DAILY GK 15-16 JUNE 2025
1. 34th PM OF MONGOLIA
·
The State
Great Khural (Parliament) of Mongolia appointed Gombojav Zandanshatar as
the 34th Prime Minister (PM) of Mongolia.
·
He was elected with 108 votes in favour
out of 117 lawmakers present in the 126-member Parliament, while 9 members
voted against and 9 were absent.
2. FIRST WOMAN SECRETARY OF DEA
·
The Ministry of Finance (MoF) announced
the appointment of Anuradha Thakur as the first
woman Secretary of the Department
of Economic Affairs (DEA).
·
She will be responsible for shaping
India’s economic policies, preparing the national budget, and collaborating
with global financial institutions such as the World Bank, Asian Development
Bank (ADB), and International Monetary Fund (IMF).
·
The appointment was formalized through
notification S.O. 2700(E) issued under the provisions of the Securities and
Exchange Board of India (SEBI) Act, 1992.
·
Anuradha Thakur will serve as an
ex-officio part-time member on the SEBI
Board from 1 July 2025, representing the DEA.
·
SEBI Board Composition Chairperson:
Tuhin Kanta Pandey.
·
Three full-time members:
Ananth Narayan G, Amarjeet Singh, and Kamlesh Chandra Varshney.
3. INDIA -US SPECIAL FORCES EXERCISE
‘TIGER CLAW 2025’
·
The inaugural edition of the joint special
forces exercise “Tiger Claw” between the Indian Air
Force (IAF)’s Garud Commandos and the United States
Air Force (USAF) concluded successfully at the Garud
Regimental Training Centre(GRTC) at Chandinagar, Baghpatdistrict,in Uttar Pradesh(UP).
·
The IAF and USAF conduct several other Air
Force Exercises, including the bilateral
Cope India, and participate in other multinational drills such as Tarang Shakti and Red Flag.
·
The
Garud Commando Force was formed in February 2004, serves as the elite special operations unit of the IAF and is named after the
mythological bird ‘Garuda’.
·
Chief of the Air Staff(CAS) –
Air Chief Marshal Amar Preet Singh.
4. INDIA’S FIRST HYDROGEN BUSES
·
Five hydrogen fuel cell-based buses were
flagged off for commercial operations in Leh, Union
Territory(UT) of Ladakh,
·
It is India’s first-ever
commercial deployment of hydrogen-powered buses
·
A
hydrogen bus is a clean, eco-friendly vehicle that uses
hydrogen gas to power an electric motor,
producing only water vapour.
·
The stored
hydrogen gas enters a fuel cell, where it reacts with Oxygen (O2) from the air. It generates electricity which
powers the electric motor.
·
Range:
Approximately 300 kilometers (km) per 25 kilograms
(kg) hydrogen refill.
·
The
world’s first hydrogen fueling station at such a high altitude,
11, 562 feet above sea level, was launched by NTPC in November 2024.
5. INDIA’S UNION CABINET HAS ONLY 9.7%
WOMEN MINISTERS
·
New York
based United Nation (UN) Women, also known as
the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women,
released a new factsheet titled “Women in Politics: 2025”, highlighting
that women are vanishing from political leadership globally.
·
India’s Union Cabinet includes only 9.7%
women ministers, representing the second-lowest proportion since 2011.
·
The
“Women in Politics: 2025” map, developed by Geneva
(Switzerland) based Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and UN
Women, provides updated data on women’s representation in
executive positions and national parliaments as of January 1, 2025.
·
As per the data compiled by UN, women represent only 22.9% of
Cabinet members heading Ministries, down from 23.3% in 2024.
·
There are only nine countries in
which women hold 50 % or more of the
positions of Cabinet Ministers.
6. AVILIST: GLOBAL CHECKLIST OF BIRD
SPECIES
·
Avi List(Avian Taxonomy List),
the first-ever global checklist of bird species and taxonomy was published.
·
AviList is a consolidated avian taxonomy
that merges the three major global bird
checklists: Clements (eBird),
International Ornithological Committee (IOC),
and BirdLife International’s Handbook of the Birds of the World (HBW), into a single.
·
The list contains 11,131
species, 19,879 subspecies, 2,376 genera, 252 families and 46 orders.
