Current Affairs Questions Month Of August 2010 International Affairs

Current Affairs Questions Month Of August 2010
International Affairs

Nepal’s Parliament failed to elect a Prime Minister for the fourth time. Both Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ and Nepali Congress leader Ram Chandra Poudel could not obtain a simple majority of 301 votes in the House of 601 as required by the interim constitution.

The Jantar Mantar in Jaipur is now been in the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation’s(UNESCO)World Heritage List. Located outside the city palace, this large stone observatory with its many instruments was built by Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh II in the 18th century. It is one of the four existing astronomical observatories in India. The others are located in Varanasi, Delhi and Ujjain.
National

The Union Ministry of Environment and Forests has told the Orissa government to stop all work related to Posco’s Rs.54, 000-crore steel project, including land acquisition and handover, as it is violating the Forest Rights Act (FRA).

A Rs.10, 000-crore liquefied natural gas terminal jointly implemented by the Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) and the Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation (TIDCO) will be set up Kattupalli near the Ennore port, Chennai.

The Centre has appointed two full-time members to the 19th Law Commission of India, which was reconstituted in September 2009.Retired Supreme Court Judge P.V. Reddy was Chairman of the Commission. Full-time Members are Justice Shivkumar Sharma, retired judge of the Rajasthan High Court and Amarjit Singh Chandhiok, former Additional Solicitor General of India.

The Commonwealth Games Organising Committee formed a three-member panel headed by Lalit Bhanot to probe allegations of irregular financial transactions
Economy Current Affairs

The RBI has hiked the repo rate by 0.25 percentage points to 5.75 per cent and the reverse repo rate by 0.50 percentage point to 4.50 per cent. The repo rate is the rate at which the central bank lends to banks while the reverse repo is the rate it pays to banks for parking funds with it.
Awards

Renowned Indian sand artist Sudarsan Patnaik has won the first prize at the 8th International Sand Sculpture Championship for the 5Th time which was held in Berlin,Germany.
Sports:

* Asher Noria won the double trap gold by equaling the junior World record of 146 in the 50th World shooting championship in Munich, Germany.
* Somdev Devvarman was ranked No. 96 in the latest rankings released by the ATP. Devvarman became the sixth Indian man to figure in the top-100, after ATP rankings were introduced in 1973, behind Vijay Amritraj (16), Ramesh Krishnan (23), Leander Paes (73), Anand Amritraj (74) and Sashi Menon (87).
* Australian Mark Webber won the Formula One Hungarian Grand Prix which was held in Budapest, Hungary.
Persons

* Well-known physicist-turned author, journalist and television producer of Indian origin Simon Lehna Singh has been selected by the International Mathematical Union for the Leelavathi Award in recognition of his outstanding contribution to public outreach in mathematics.Named after the mathematical treatise of the great Indian mathematician Bhaskaracharya, the award carries a cash prize of Rs.10 lakh and a citation and will be presented by the International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM).
* Former Foreign Secretary, Shyam Saran, was sent by India as special envoy to Nepal with a mandate to engage all political parties, including the Maoists, and help build a consensus on the formation of a government.
* K.M. Mathew (93), Chief Editor of the Malayalam newspaper Malayala Manorama, passed away. Mr. Mathew started off as a rubber planter in Chickmagalur in Karnataka. He joined the family-owned Malayala Manorama in 1954 as its General Manager under his elder brother K.M. Cherian and later became the Chief Editor of the newspaper. Mr. Mathew was honored with the Padma Bhushan in 1998.