nations Conference on International Organisation, and came into force on October 24, 1945.

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