Daily Current Affairs, 29th July 2019

1) World Hepatitis Day: 28 July

•World Health Organization observe 28 July every year as “World Hepatitis Day” to step up national and international efforts on hepatitis. The date of 28 July was chosen because it is the birthday of Nobel-prize winning scientist Dr Baruch Blumberg, who discovered hepatitis B virus (HBV) and developed a diagnostic test and vaccine for the virus.

•The theme for 2019 is “Invest in eliminating hepatitis”.

•The host country for World Hepatitis Day 2019 is Pakistan.

2) 7th Economic Census begins from Tripura

•The Government of India begins the 7th Economic Census from Tripura. Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) will conduct the census. It will be conducted after a gap of 5 years.

•The fieldwork is expected to be completed by December and the results at the national level is expected to be available by March 2020.

3) NITI Aayog partners with WhatsApp to promote women entrepreneurs

•WhatsApp has partnered with NITI Aayog, under the Women Entrepreneurship Platform (WEP) to announce its plan to support and promote women entrepreneurs in India.

•WhatsApp will also partner with the Women Transforming India (WTI) Awards 2019,flagship initiative of NITI Aayog.

4) Nepal invited as a partner country for Gita Jayanti Mahotsav 2019

•Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar has invited Nepal to be the partner country for this year’s ‘Gita Jayanti Mahotsav 2019’ scheduled to be held at Kurukshetra. He extended the invitation to Ambassador of Nepal to India Nilamber Acharya.

5) RAW officer appointed as new BSF Director General

•IPS officer V.K. Johri has been appointed as the next Director General (DG) of the country’s largest border guarding force, Border Security Force(BSF). He is presently serving as the Special Secretary in the external intelligence agency RAW, under the Cabinet Secretariat.

•The order has been issued by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) that is headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

6) Girish Bapat appointed as chairman of estimates committee

•Girish Bapat has been appointed the chairman of the “Estimates Committee” of the parliament. Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla made the appointment.

•Estimates committee is one of the three financial standing committees of the parliament apart from the public accounts committee and committee on public undertakings.

7) 5th Dharma-Dhamma conference was held in Rajgir

•The 5th international Dharma-Dhamma conference was inaugurated by Union Minister of State Kiren Rijiju.

•The aim of the conference is to address people about the terror, violence and global warming prevalent in the world. The conference will also address the subjects of Sat-Chit-Ananda and Nirvana which are the pivotal topics of Buddhism.

8) Sudarsan Pattnaik wins Peoples Choice Award in the U.S.

•Padma Awardee Sudarsan Pattnaik has won the People’s Choice Award at aprestigious sand sculpting festival in the U.S.

•Pattnaik was participating in the 2019 Revere Beach International Sand Sculpting Festival in Boston, Massachusetts. He won the People’s Choice Award for his sand sculpture ‘Stop Plastic Pollution, Save Our Ocean’.

9) Khelo India Youth Games 2020 to be held in Guwahati

•The 3rd edition of Khelo India Youth Games 2020 will be held in Guwahati. The Games will see a participation of more than 10,000 athletes and officials. It will be conducted in partnership with Indian Olympic Association(IOA), School Games Federation of India(SGFI) & Assam as host State.