News Orbit Current Affairs September 2015 (Part 6)

Mackler ‘Courageous Journalism’ Award

• Zaina Erhaim, a Syrian-based journalist has been named on August 22, 2015 for the recipient of the 2015 Peter Mackler Award for Courageous and Ethical Journalism. The award will be presented at a ceremony at the National Press Club in Washington on October 22, 2015.
• Over the last two years, Erhaim has trained about 100 citizen reporters from inside Syria, approximately a third of them women, in print and TV journalism, and helped establish new, independent newspapers and magazines in the country.
• Erhaim lives and works in Aleppo, Syria. She is also the Syria project coordinator for the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR), an international organisation that supports journalists in countries undergoing conflict, crisis or transition.
• The prize was created in 2008 to honour the memory of Agence France-Presse journalist Peter Mackler Mackler, who died of a heart attack that year at the age of 58.

Ramanujan Prize

• Amalendu Krishna, mathematician worked in the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai has won the Ramanujan Prize for 2015.
• He has been recognised for outstanding contributions in the area of algebraic K-theory, algebraic cycles and the theory of motives.
• The prize is awarded jointly by the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), Italy, the Department of Science and Technology, government of India, and the International Mathematical Union (IMU).
• Ramanujan Prize is named after the noted Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan. It is established in 2005. It recognises a researcher from a developing country who has conducted outstanding research and is less than 45 years of age.

Places in News

Palmyra (Syria)

• The UN training and research agency released satellite images and analysis on August 31, 2015 that confirmed the Temple of Bel, which for nearly 2000 years has been the center of religious life in Palmyra, Syria has been destroyed by ISIS.
• Bel, the first-century temple, which is dedicated to the ancient ‘God of Gods’, is one of the largest and best-preserved in the Middle-East Asia region and represents a meeting point between classical and Eastern architecture.
• ISIS perhaps the terrorist group to emerge in modern times, has shown a taste for demolishing irreplaceable ancient sites antiquities. It considers “pre-Islamic religious objects or structures sacrilegious”.

Agra (Uttar Pradesh)

• Lonely Planet’s ‘Ultimate Travelist’ ranked Taj Mahal, the historic mausoleum built in Agra, Uttar Pradesh by Mughal emperor Shah Jahan as the fifth most attractive travel hotspot in the world and describes it as a ‘magnificent Mughal masterpiece’.
• The Temples of Angkor, a UNESCO World Heritage site in Northern Cambodia, tops the list as a complex of more than 1000 temples, shrines and tombs which attracts more than 2 million visitors annually.
• The Great Barrier Reef in Australia comes in at number two, the Inca city of Machu Picchu in Peru at number three, and the Great Wall of China at four. The one UK entry was the British Museum, which came in 15th on the wish list.

See Also – National Current Affairs September 2015 (Part 1).

Kochi (Kerala)

• Kochi has become the first.city in India to be a member of Beijing-headquartered World Tourism Cities Federation (WTCF) Council on August 10, 2015. In this regard, the Kerala Tourism Department accepted the Council’s invitation to join its league of leading tourism cities across the world.
• Kochi was invited to be the member of the council on ground of its partnerships in culture, sports and tourism. In case of Kochi its cuisine, martial arts and snake and dragon boat races fulfils the set ground for membership.
• The WTCF is a non-profit, non-governmental international organisation voluntarily formed by tourism cities like Los Angeles, Berlin, Barcelona and many other world famous tourism cities and tourism-related institutions. It is headquartered at Beijing.

Chavara (Kerala)

• An indigenous Titanium Sponge Plant has been fully commissioned at Chavara in Kerala and as on August 10, 2015 it has started commercial production required for space applications. ISRO took this initiative in the country to meet the requirements in strategic areas.
• The annual requirement of titanium sponge for space programme is approximately 200-300 metric tonnes. ISRO’s Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre has established a dedicated 500 MT per annum plant at M/s Kerala Minerals and Metals Limited (KMML), Chavara, Kollam district.

Days and Dates

Books and Author

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