Daily Current Affairs, 28th May 2019

1) India elected to Executive Board of first UN-Habitat Assembly

•India has been elected to the Executive Board of the first UN-Habitat Assembly,announced by Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs. India has been elected to the Executive Board of the first UN-Habitat Assembly at the Plenary Session of the Assembly being held in Nairobi.

•The first session of the UN-Habitat Assembly started on May 27th at the headquarters of UN-Habitat in Nairobi and will go on till May 31st. The special theme for the UN-Habitat Assembly is “Innovation for Better Quality of Life in Cities and Communities”.

2) Govt sets up tribunal for adjudicating ban on LTTE

•The government has constituted the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Tribunal to adjudicate whether or not there is sufficient cause for declaring the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) as an unlawful association. The Tribunal is comprised of sitting Judge of Delhi High Court Justice Sangita Dhingra Sehgal.

•LTTE was banned in India after the assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991.

3) Pema Khandu to take oath as Arunachal Pradesh CM for 2nd term

•Pema Khandu will be sworn-in as the Chief Minister of Arunachal Pradesh for the second time on 29th May. After having a landslide victory in the Assembly elections with 41 seats in the 60-seat house, the BJP held it’s Legislature Party Meeting in Itanagar.

•Mr. Khandu met Governor Dr. BD Mishra and staked claim to form the government.

4) India’s first all women medium lift chopper crew flies battle mission

•Two women IAF officers from Punjab were part of the country’s first all-women crew to fly a medium-lift helicopter Mi-17 V5.

•Flight Lieutenant Parul Bhardwaj (Captain), Flying Officer Aman Nidhi (co-pilot) and Flight Lieutenant Hina Jaiswal (Flight Engineer) flew the chopper, which took off from a forward air base in South Western air command.

5) Government invites BIMSTEC leaders for swearing-in ceremony on May 30

•Leaders of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) have been invited for PM Modi’s swearing-in ceremony to be held on 30th May. However, Bangladesh premier Sheikh Hasina will not attend the event due to her prior commitments. Myanmar State Councillor Aung Saan Suu Kyi’s presence is also uncertain as she is travelling overseas. Kyrgyzstan, the current chair of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), too, has been invited for the event.

•Apart from India, BIMSTEC comprises Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Myanmar. Indian-origin Mauritius PM Pravind Jugnauth, who visited India for Pravasi Bhartiya Divas in January, has also been invited for the May 30 event.

6) Madhya Pradesh to tentatively have new UNESCO heritage site

•Orchha town in Madhya Pradesh has a plethora of historical sites with the Bundela dynasty architectural style. The Archaeological Survey of India has included that heritage town of Orchha in a tentative list of UNESCO world heritage sites. It was included in the proposal sent by the ASI to the UN body in April 2019.

•UNESCO’s rules state that to be a part of the World Heritage sites, the heritage or historical site must first be on the tentative list. After making it to that list, yet another proposal is sent to the UNESCO. In their initial proposal, the ASI had requested that Orchha be included as a cultural heritage site.

7) Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz ousted in no-confidence vote

•Austrian Parliament has removed Chancellor Sebastian Kurz from office as he lost the no confidence in a special Parliamentary session. His previous coalition ally, the far-right Freedom Party (FPO) and the opposition Social Democrats (SPO) backed the no-confidence motions.

•Austria’s President Alexander Van der Bellen named Vice Chancellor Hartwig Logeras the interim leader. Loger will serve until a new transitional government can be appointed ahead of elections expected in September.

8) Russia launches new nuclear-powered icebreaker in bid to open up Arctic

•Russia launched a nuclear-powered icebreaker, part of an ambitious programme to renew and expand its fleet of the vessels in order to improve its ability to tap the Arctic’s commercial potential. The ship, dubbed the Ural and which was floated out from a dockyard in St Petersburg, is one of a trio that when completed will be the largest and most powerful icebreakers in the world.

•The Ural is due to be handed over to Russia’s state-owned nuclear energy corporation Rosatom in 2022 after the two other icebreakers in the same series, Arktika (Arctic) and Sibir (Siberia), enter service.

9) Maldives Ex-Leader Mohamed Nasheed Tipped As New Speaker

•The former Maldives president Mohamed Nasheed has been nominated as the country’s parliamentary speaker. Nasheed was unanimously chosen to head the People’s Majlis, or the parliament, by his Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) which won a near three-quarter majority in the 87-member assembly in April.

10) New version of Akash missile test-fired successfully

•The DRDO successfully test-fired the new version of the Akash surface-to-air defence missile system with a new indigenously-developed seeker in Balasore off the Odisha coast.

•The medium range multi-target engagement capable missile was developed as part of the Integrated Guided-Missile Development Programme (IGMDP) other than Nag, Agni, Trishul, and Prithvi missiles. The supersonic missile has a range of around 25km and up to the altitude of 18,000 meters.

11) Indian Army officer appointed the commander of UN Mission in South Sudan

•UN Secretary, General Antonio Guterres, has appointed Indian Army officer, Lieutenant General Shailesh Tinaikar, as the new Force Commander of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS).

•Mr. Tinaikar graduated from the Indian Military Academy in 1983 and is currently serving as the Commandant of the Infantry School since July 2018.