CWG 2018 roundup - India’s main talking points

  • India came third in the medals tally at CWG 2018 (with 66 medals), behind Australia (198) adn England (136).
  • India’s best ever CWG was in 2018 at Delhi, where we won 101 medals in total. The country’s second-best showing was in Manchester, England in 2002 where we bagged 69 medals in all.
  • At CWG 2018, Indian shuttler Kidambi Srikanth won his first CWG singles’ medal, a silver, losing to Malaysia’s Lee Chong Wei in the finals.
  • Saina Nehwal bagged a historic second CWG gold (her first came at the 2010 Delhi games), after fending off world number three P. V. Sindhu in the first ever all-Indian women’s singles final at the Commonwealth Games.      

New Gurgaon-Mumbai expressway to be ready by 2021, says Nitin Gadkari

  • The new e-way will cut travel time to just 12 hours (from 24 hours currently) and will shorten the distance from 1,450km to 1,250km.
  • The project, it is estimated, will cost Rs.60,000 crore and work should start by December 2018.
  • Expect the new Gurgaon-Mumbai expressway to be ready in three years’ time, says highways minister Nitin Gadkari.

Environment Ministry frames amended plastic bag rules

  • Amid all the talk of the plastic bag ban, the Environment Ministry has framed amended rules on plastic waste management.
  • Multi-layered plastics which are not recyclable or which have no alternate use will be phased out.
  • Rule 15 has been removed. Under this rule, shopkeepers and vendors who wanted to provide plastic bags would have to register with the local body by paying a minimum of Rs.48,000 per year (or Rs.4,000 per month).
  • Among other amendments to the rules, there is to be set up a central registration system, with which producers, importers and brand owners can register.

India and France to cooperate on interplanetary missions, says ISRO

  • The space agencies of the two nations are in talks for a collaborative effort to on inter-planetary missions to Mars and Venus.
  • The India space agency is called The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), while the French space agency is named the French National Space Agency (CNES).
  • About a month ago, the two agencies signed an MoU for space cooperation.ISRO has previously had their own interplanetary missions - Chandrayaan-I to the Moon and Mangalyaan to Mars.
  • Chandrayaan-2 is India’s second lunar exploration mission and is scheduled to be launched sometime soon.

TRAI unveils its platform to compare operators’ tariffs

  • The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has unveiled a new website that they are testing. The website allows people to compare tariffs of mobile and landline operators.
  • A testing website like this is called a beta programme, and so the TRAI’s site is a beta site, still in testing phase.
  • TRAI has launched the site with the intention of bringing more transparency into the sector.
  • The beta version of the site can be found at: www.tariff.trai.gov.in

Sebi accepts Infosys consent plea on severance pay to former CFO Rajiv Bansal

  • The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has accepted a plea from Infosys to pay former CFO a severance package. The SEBI’s Advisory Committee will now decide on the amount of monetary compensation sought in the settlement application.
  • Infosys, the Bengaluru-based IT company, had filed the consent plea with the SEBI in December last year to settle charges of disclosure lapses that pertain to the severance agreement that the company signed with Rajiv Bansal in 2015.

Wholesale inflation dips to 2.47% in March 2018

  • The annual rate of inflation for all commodities, based on wholesale price-indexed (WPI), reduced slightly to 2.47% for March 2018.
  • In February this year, the WPI came in at 2.48%, and when compared to last year’s WPI (5.11% for March 2017), this is a big drop.
  • Manufactured products inflation for March 2018 stands at 3.03%, which is lower than 3.22% for March 2017.