International Telecommunication Union

• The International Telecommunication Union is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN).
• It was founded on the principle of international cooperation between governments (Member States) and the private sector (Sector Members, Associates and Academia)
• ITU has been an intergovernmental public-private partnership organization since its inception.
• It is responsible for issues that concern information and communication technologies.
• The ITU allocates global radio spectrum and satellite orbits, develop the technical standards that ensure networks and technologies seamlessly interconnect, and strive to improve access to ICTs to underserved communities worldwide.
• ITU currently has a membership of 193 countries and almost 800 private-sector entities and academic institutions.
• ITU is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland

Public Credit Registry

• A public credit registry is an information repository that collates all loan information of individuals and corporate borrowers.
• A credit repository helps banks distinguish between a bad and a good borrower and accordingly offer attractive interest rates to good borrowers and higher interest rates to bad borrowers.
• The move is based on the recommendations of a committee, headed by Y.M. Deosthalee.
• PCR will address issues such as information asymmetry, improve access to credit and strengthen the credit culture among consumers.
• It can also address the bad loan problem staring at banks, as corporate debtors will not be able to borrow across banks without disclosing existing debt.
• A PCR may also help raise India’s rank in the global ease of doing business index.

Ahmedabad as Karnavati

• The Gujarat government keen on rechristening Ahmedabad as Karnavati.
• The area around Ahmedabad has been inhabited since the 11th century when it was known as Ashaval.
• Chaulukya ruler Karna of Anhilwara (modern Patan) had waged a successful war against the Bhil king of Ashaval and established a city called Karnavati on the banks of the Sabarmati river.
• Sultan Ahmed Shah in 1411 A.D. had laid the foundation of a new walled city near Karnavati and named it Ahmedabad after the four saints in the area by the name Ahmed.

World Food Programme

• The World Food Programme is the food assistance branch of the United Nations and the world’s largest humanitarian organization addressing hunger and promoting food security.
• The WFP was formally established in 1963 by the FAO and the United Nations General Assembly.
• WFP Headquarters is in Rome.
• Save lives and protect livelihoods in emergencies.
• Support food security and nutrition and (re)build livelihoods in fragile settings and following emergencies.
• Reduce risk and enable people, communities and countries to meet their own food and nutrition needs.
• Reduce undernutrition and break the intergenerational cycle of hunger.
• Zero Hunger in 2030.

Purchasing Managers Index

• The Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) is an indicator of economic health for the manufacturing and service sectors.
• The purpose of the PMI is to provide information about current business conditions to company decision makers, analysts and purchasing managers.
• The PMI is compiled and released monthly by the Institute for Supply Management (ISM).
• The PMI is based on five major survey areas: new orders, inventory levels, production, supplier deliveries and employment.
• The surveys include questions about business conditions and any changes, whether it is improving, no changes or deteriorating.
• The headline PMI is a number from 0 to 100.
• A PMI above 50 represents an expansion when compared with the previous month.
• A PMI reading under 50 represents a contraction, and a reading at 50 indicates no change.

INS Arihant

• Nuclear submarine INS Arihant country’s first indigenous nuclear submarine successfully completed its “first deterrence patrol.
• It will signify the underwater predator has undertaken its maiden long-range mission with “live” nuclear-tipped missiles.
• It is India’s long-awaited nuclear triad, or the capability to fire nuclear weapons from land, air and sea.
• INS Arihant (which means annihilator of enemies), armed with the 750-km range K-15 missiles, incidentally, comes at a time when a Chinese submarine is once again prowling around in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR).
• The success of INS Arihant gives a fitting response to those who indulge in nuclear blackmail.
• The Arihant-class submarines are nuclear powered ballistic missile submarines built under the Advanced Technology Vessel (ATV) project.
• This will be the first nuclear submarines designed and built by India.
• The submarines are powered by a pressurised water reactor with highly enriched uranium fuel.

Changsha Declaration

• Changsha Declaration came at the end of a forum on international development cooperation in Changsha, China.
• In this more than 20 country committed to a new declaration on agricultural and rural development in a bid to stamp out poverty and hunger.
• The Changsha Declaration aims to ramp up the efforts towards South-South Cooperation – an initiative working to eliminate hunger and malnutrition through the mutual sharing and exchange of good practices, resources, and know-how between countries of the “global south”.
• The forum coincided with the launch of a new report, jointly published by the Food and Agriculture Organization, the UN Children’s Fund, World Food Programme, and the World Health Organization, alerting of severe food shortages plaguing Asia and the Pacific.
• China has been fielding experts and technicians to share knowledge in various technical areas, including aquaculture, crop production and livestock breeding to boost the country’s agriculture.
• The forums provide facility to training in agriculture innovation and promote investment in rural areas in an effort to reach the first 2030 Sustainable Development Goal (2) of zero hunger.

