World Today - 31st August 2015

1. South Africa’s One Day International team captain AB de Villiers became the fastest batsman to reach 8000 One Day International (ODI) runs. He achieved the fete during the third ODI against New Zealand in Durban which South Africa won by 62 runs. De Villiers, who went past 8000 runs in just his 182 innings, broke the previous record held by former Indian captain Sourav Ganguly
2. King of Sprint-Jamaica’s Usain Bolt completed a perfect sprint double over his rival Justin Gatlin (America) by winning the 200 meters at the 2015 Beijing World Athletics Championships. It is his second gold medal of the Championship. The 29 years old Jamaican clocked 19.55 seconds to beat a strong field. Gatlin managed 19.74 seconds to finish second, ahead of South African Anaso Jobodwana, who created a national record with 19.87 seconds.
3. Indian Farmers Fertilizer Cooperative Limited (IFFCO), the largest producer and marketer of fertilizers in the country, strengthening the Make in India campaign started by Prime Minister Narendra Modi by joining hands with the global player in agrochemicals business, Mitsubishi Corporation, Japan, to form a joint venture company IFFCO-MC Crop Science Private Limited. IFFCO will hold 51 per cent stake in the company and rest will be with Mitsubishi Corporation, Japan. The company will manufacture the high quality agrochemicals in India. The company was formally launched at IFFCO’s Head Office in New Delhi
4. NITI Aayog launched India Energy Security Scenarios (IESS) 2047, an interactive energy scenario building tool that aims to explore a range of potential future energy scenarios for India, for diverse energy demand and supply sectors leading up to 2047. It explores India’s possible energy scenarios across energy supply sectors such as solar, wind, bio fuels, oil, gas, coal and nuclear, etc and emphasis their use. It is also a systematic system of analyzing the energy demand of sectors such as transport, industry, agriculture, cooking and lighting appliances.
5. Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) successfully placed communication satellite GSAT-6 in earth’s orbit through GSLV D-6 rocket. GSAT-6 will provide S-band communication services in the country. It is aimed at primarily benefiting the country’s strategic and planning users and other specific authorized users. The cuboids-shaped satellite with a mission life of nine years also includes a first-of-its-kind S-Band unfurl-able antenna with a diameter of six meter. This is the largest antenna ISRO has ever made for a satellite. It was also the 25th home-made communications satellite launched by ISRO using the Geo-synchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle-GSLV.
6. Former India captain Dilip Vengsarkar elected as the President of the Association of Indian Statisticians and Scorers of India (ACSSI). He was elected unopposed during the Annual General Meeting (AGM) of ACSSI. At present, Vengsarkar is the Vice President of the Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA). Also, Dara Pochkhanawalla and Ganesh Iyer were elected as the two vice presidents of the organization.
7. Global wealth assessment company, Wealth-X released the report related to the list of Top 20 Wealthiest People fewer than 35. As per the report, Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is the wealthiest individual under the age of 35, with a personal fortune of 41.6 billion US dollars. Zuckerberg is followed by Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz, who claimed the second place on the list with an estimated net worth of 9.3 billion US dollars and with Country Garden Holdings’s Huiyan Yang on the third spot with an estimated net worth of 5.9 billion US dollars.
8. Dr. Kandakatla Manohar was appointed as the Director of Nizams Institute of Medical Sciences (NIMS) of Hyderabad. His appointment was approved by the Telangana Government. He succeeded Dr. L. Narendranath. Manohar is a native of Penchikalapeta of Warangal district and is working as the Superintendent of the MGM Hospital in Warangal.
9. Union Govt. has announced the list of 98 cities and towns selected under Smart Cities Mission. Uttar Pradesh has the highest number of allocated cities-13 in the Smart Cities Mission as announced by Muppavarapu Venkaiah Naidu, the Union Minister of Urban development. However, only 12 cities have been shortlisted from Uttar Pradesh against 13 cities allocated to the state and one city will be nominated later for which there is a tussle between Meerut and Raibareilly. Tamil Nadu has been allocated 12 cities, followed by 10 from Maharashtra and 7 from Madhya Pradesh. Centre has earmarked Rs. 48,000 Crore for development of 100 smart cities
10. China launched its Yaogan-27 remote sensing satellite into space from Taiyuan launch site in Shanxi province, north China. The satellite will mainly be used for experiments, land surveys, crop yield estimates and disaster prevention. Yaogan-27 was carried into space by a Long March-4C rocket. China launched the first “Yaogan” series satellite, Yaogan-1, in 2006.