30 July 2015 Current Affair Updates | Daily GK Download

1. Whistleblower Indian forest officer Sanjiv Chaturvedi, who was removed from the post of Chief Vigilance officer at AIIMS, and founder of NGO Goonj Anshu Gupta are the two Indians selected for this year's prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award. Three others who have been selected for the award include Kommaly Chanthavong from Laos, Ligaya Fernando-Amilbangsa from Philippines and Kyaw Thu from Myanmar. They will be formally conferred the Magsaysay Award on 31 August at the Cultural Center of the Philippines.

2. Government of Sri Lanka inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with search engine giant Google to launch the ‘Google Loon project’ in the country. As per the MoU, Google will place 13 high-altitude balloons over the island nation to provide affordable high-speed 3G (3rd Generation) internet services to the entire country. It is also expected that this project will provide free Wi-Fi connectivity across Sri Lanka. Successful implementation of this project will make Sri Lanka the first country in the world to have Internet access covering the whole country with the government support.

3. India signed a loan agreement of 300 million US dollars with Asian Development Bank (ADB) for its flagship programme National Urban Health Mission (NUHM). The main of the NUHM is to improve the health status of the country’s urban population. The loan agreement is titled Supporting National Urban Health Mission and it seeks to reinforce ongoing government efforts under the NUHM to develop health systems in urban areas that can deliver quality health services to the urban poor and vulnerable.

4. Union Government appointed Ram Sewak Sharma as the new Chairman of Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), the regulating body of Indian telecom sector. R.S. Sharma, an engineering post-graduate from IIT Kanpur and a 1978 batch IAS officer of Jharkhand cadre, was till now Secretary, Information Technology Department. He will have tenure of 3 years. He succeeded Rahul Khullar who retired from post on 14 May 2015.

5. Union Government appointed Ashish Bahuguna as the Chairman of food safety regulator Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI). Former Agriculture Secretary, Bahuguna's tenure will be of three years and he succeeded K. Chandramouli whose tenure ended in January 2015. Since then the position was lying vacant and the Health Secretary Bhanu Pratap Sharma was given the interim charge of chairman of FSSAI. Bahuguna is a 1978-batch Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer of Rajasthan cadre who retired from the post of Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture in February 2015.

6. Clive Rice, South African team’s former captain and legendry cricketer has died in a Cape Town hospital aged 66. He had been suffering from a brain tumour and visited India in March 2015 to have radiation treatment in Bangalore. He entered the first stage cricket in 1969. As Nottinghamshire and South Africa's Captain Rice scored 26,331 runs and took 930 wickets.

7. Union Government has announced to roll out e-tourist visa facility to Chinese nationals from July 30, 2015. Hong Kong and Macau nationals will also be provided with e-tourist visa facility along with Chinese citizens. This decision was taken in lines with promise made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in this regard during his visit to China in May 2015. It should be noted that PM Modi had made this announcement notwithstanding frequent issuance of stapled visa by Chinese to Indian citizens from Arunachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir.

8. Union Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports constituted a Working Group to prepare a revised draft of National Sports Development Code of India (NSDCI). The nine-member Working Group will be headed by Justice C.K. Mahajan (retd.), Former Judge of Delhi High Court. Its aim is to examine the existing NSDCI from both sports governance and legal angles and fine-tune/revise the same with the purpose of making it more precise and succinct.

9. The United States named a new special envoy to Syria, the third since the war began four years ago, as Washington seeks a political solution to the conflict. Michael Ratney, an Arabic speaker who served as US consul general in Jerusalem, and as a diplomat in Iraq, Lebanon, Morocco and Qatar, replaces Daniel Rubinstein.

10. Delhi boy Yash Singh bagged India's first medal at the Special Olympics World Summer Games 2015 in Los Angeles. The 13-year-old swimmer (suffering from autism) won bronze in the 25-metre backstroke swimming event.Yash clocked 19.23 seconds. The gold medallist clocked 16.85 seconds and the winner of the silver clocked 19.13 seconds.