·
The unified approach will enhance the
accuracy of tools such as the International Union for Conservation of Nature
(IUCN) Red List and eBird.
7. UNITED NATIONS OCEAN CONFERENCE
·
The 3rd United
Nations Ocean Conference (UNCO3) was held in Nice, France.
·
The 5-day conference was hosted jointly by
the Governments of France and Costa
Rica.
·
Theme of UNCO3: ‘Accelerating action and mobilizing all
actors to conserve and sustainably use the ocean’.
·
Li Junha (China), Under-Secretary-General for Economic and
Social Affairs, was appointed as the Secretary
General of UNCO3 by the UN Secretary-General, to overall monitor its
preparations.
·
Brazil and France launched
a historic global initiative “Blue
Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) Challenge” aimed to significantly
scale-up ocean-focused climate action.
·
18
countries including Guinea-Bissau, Belgium, Liberia,
the Solomon Islands, Malta, Belgium and Greece, have ratified the High Seas Treaty.
·
96
countries have signed the ‘Nice Wake-up Call and for ambitious Plastics Treaty’.
·
India
is not among the signatories of the treaty.
·
The conference culminated in the adoption
of the “Nice Ocean Action Plan”, featuring a
high-level political declaration titled
“Our Ocean, Our Future: United for Urgent Action”, reaffirming global
commitment to protecting marine ecosystems
and accelerating actions under Sustainable Development Goal (SDG)14
(Life Below Water).
·
Dr.Jitendra Singh, Ministry of
Earth Sciences (MoES), representing India at the conference.
·
He Launched the ‘SAHAV’ portal,
a digital platform for ocean data access,
developed to enhance ocean-related decision-making.
·
The
Coalition of Emerging Ocean Leaders (CEOL), a
global alliance of youth and Early-Career Professionals (ECOPs) working across
science, policy, innovation and civil society, was officially launched at UNCO3.
·
European
Commission (EC) announced the 1st-ever European Ocean Pact and an
investment of EUR 1 billion to support ocean conservation, marine science and
sustainable fishing practices.
·
President of French Polynesia,
announced the establishment of the world’s largest Marine
Protected Area (MPA), encompassing the territory’s entire
Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), covering nearly 5 million square kilometers
(over 1.9 million square miles).
8. 113TH ILO CONFERENCE
·
The 113th session of
the International Labour Conference (ILC) or Parliament of Labour, the highest
decision-making body of the International Labour Organization (ILO), was held
in Geneva, Switzerland.
·
The conference
aimed to create global labour standards, review member countries’ labour
policies, and address key issues like workers’ rights, social security, and
workplace biological hazards.
·
The
ILC adopted a resolution aimed at reducing informality and promoting
the transition to formal employment across member states.
·
The ILC 2025 concluded with the historic
adoption of the first international labour standards focused
on preventing workplace exposure to biological hazards.
9. BRICS 10th PARTNER COUNTRY
·
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Brazil
has announced that Vietnam has officially joined
the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South
Africa) as the 10th partner country.
·
As a partner country, Vietnam can take part in BRICS summits, working
groups, ministerial-level meetings, and collaborative projects, but it doesn’t hold full voting privileges.
·
The other partner countries are Belarus, Bolivia, Kazakhstan, Cuba,
Malaysia, Nigeria, Thailand, Uganda and Uzbekistan.
·
The partner country was created at
the 16th BRICS Summit (2024) in Kazan, Russia.
·
BRICS was formed in September 2006,
and it originally had 4 emerging economies as its members, including Brazil,
Russia, India and China (BRIC).
·
BRIC group was renamed as BRICS after
South Africa was accepted as a full member of BRIC in 2010.
·
BRICS member countries include,
Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, United Arab
Emirates (UAE), and Indonesia.
10. UNGA DECLARES 2026
AS INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF THE WOMAN FARMER
·
The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), headquartered
in New York, declared 2026 as the
International Year of the Woman Farmer (IYWF) to acknowledge the
critical role of women in agriculture and to raise awareness about the
challenges they face globally in May 2024.
·
The resolution was supported by over 100
countries, highlighting international recognition of women’s
contribution to global food systems.
