Current Affairs on International

Cassini spacecraft completed its final flyby of Saturn’s moon Titan

1. Cassini the spacecraft of U.S. space agency NASA that completed its final flyby of Saturn’s moon Titan on 26 April 2017 before starting its plunge into the planet to bring an end to its 20- year-long journey.
2. This was the Cassini-Huygens joint mission that was launched from Earth on 15 October 1997 through Titan IVB/Centaur. It entered Saturn’s orbit on 1 July 2004.
3. Huygens separated from the orbiter and landed on Saturn’s moon Titan on 14 January 2005, However, Cassini continued its probe of Saturn.
4. Since 30 November 2016, due to the spacecraft’s dwindling fuel resources for further orbital corrections, Cassini entered the final phase of the project.

Belgium opens honorary consulate

1. Belgium has become the first country to open an honorary consulate office in Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT City).
2. The consulate was inaugurated by Belgian Secretary of State for Foreign Trade, Pieter De Crem.
3. GIFT is a central business district (CBD) located between Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar in the state of Gujarat.

Miss Teen Universe 2017 announced 

1. Srishti Kaur has been crowned Miss Teen Universe 2017.
2. In addition, she also bagged an award for the best national costume. Her costume featured a peacock, the Indian national bird.
3. Miss Teen Universe pageant was started six years ago. The pageant is organized by the Miss Universe organisation for teens aged 15 to 19.

Social activist Prafulla Samantra won Goldman Environmental Prize

1. Social activist Prafulla Samantra became the sixth Indian to be bestowed with the Goldman Environmental Prize - is often called ‘Green Nobel’, as was announced on 23 April 2017 in San Francisco.
2. Goldman Environmental Prize was first instituted in 1990 and since then five Indians – Medha Patkar, M.C. Mehta, Rasheeda Bi, Champaran Shukla and Ramesh Agrawal – have won the prize. Samantra will be the sixth to win the prestigious prize.
3. Samantra was one of the key leaders responsible for rallying tribes, indigenous to Odisha’s Niyamgiri region, and using legal provisions to thwart mining-to-metals conglomerate, Vedanta. The company has been forced to suspend plans to mine bauxite.
4. He also led a 12-year long legal battle that affirmed the indigenous Dongria Kondh’s land rights and protected the Niyamgiri Hills from a massive, open-pit aluminum ore mine.

Cuba and Morocco reestablished diplomatic ties

1. After King Mohammed’s private visit to Cuba, Cuba and Morocco have signed an agreement to re-establish diplomatic ties after a time period of 37 years.
2. Morocco lowered its ties with Cuba in 1980 after Fidel Castro officially recognised Western Sahara as the independent Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic.

RBI signed MoU with the Royal Monetary Authority of Bhutan

The Reserve Bank of India has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on “Supervisory Cooperation and Exchange of Supervisory Information” with the Royal Monetary Authority of Bhutan.