28th August 2019 Current affairs

1. The Union Government has constituted a 5-member Group of Ministers (GoM) to look into issues concerning the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh. The GoM will comprise Union Ministers Ravi Shankar Prasad, Jitendra Singh, Thawar Chand Gehlot, Narendra Singh Tomar and Dharmendra Pradhan. 

2. The Supreme Court has referred cases challenging the scrapping of Article 370 to a five-judge constitution bench. Article 370 petitions will now be heard in the first week of October.  

3. Sunil Gaur, the Delhi HC Judge who had rejected Chidambaram’s anticipatory bail in the INX Media case, has been appointed as the Chairperson of the PMLA Appellate Tribunal.

 4. Reliance Jio has topped the telecom market with a 31.7 percent market share in the second quarter (April-June) of 2019. Bharti Airtel has regained its second spot, leaving behind Vodafone Idea, the revenue of which plunged substantially. 

5. Indian Railways is set to offer up to 25 percent discount on trains such as Shatabdi Express, Tejas and Gatimaan Express, as per a senior official. The move is a result of the stiff competition faced by the Indian railways from low-cost airlines. 

6. IPS Officer Aparna Kumar will be honoured with the Tenzing Norgay National Adventure Award 2018 in the ‘Land adventure’ category. Aparna Kumar is a 2002 batch IPS officer from the Uttar Pradesh Cadre. She is the first IPS officer to be honoured with the prestigious Tenzing Norgay Award. 

7. National Sports Day is observed every year on 29 August to mark the birth anniversary of Major Dhyan Chand, the legendary hockey player who was born on August 29, 1905. Dhyan Chand was one of the greatest field hockey players of all time. 

8. Kanchan Chaudhary Bhattacharya, the first woman Director General of Police (DGP) of India, passed away recently in Mumbai, Maharashtra. Kanchan was an IPS Officer of 1973 batch. She was appointed as India’s first women DGP in 2004 of the Uttarakhand state. 

9. Indian Institute of Petroleum recently established a plant in Dehradun, Uttarakhand to convert waste plastic into diesel. The plant has a capacity to produce around 800 liters of diesel from 1 tonne plastic. 

10. The 14th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP14) of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) will take place from September 2 to 13, 2019 at the India Expo Center and Mart in New Delhi, India.