International Arya Mahasammelan
- The global convention of the Arya Samaj, the International Arya Mahasammelan 2018 was recently inaugurated by the President of India in New Delhi.
- The convention was started in 2006 and this year convention is the 11th such mahasammelan.
- It aims to spread a message of human welfare originating from the Vedas, promote universal brotherhood and ensure safeguarding of social morals.
- The Arya Samaj declared representatives from 32 countries across Asia, Africa, Europe and North America will attend this global convention.
Arya Samaj
- Arya Samaj was formed in the year 1875 by Swami Dayananda Saraswati.
- It emphasized on the liberation of the Hindu society.
- It believes in infallibility of Vedas. Dayananda Saraswati gave the slogan “Go back to the Vedas” to revive the true Vedic religion.
- It advocated widow remarriage, female education and equal status for women in the society.
- It strongly opposed idol worship, ritualism, practice of animal-sacrifice, the concept of polytheism, the idea of heaven and hell and fatalism.
Seoul Peace Prize
- The Seoul Peace Prize Committee has decided to confer the 2018 Seoul Peace Prize on Indian Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi.
- It was established in 1990 to commemorate the success of the 24th Olympic Games held in Seoul, Republic of Korea.
- In 24th Olympic games, 160 nations from across the world took part, creating harmony and friendship and a worldwide atmosphere of peace and reconciliation.
- It has been awarded biennially to those individuals who have made their mark through contributions to the harmony of mankind, reconciliation between nations and to world peace.
- Past laureates include former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and renowned international relief organizations like Doctors Without Borders and Oxfam.
Indian Institute of Skills
- Union Cabinet has recently approved the setting up of Indian Institute of Skills (IISs) at different locations across the country in Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode.
- IISs shall augment the global competitiveness of key sectors providing high quality skill training, applied research education.
- Union government has already setup country’s first Institute of skills at Kanpur.
- It was setup by Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship in partnership with the Institute of Technical Education, Singapore.
MarCO Mission
- MarCO stands for Mars Cube One and designed by NASA.
- The mission has twin low-cost cube sats – MarCO A and MarCO B.
- The two cubesats are boarded in Insights Lander to Mars.
- The objective of the mission is to find out whether briefcase-sized spacecraft called CubeSats could survive the journey to deep space.
- By verifying cubesat as a viable technology for interplanetary mission, it could lead to many other applications to explore and study our solar system.
- It have recently beamed back an image of Mars , visible as a tiny red dot against the dark sky.
- CubeSats are a class of spacecraft based on a standardized small size and modular use of off-the-shelf technologies.
Source: PIB, The Hindu
