PscSpecialist.in

A Gulf of Mexico storm rapidly intensified early today spinning into potentially the biggest hurricane to hit the mainland United States in 12 years and taking aim at the heart of nation's oil refining industry. The US National Hurricane Center said in an advisory that hurricane Harvey has strengthened to a category 2 storm, packing winds of 160 km per hour as it moved northwest about 355 km off the coast of Corpus Christi, Texas. The storm is forecast to make landfall late today or early tomorrow, packing winds of up to 201 km per hour. The storm could bring a surge in sea levels as high as 12 feet and dump up to 35 inches of rain over parts of Texas. Flood warnings are in effect for northern Mexico and Louisiana. The threat has triggered evacuations and canceled the first day of school in communities along the south Texas coast, which is home to 5.8 million people from Corpus Christi to Galveston. Energy companies shut coastal refineries, pulled workers from Gulf of Mexico offsho...

Indian Space Research Organization ISRO has scheduled its next satellite launch on the 31st of this month. A release from the national space agency has said it would put into orbit the IRNSS-1H satellite at 18:59 hours on the day using the rocket PSLV-C39 from Sriharikotta. The release has further said, the payload would augment the capacity of India’s seven-satellite ‘NavIC’ constellation in space. The NavIC constellation provides spatial information on moving and non-moving objects in and around the country. It is considered to be the Indian equivalent of the GPS or the Glonass. The first satellite in the series, IRNSS-1A developed a technical snag earlier, as its rubidium atomic clock failed in space. The latest satellite is expected to take up the mantle of the first payload in the series after its launch.

Olympic silver medallist P V Sindhu moved up a spot, while Kidambi Srikanth slipped two places in the latest BWF World ranking released a day ago. Sindhu reached the World No. 4 spot while Srikanth was placed at 10. Women's doubles pair of Ashwini Ponnappa and N Sikki Reddy rose a place to be placed at 24th spot, while Pranaav Jerry Chopra and N Sikki Reddy were static at the 20th place. Among other Indians, Saina Nehwal (16th), B Sai Praneeth (19th), H S Prannoy (15th) and Ajay Jayaram (17th) remained static in their respective positions. There were no Indian pair in the top 25 of men's doubles rankings.  

Finance Minster Arun Jaitley today unveiled NITI Aayog's three Year Action Agenda which is an integral part of the 15 year Vision Document of India. Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Jaitley said the action agenda has the potential to trigger much more economic activity and development than what the country has today. He said the document can be a good govt textbook which will be useful in the economic planning of the country. NITI Aayog Vice Chairman Arvind Panagariya said the major impediment in job creation is that entrepreneurs of the country do not invest in labour intensive activities. Mr Panagariya said the document has been divided into seven parts including how to double farmers' income and civil services reforms among others.

In a landmark decision, the Supreme Court today declared the right to privacy a fundamental right under the constitution. A nine-judge constitution bench headed by Chief Justice JS Khehar ruled that right to privacy is an intrinsic part of the Right to Life and Personal Liberty under Article 21 and entire Part III of the Constitution. The bench unanimously overruled the two earlier judgements of the apex court that the right to privacy is not protected under the Constitution. Several petitioners had challenged the validity of the Aadhaar scheme on grounds of it being violative of the right to privacy. The court had also voiced concern over the possible misuse of personal information in the public domain. The question whether Aadhaar violates right to privacy will be dealt with by the five-judge bench which has been hearing the petitions since 2015. Government and parties across political spectrum have welcomed Apex Court's verdict. Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad hailed the ...

A two-day Meeting of Heads of Governments of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Member States will begin today at Cholpon Ata in Kyrgyz Republic. The meeting will focus on prevention and elimination of emergency situations. Home Minister Rajnath Singh is leading the Indian delegation which includes senior officers from Home and External Affairs Ministries and National Disaster Management Authority. During the visit, the Home Minister is likely to have bilateral meetings with the Ministers of some of the SCO Member States. India got the full membership of SCO this year and Prime Minister Narendra Modi attended SCO's annual Summit meeting held in Astana, Kazakhstan in June this year. The participation of India as SCO Member will open additional opportunities for giving new impetus to the development of international cooperation in the field of protecting the population and territories from emergency situations within the framework of the SCO. impetus ˈɪmpɪtəs/ noun   the for...

The government today gave its go ahead to the RBI to issue 200 rupee notes that will ease pressure on lower-denomination currency bills. Finance Ministry, in a notification, said that on the recommendations of the Central Board of Directors of the RBI, government has notified bank notes of 200 rupees. The new 200 rupee notes are likely to be in circulation shortly . This is the fourth new note to be announced since November when 1000 and 500 rupee notes were demonetised. The introduction of the new notes is expected to ease the problems faced by people due to high-value 2,000 rupee notes.