Daily Current Affairs for Competitive exams: September 20, 2016

Cauvery Supervisory Committee directs Karnataka to release 3000 cusecs of water per day for 10 days

The Cauvery Supervisory Committee headed by Shashi Shekhar on 19 September 2016 directed Karnataka to release 3000 cusecs of water per day to Tamil Nadu. As per the committee’s direction, Karnataka will have to release 3000 cusecs water per day from 21 to 30 September 2016 to Tamil Nadu.

• The other members of the committee are Chief Secretaries of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala and Puducherry and Central Water Commission chairman. It will once again meet in October 2016.
• It seems that the decision of the committee will go in vain as no consensus was reached between the two states regarding the release of water. Karnataka had opposed the release of water due to ground reality and drinking water problems in the state.
• Earlier on 5 September 2016, the Supreme Court asked Karnataka and Tamil Nadu to approach the panel and till then asked Karnataka to release 15000 cusecs of water per day for 10 days to Tamil Nadu. Later on 12 September, it revised the limit to 12000 cusecs per day till 20 September 2016.

Outcome of the decision

The Karnataka government said that it will move Supreme Court to challenge the Cauvery Supervisory Committee's order asking the state to release 3000 cusecs of water per day for 10 days. It said that the state is not in a position to release Cauvery water due to shortage being faced by them.

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Anandi Ramalingam assumed charge as Bharat Electronics Limited’s first woman director

Anandi Ramalingam on took charge as director of Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL), on September 16, 2016.

Ramalingam has assumed charge as Director Marketing. It is the first time that a woman has been appointed as the Director of the company. Earlier, Ramalingam served as the General Manager heading the Military Communication Strategic Business Unit (SBU) at BEL's Bangalore Complex.

• Bharat Electronics Limited is an Indian state-owned aerospace and defence company with about nine factories in India. It is owned by the Indian Government.
• It primarily manufactures advanced electronic products for the Indian Armed Forces. It is one of nine PSUs under the Ministry of Defence of India. 
• It has been accorded Navratna status by the Government of India.

Indian Railways launches Yatri Mitra Sewa to help elderly, differently-abled

Indian Railways has launched ‘Yatri Mitra Sewa’ in a move to make rail travel comfortable for elderly, differently-abled and ailing travellers. The ‘Yatri Mitra Sewa’ will facilitate access to wheelchairs, battery operated cars and porter services elderly, differently-abled and ailing travellers.

• ‘Passenger Friend’ or ‘Yatri Mitra’ can be assistant (Sahayak) or any other person nominated for the purpose. The service will be available at major railway stations across the country.
• This service can be availed at the time of online booking of tickets, calling or messaging ‘139’, accessing an app developed by the Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS). It can be also availed by simply dialling a dedicated mobile phone number to be activated for the purpose.
• IRCTC has been mandated to implement the service for ‘free of cost’ by involving some charitable trust, NGOs, PSUs, etc under the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) category. But, if due to lack of response the service cannot be provided free of cost then IRCTC may arrange this service on affordable and reasonable charges.

HRD Ministry innaugartes Super Computer PARAM-ISHAN at IIT Guwahati

The Union Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Prakash Javadekar has inaugurated the super computer PARAM ISHAN at IIT Guwahati campus. PARAM ISHAN is the fastest and most powerful computer in North East, Eastern and Southern region of India outside Bengaluru (Karnataka).

Key features :

• PARAM ISHAN has been jointly developed by IIT Guwahati and C -DAC (Centre for Development of Advanced Computing). It has a peak computing power of 250 Teraflops and three hundred tera bites capacity.
• It will help to augment the research initiatives and also in creating an ecosystem for attracting right talents to the field of research. Potential applications: It can be used research initiatives such as computational chemistry, computational electromagnetic, computational fluid dynamics, civil engineering structures, nana-block self-assemble, optimization etc. It can be also used for Weather, climate modeling and seismic data processing.

Alka Sirohi appointed as Chairman of UPSC

• Former IAS officer Alka Sirohi has been appointed as chairman of Union Public Service Commission (UPSC), in place of Deepak Gupta who demits office on Tuesday.
• President Pranab Mukherjee has appointed Sirohi to perform the duties of the post of the chairman, UPSC, with effect from September 21. She is presently member in the Commission.
• Incidentally, the Centre had in November 2014 appointed Gupta as the UPSC chief, breaking away from the tradition of appointing the chief from the serving members of the commission.
• In 2014, the Centre had for the first time appointed somebody (Gupta) from outside as the UPSC chairman.
• At that time, Sirohi was the senior most member and could have been the chairman. Sirohi is a retired IAS officer of Madhya Pradesh cadre.