Current Affairs Today – September 14 2015

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• Current Affairs September 2015
• Current Affairs September Quiz 2015

Indian Affairs 

Centre imposed 20% safeguard duty on imported steel

• With an aim to provide relief for the steel sector which is struggling due to cheap imports from China and the countries with which India has a free trade agreement, Centre has decided to impose a 20 per cent safeguard duty on steel imports with immediate effect.
• The provisional duty of 20 per cent will be applicable on import of hot-rolled flat products of non-alloy and other alloy steel with a width of 600 mm or above and will continue for 200 days.
• The safeguard duty is superior to the import duty as it is applicable to all nations unlike the import duty which excludes countries falling under free trade agreements so this will also provide headroom to domestic steel producers to increase their prices and volumes, provided that Chinese players do not reduce their prices further in turn.
• Point to be noted that, Safeguards duties are emergency measures that are WTO-compliant and may be temporarily applied when imports pose a threat to the domestic industry.

Hindi Sangam Foundation to organize Third International Hindi Conference in New Jersey

• The US-based Hindi Sangam Foundation will organize the Third International Hindi Conference at Rutgers University, New Jersey  to promote Hindi in America from March 4-6, 2016.
• On the success of second such Conference held at Rutgers University, New Jersey in 2015. The Hindi Sangam Foundation has decided to hold the same venue for the Third International Hindi Conference.
• The first such conference, Third International Hindi Conference held at New York University in April 2014.
• Hindi Sangam Foundation, coordinator and Managing Trustee – Ashok Ojha

International Affairs 

• Indian bankers top Fortune’s most powerful women list
• India, Canada, Singapore, Egypt eyeing French Mistral warships

Indian-origin man becomes Mayor of Germany’s Bonn city

Ashok Sridharan, an Indian-origin candidate from Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU), has beaten both his opponents by a huge margin, to be elected as the mayor of the former German capital city Bonn.

• By virtue of this, he became the first person of Indian-origin to occupy the mayor’s office in a major German city.
• In the polls, Sridharan defeated Social Democratic Party (SPD) candidate Peter Ruhenstroth-Bauer and Tom Schmidt of the Green Party and marked the end of more than 21 years’ rule of the city by the Social Democratic Party (SPD).
• Until now, Mr. Sridharan served as the treasurer and assistant mayor in the municipal administration of neighbouring town Koenigswinter.

Nawaz Sharif inaugurates strategic Pakistan-China Friendship Tunnels

• Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif inaugurated five ‘Pakistan – China Friendship Tunnels’ which was built at the total cost of about 275$ million in order to restore a strategic road link to China Via Gilgit-Baltistan.
• The ‘Pakistan-China Friendship Tunnels’, network of seven-kilometre-long five tunnels which restored Karakorum Highway (KKH) near Attabad lake in Hunza valley of Gilgit- Baltistan region in the country’s north. 
• This project has been finished in collaboration with China in over three years which is said to be linked with the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor project worth of $46 billion.

China builds museum in honour of first nuclear, space scientists

• China has built a museum to commemorate those who made the country’s first hydrogen bomb and satellites in the 1960s and early 1970s
• Located on the Huairou campus of CAS University – some 60 kms from Beijing, the museum is housed at the site of the Academy’s former rocket test base founded in 1958.

Betty Cantrell won Miss America 2016 Pageant

• Betty Cantrell won the Miss America 2016 Pageant on September 13, 2015. She became the 89th Miss America.
• She was crowned by Miss America 2015 Kira Kazantsev in Atlantic City, New Jersey, USA.
• Betty Cantrell beat 51 other contestants to win the crown. On winning the title, Betty Cantrell was awarded the national crown as well as a $50,000 scholarship.
• Betty Cantrell belongs to Warner Robins, Georgia and was crowned Miss Georgia 2015.

Awards

• President of India presents Rajbhasha awards

Appointments

Hormusji N Cama elected as Chairman of PTI

• Hormusji N Cama, MD of Bombay Samachar which is the oldest newspaper in India from 1855 is elected as the new Chairman of the Press Trust of India (PTI).
• Hormusji N Cama succeeds Mahendra Mohan Gupta, CMD of the Jagran Prakashan.
• He is selected as a chairman in Board of Directors PTI’s 67th Annual General Meeting (AGM) in New Delhi.
• Hormusji N Cama has also served as President of the Indian Newspaper Society (INS). He is also on the Board of Council for Fair Business Practices and Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC)
• Mr. Mathew, a Senior Assistant Editor of the Malayala Manorama, elected as Vice Chairman of PTI.
• Mr. Mathew holds a masters degree in journalism from the University of Maryland and has worked as a correspondent with Associated Press (AP) in Washington.

