Daily GK Potion – 17th October 2014
- Government to set up centres like AIISH
- Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan said that government will set up five new All India Institute of Speech and Hearing (AIISH).
- A high level committee will be soon formed to identify the locations of the centres.
- AIISH is located in Manasagangotri, Mysore, India. The institute was established in 1966 to train professionals for speech and hearing sciences.
- Cyclone Hudhud was category 4 cyclone, said NASA
- Category 4 means cyclone was just short of being called as ‘Catastrophic’. For cyclone to be categorized as ‘Catastropic’, the minimum wind speed should be 249 kmph.
- India test-fires nuclear capable Nirbhay cruise Missile
- India test-fired nuclear capable sub-sonic cruise missile Nirbhay. It has target range of 700 kms.
- “The missile was test-fired from a mobile launcher positioned at launch pad 3 of the Integrated Test Range at about 10.03 hours,” said an official from Chandipur Odisha.
- United Nations praised India’s disaster management skills
- The praise came after country successfully limited number of causalities in cyclone Hudhud.
- The UN office for disaster risk reduction (UNISDR) has decided to take up India’s remarkable demonstration of “zero casualty” for discussion at next month’s meeting of the UN World Conference on disaster risk reduction at Geneva.
- Indian scientist wins World Food Prize
- Eminent Indian scientist Sanjaya Rajaram, has been awarded the World Food Prize in recognition of his significant contributions to global wheat production.
- The World Food Prize is presented at the 2014 Borlaug Dialogue held in Des Moines, United States, from October 15-17.
- Sanjaya Rajaram is a Senior Scientific Advisor at the International Centre for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA). He has developed 480 wheat varieties that has been released worldwide in 51 countries.
- His wheat improvement research has helped secure a 1.3 per cent rise in global wheat production per annum in the last four decades.
- Argentina launches its first home built satellite
- The satellite named ARSAT-1 was launched from a base in French Guana.
- ARSAT-1 is the first to be introduces with local technology in latin America.
- It was built by crew of 500 scientists with time spanning over seven years at cost of $250 million. It will orbit to 36,000 km from the earth.
- Gujarat to see world’s largest scooter plant
- Japanese two-wheeler manufacturer, Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India (HMSI) will make world’s largest scooter manufacturing facility in Vithalapur, around 80 km from Ahmedabad, Gujarat.
- The company plans to invest Rs 1100 crore over next few months.
- The plant, to be built on 250 acres, will be operational by the end of 2015 and will have an annual production capacity of 12 lakh units.
- Nokia will shut down its Chennai plant.
- Corporation launches digital mandate service
- e-mandate, a digital mandate service offers a modern platform for large volume of repetitive payments, eliminating post-dated cheques and extending electronic clearing service (ECS) on pan-India basis.
- Many payments, namely, utility payments, installment payments, school fee payments, premium payment and the line, which are still being made through post-dated cheques or through ECS, could now be made through e-mandate, the bank said.
- The e-mandate will be using the services of National Payments Corporation of India’s (NPCI) National Automated Clearing House (NACH) service.
- India win’s fourth ODI against West Indies
- India scored 330 runs for the loss of six wickets.
- Virat Kohil, scored 127 runs off 114 balls to score its 20th century in ODIs.
- West Indies in return was bowled out for 271 runs in 48.1 overs. Marlon Samuels scores 112 runs, tried hard to save the match.
- With this win, India is leading the series with 2-1.
- West Indies cricket team pulled out the remainder of India tour in the wake of an acrimonious unresolved pay dispute with its Board back home.