Coringa Wildlife Sanctuary

• Coringa Wildlife Sanctuary is a wildlife sanctuary and estuary situated in Andhra Pradesh, India.
• It is the second largest stretch of mangrove forests in India.
• The sanctuary is a part of the Godavari estuary and has extensive mangrove and dry deciduous tropical forest
• It is home to the critically endangered white-backed vulture and the long-billed vulture.

Indian-Ocean Rim Association

• The Indian Ocean Rim Association is an international organisation consisting of coastal states bordering the Indian Ocean.
• The IORA is a regional forum, tripartite in nature, bringing together representatives of Government, Business and Academia, for promoting co-operation and closer interaction among them.
• It is based on the principles of Open Regionalism for strengthening Economic Cooperation particularly on Trade Facilitation and Investment, Promotion as well as Social Development of the region.
• The Coordinating Secretariat of IORA is located at Ebene, Mauritius.
• Recently the Republic of South Africa, as the current IORA Chair, will host the 18th IORA Council of (Foreign) Ministers Meetings (COM) in Durban.

Common Service Centre

• Common Services Centers (CSCs) are astrategic corner stone of the Digital India programme. CSCs are envisaged as assisted front end ICT (Information and Communication Technology) enabled centres for delivery of various G2C (Government to Citizen) and other B2C (Business to Citizen) services to the citizens.
• CSC Centre is operated by an operator named as Village Level Entrepreneur (VLE).VLE has basic level of computing infrastructure at his/her CSC centre and is capable of delivering various services to citizens. CSCs today are prescribed as one of the service delivery points in rural India.
• They are positioned as change agents, promoting rural entrepreneurship and building rural capacities and livelihoods. They focus towards the digital development, catalyzing rural entrepreneurs & social inclusion.
• CSC Centres are present across India and equitably spread geographically.
• As on date, 3.15 lakh CSCs are functional, out of which 2.10 lakhs are at Gram Panchayat level across 36 States/ UTs. Out of 3.15 lakh, 60,000 common services centreare run by women VLEs who are working extremely well in delivery of services. There are 350+ services available under Digital India Platform.

United Nations Postal Administration

• It is postal agency of United Nations.
• It issues postage stamps and postal stationery, denominated in United States dollars for United Nations offices in New York, in Swiss francs for offices in Geneva and in euros for the offices in Vienna.
• Postage rates charged are identical to those of the host nation.
• Recently United Nations Postal Administration (UNPA) has issued special stamps with Diyas lamps to commemorate India Hindu festival of Diwali.

Dharma Guardian-2018

• Armies of India and Japan began their first-ever joint military exercise at a jungle warfare school in Mizoram’s Vairengte.
• The objective of the exercise is to build and promote Army to Army relation in addition to exchange skills and experiences of both the armies.
• Exercise ‘DHARMA GUARDIAN-2018’ is another step in deepening strategic ties including closer defense cooperation between the two countries.
• JIMEX and MALABAR are the Naval exercises conducted by Indian and Japanese Navy.

Shakti: India’s first microprocessor

• India’s first indigenous microprocessor Shakti has been developed and booted by Indian Institute of Technology Madras along with a microchip fabricated Laboratory of Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) at Chandigarh.
• It will reduce dependency on imported microchips and the risk of cyber attacks making it ideal for communication and defence sectors.
• The microprocessor fabricated in India was in a 180nm facility, while the one in the US was in a 20nm. lab.
• A microprocessor is a computer processor that incorporates the functions of a central processing unit on a single integrated circuit (IC).
• The microprocessor is a multipurpose, clock driven, register-based, digital integrated circuit that accepts binary data as input, processes it according to instructions stored in its memory, and provides results as output.
• Microprocessors operate on numbers and symbols represented in the binary number system.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

• The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is an intergovernmental body of the United Nations.
• Its headquarters is in Geneva, Switzerland.
• It is dedicated to providing the world with an objective, scientific view of climate change and its political and economic impacts.
• It was established in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and later endorsed by the United Nations General Assembly.
• The 2007 Nobel Peace Prize was shared, in equal parts, between the IPCC and Al Gore.