Rahul Dravid becomes fifth Indian to be inducted into ICC’s Hall of Fame

  • Rahul Dravid has been inducted into ICC Hall of Fame.
  • Dravid received this honour along with Australia’s Ricky Ponting and England’s Claire Taylor.
  • Dravid becomes only the 5th Indian to make his way into the ICC Hall of Fame, after Anil Kumble, Sunil Gavaskar, Bishan Singh Bedi and Kapil Dev.
  • 45-year-old Dravid has scored 24,208 runs in 509 international matches in his playing career spanning over 15 years.

Maha govt announces ‘Kanya Van Samruddhi Yojana’

  • The Maharashtra government has announced the scheme ‘Kanya Van Samruddhi Yojana’, by which farmers will be given free saplings for plantation when a girl child is born to their family.
  • The scheme is aimed at empowering women and promoting tree plantation.
  • A farmer’s family who is blessed with a girl child will have make an application with the gram panchayat. They will then received 10 saplings free of cost from the forest department.
  • The saplings will be of different varieties, including teakwood, mango, jackfruit, black plum and tamarind.

Nigeria overtakes India as home to world’s largest number of poor

  • India is no longer home to the largest number of people living in extreme poverty, according to a Brookings report.
  • Nigeria has overtaken India in this regard, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo could soon overtake India too, to claim second spot.
  • At the end of May 2018, Nigeria had 87 million people living in extreme poverty, while India had 73 million.
  • Extreme poverty in Nigeria is estimated to be growing at the rat of six people per minute.
  • According to the World Bank, a person who lives on less than $1.90 a day falls in the extreme poverty category.

July 1st announced as GST Day, to be celebrated for centralised tax

  • The government has announced that July 1st be celebrated as GST Day.
  • This is to commemorate the first year of the unprecedented reform of Indian taxation.
  • GST was launched on the 1st July, 2017 and replaced a multi-layered, complex indirect tax structure with a simple, transparent and technology-driven tax regime.

Victorian Gothic and Art Deco Ensemble of Mumbai given UNESCO World Heritage tag

  • Mumbai’s Victorian Gothic and Art Deco buildings have been added to UNESCO World Heritage sites.
  • The decision to confer the Mumbai architecture with the UNESCO World Heritage tag was taken at the 42nd session of the World Heritage Committee.
  • The buildings that have received this tag include public buildings bordering the Oval Maidan open space, which were constructed first in the Victorian Neo-Gothic style and then, in the early 20th century, in the Art Deco idiom.
  • These two ensembles chosen by the World Heritage Committee bear testimony to the phases of modernization that Mumbai has undergone in the course of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Asia’s 1st patent arbitration centre to open in Tokyo, Japan

  • Asia’s first arbitration centre specialised in intellectual property (IP) is set to open in Tokyo, Japan, in September 2018.
  • It will serve to attempt to resolve the growing number of IP disputes in the region.
  • The International Arbitration Centre in Tokyo (IACT) will have about 12 arbitrators from around the world, who will work to resolve disputes within a period of one year.
  • There is a growing number of patent infringement disputes worldwide, sue in part to technological progress and diversification.
  • If both parties agree, the IACT will handle disputes between non-Japanese companies too.

Abu Dhabi is ‘smartest city’ in Middle East: Study

  • Abu Dhabi has topped the list of smart cities in the Middle East and Africa, according to a report by McKinsey Global Institute.
  • Abu Dhabi secured a rating of 18.4, coming in ahead of Dubai, with a rating of 17.3.
  • Abu Dhabi is the capital of the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
  • Three factors contribute to making a city smart - technology base (how many smartphones are in use); specific apps (such as translating raw data into alerts); and the use of the apps (by the city, companies and the public).

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