Sports 

• India ranks 5th in commonwealth Youth Games 2015 at Samoa

Wrestler Narsingh Pancham Yadav qualifies 2016 rio olympic games

• Narsingh Pancham Yadav clinches bronze medal in World Wrestling Championships in Las Vegas, USA
• He became the lone Indian to win a bronze medal at World Wrestling Championships in the Men’s 74kg Freestyle category.
• After winning this tournament, He becomes the first Indian wrestler to qualify for Rio De Janeiro Olympic games.

Ravi Shastri retained as Team Director till T20 World Cup 2016

• Ravi Shastri will continue as the Team Director of Indian Cricket team till the 2016 T20 World cup based on recommendations of the BCCI advisory committee.
• Along with Ravi Shastri, three assistant coaches Sanjay Bangar (batting), Bharat Arun (bowling) and Ramakrishnan Sridhar (fielding) also get extension of their tenure
•  The sixth edition of the 2016 T20 World cup will be held in India from March 11 to April 3.

About BCCI:

• Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) was founded in 1928.
• BCCI Headquarters – Mumbai India
• BCCI President – Jagmohan Dalmiya
• BCCI Honorary Secretary – Anurag Thakur

Indian tennis player Yuki Bhambri won Shanghai Challenger 

• In a significant boost to India’s Davis cup tie next week against Czech Republic, Indian tennis youngster Yuki Bhambri secured a title win on the hard courts of Shanghai by defeating local player Di Wu in the final of the USD 50,000 tournament to win his first Challenger level singles title of the season.
• This was 23-year-old Bhamri’s fourth singles Challenger title. He has won one title in each of the last four years.
• By winning this title, he got 80 ATP points which should help the 145^th ranked Bhambri rise appreciably in the world rankings, and should definitely see him surpass his all time career-best 143 that he had achieved in February last year after winning an event in Chennai.
• Point to be noted that, Yuki is the former Junior No. 1and first Indian to win the 2009 Australian Open Junior Championship. He is also the fourth Indian in history to capture a junior singles Grand Slam championship title. Apart from these, at 2014 Asian Games he bagged 2 medals for India.

India bagged bronze in Archery World Cup

• As the main team has left for Rio for a week-long Olympics test event at Sambodromo, in the absence of regulars, India’s second team had finished its campaign with a lone bronze medal in the men’s compound team event at the Archery World Cup Stage 4.
• The sixth seeded Indian trio of Sarvesh Pareek, Sandeep Kumar and Isaiah Rajender Sanam, defeated fourth seeded trio of Nelson Torres, Leandro Rojas and Eduardo Gonzalez of Venezuela in the bronze playoff.
• However, in the compound mixed pair event, the Indian duo of Pareek and Trisha Deb lost to top-ranked USA’s Reo Wilde and Lexi Keller.

Obituary

• Pulitzer Prize-winning ‘The Subject Was Roses’ playwright Frank D. Gilroy dies
• Mohiniyattam dancer Kalamandalam Sathyabhama passes away

Former England goalkeepeer Springett passes away

• The England goalkeeper who waited more than 40 years for his World Cup winners’ medal has died aged 80, following a short illness.
• Ron Springett, England’s first choice keeper at the 1962 World Cup, was a member of the 1966 World Cup winning squad but was kept out of the team by Gordon Banks.
• It took 43 years for Springett’s role to be acknowledged with silverware, as a policy change by FIFA saw the goalkeeper and his fellow non-playing squad members from the 1966 final presented with winners’ medals in a Downing Street ceremony in 2009.

Important Days

Hindi Diwas 2015 – 14 September

• Hindi Diwas, an annual literary day celebrated on 14th September in Hindi speaking regions.
• Hindi Diwas observed on September 14th of every year to commemorate the adoption of Hindi as an official language of India on this day in 1949.
• Hindi adopted as official language of India According to the Constitution of India, Hindi language written in Devanagari script was first adopted as the official language of India under the Article 343.
• Hindi is spoken by many countries of the world such as Bangladesh, Bhutan, Pakistan Mauritius, Surinam, Trinidad and some other countries. Hindi is recognized as the 5th largest language of the world.