Ram Nath Kovind, Acharya Dev Vrat appointed as Governors of Bihar, HP

President Pranab Mukherjee has appointed Acharya Dev Vrat and Ram Nath Kovind as the governors of Himachal Pradesh and Bihar respectively.

  • Mr. Kovind will succeed Keshri Nath Tripathi (Governor of West Bengal) who was holding additional charge of Bihar.
  • Acharya Dev Vrat will succeed Kalyan Singh (Governor of Rajasthan) who was holding the additional charge of Himachal Pradesh.

PM Narendra Modi Inaugurated first National Handloom Day

To commemorate the 1905 Swadeshi movement the Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced August 7 as ‘National Handloom Day’ at the function held in Chennai. The function was organised by the Tamil Nadu government’s textile ministry.

Egypt launches Suez Canal expansion

Egypt’s government has inaugurated an $8bn (£5.2bn) expansion of the Suez Canal with an elaborate ceremony hailing the project as a national achievement.

  • The mega-project includes a 35-km (22-mile) parallel waterway flanking the existing 145-year-old canal.
  • It also includes a deepening and widening of 37 km of the existing canal, which will cut transit times and allow larger vessels easier passage.
  • The mega-project brings to the canal’s length to 120 miles and its depth to 78 feet, allowing it to accommodate the world’s largest vessels.

Note: – Suez Canal is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt that was built in 1869 to connect the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea and thus decreasing the distance between the East and the West exponentially. It is still the fastest link between Asia and Europe and accounts for around 7% of global seaborne trade.

Mysore tops Swachh Bharat rankings for 476 cities

Mysore city in Karnataka has topped the Swachh Bharat Rankings of 476 cities in the country with three more from the State figuring in the top 10. West Bengal does well with 25 cities/towns from the State finding a place in the top 100 cities. These rankings are based on the extent of open defecation and solid waste management practices in these cities.

The top 05 ranked cities being :

  1. Mysore (Karnataka)
  2. Thiruchirapalli (Tamil Nadu)
  3. Navi Mumbai
  4. Kochi (Kerala)
  5. Hassan (Karnataka)

Accenture appoints Rekha Menon as Chairperson of its India operations

Global software giant and consultancy Accenture has appointed Rekha Menon as the new chairperson for its India operations. She will succeed Avinash Vashistha who had resigned earlier in July 2015. With this appointment, Menon became Accenture’s first woman head in India.

Current Affairs One-liners

  • Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has developed a poly-herbal medicine for the treatment of leucoderma (white patches on skin). Leucoderma is also known as Vitiligo.
  • The world’s first ever ant map, showing the distribution of the tiny industrious creatures around the globe, has been launched by the University of Hong Kong (HKU). Australian state Queensland is home to the highest number of native species, at more than 1,400.
  • The Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO), India’s state-run pension fund with a retirement corpus of Rs 8.5 lakh crore, has hit the stock market. EPFO has decided to tread cautiously and to invest only in Exchange Traded Funds to begin with.