Uttarakhand
Uttarakhand blind footballers aim for international glory
The Uttarakhand football team for the blind won the All India Invitational Blind Football (IIBF) tournament in Kerala in May, defeating seven other teams to bring the trophy home. The team achieved this with a partially sighted goalkeeper although the rules stipulate that the goalkeeper can be a normal sighted person.
This success is not only a triumph for a sport overshadowed by cricket in India but also a victory of the human spirit, where a bunch of boys fought accident, disability and sometimes poverty to prove a point, not just to themselves but the world at large.
INTERNATIONAL
- New Species of Bat- ‘Yoda’
- An unusual breed of fruit bat — previously nicknamed ‘Yoda’ due to its resemblance to the Jedi Master in the popular Star Wars movies — has now officially been registered as a new species.
- Discovered in a remote rainforest of Papua New Guinea, the bat has been renamed the happy (Hamamas) tube-nosed fruit bat. Its unusual features saw it affectionately referred to as the ‘Yoda bat’.
NATIONAL
· Only govt. can take call on yoga in schools: SC
- The Supreme Court has dismissed a petition for a direction to the government to make yoga education a compulsory part of the syllabus for Classes one to eight.
- “We are nobody to say what is to be taught in schools,” a Bench, led by Justice Madan B. Lokur, orally observed.
- The Bench denied any relief to petitioner and advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay, saying it was for the government to take the call on such issues.
- His petition had sought a direction to the government to frame a National Yoga Policy, saying that right to health was part of the right to lead a dignified life under Article 21 of the Constitution.
- India and Russia to hold Major Tri-Service ‘Indra’ Combat Exercise in October.
- India and Russia for the first time are going to conductIndra tri-services exerciseinvolving their armies, navies and the air forces in October 2017 to establish military ties.
- A total of 350 Indian Army personnel will participate in the mega exercise. The contingents by the Indian Navy and AirForce(IAF) will also be sizeable.
- During Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Russia in June 2017, both countries had decided to “upgrade and intensify” defense cooperation among them.
- Railways detect ₹1.11 crore in fake currency notes in 10 years
- The Railways have detected fake currency notes with a face value of ₹1.11 crore at its cash counters in the last 10 years, according to the report of a Parliamentary Standing Committee.
- The Railways have recovered ₹66.2 lakh from the staff members responsible for taking the fake currency notes and are yet to get back the remaining ₹45.1 lakh in counterfeit currency notes.
- The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Transport, Tourism and Culture raised “concerns” about the fake currency notes detected at the railway cash counters and asked the Railways to procure fake currency detecting machines.
- Indian Coast Guard ship ‘Shaurya’ commissioned in Goa.
- Indian Coast Guard ship “Shaurya”, the fifth in the series of six 105-metre offshore patrol vessels (OPVs), was commissioned in Goa by Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan.