CURRENTS AFFAIRS QUICK RECAP – MARCH – WEEK ONE

 AWARDS AND HONOURS

APPOINTMENTS

 INDIAN AFFAIRS

• The Centre has decided to amend rules to allow online filing of performance reports of IAS and IPS officers. The move will help in checking delayed submission of the confidential reports and claims of bias in giving low ratings to an officer that affect his or her career growth.
• Uttarakhand Governor K K Paul has inaugurated the 29th edition of the InternationaI Yoga Festival at Rishikesh.
• The Rural Management and Development Department (RM&DD) has started a week-long campaign titled “Swachh Shakti Saptah” to emphasize on active involvement of women in the Swachh Bharat Mission.
• BEML Ltd, a defence public sector company, has set itself a goal utilising 100 per cent renewable energy for its consumption.
• The railways will soon move towards Aadhaar-based online ticketing system to prevent touts from blocking a bulk of tickets, end fraudulent bookings and curb cases of impersonation.
• Online travel company Yatra.com has said it has signed an agreement with Madhya Pradesh government to jointly promote homestays in the state.
• The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and Jindal Stainless (Hisar) Limited (JSHL) have inked a licence deal for manufacturing High Nitrogen Steel for armour applications.
• Himachal Pradesh chief minister Virbhadra Singh has announced Dharamsala as the second capital of the tiny hill state with a population of about 70 lakh.
• The AAP government has tied with 41 private hospitals in Delhi to facilitate 30 surgeries free of charge for patients referred by government hospitals in the Capital.
• India has accepted an invitation to attend a meeting of the Permanent Indus Commission (PIC) to be held in Lahore in March to talk with Pakistan on the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT).
• The Vijayawada Airport will be renamed Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao Amaravati International Airport and the one at Renigunta near Tirupati as Sri Venkateswara International Airport
• In its effort to make Namami Gange programme a mass movement with the involvement of more and more voluntary organisations, National Mission for Clean Ganga under Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation signed an MoU with Rotary India in New Delhi.
• Students will now be required to have an Aadhaar number for getting their midday meals across the country. The HRD ministry issued a notification in this regard.
• The occasion of “Swachh Shakti Saptah” took place in Gurugram, Haryana. The Union Minister of Drinking Water and Sanitation, Shri Narendra Singh Tomar has informed that the number of ODF (Open Defecation Free) districts in India has crossed 100, making it a milestone achievement under the Swachh Bharat Mission.
• The Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council headed by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has cleared the crucial Central GST (CGST) and Integrated GST (IGST) bills, as the country moved a step closer towards implementing its biggest tax reform from July 1.
• According to the fourth edition of the Annual Survey of India’s City-Systems 2016 by Bengaluru-based advocacy group Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala has been ranked as the top Indian city to manage urban governance.
• Women internet users threatened with physical violence or trolled on social media websites will be able to seek help from an ‘I am Trolled’ app to be launched soon by the government.
• Vice-President Mohammed Hamid Ansari is embarking on a two-day visit to Indonesian capital Jakarta to attend the Summit of the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA).
• Chandigarh will be hosting a three-day long Destination North East 2017 event aimed at showcasing North East as a potential destination for investment.
• A 360-foot-high (110 metres) flag post, the country’s tallest, was inaugurated at the Indo-Pak Attari Border, just a stone’s throw from Pakistan.
• Jammu and Kashmir Minister for food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs Ch ZulfkarAli has inaugurated the first tribal model village in Kotranka in Jammu and Kashmir’s Rajouri District.
• Social networking site Facebook launched a new initiative ‘SheLeadsTech’, to support women-founded or co-founded startups. Facebook also aimed at expanding its “She Means Business” program that supports women-led small businesses.
• North Eastern state Tripura has agreed to supply an additional 60 MW to Bangladesh over the 100 MW of power the north-eastern state is supplying to the neighbouring country.
• The ‘Tirtha Darshan’ scheme under which senior citizens of the state will be able to go on pilgrimage within the country on government expenses was announced in the Haryana.
• Kurukh, an endangered tribal language of the Dravidian family, is set to get a new lease of life in West Bengal.
• The West Bengal Clinical Establishments (registration regulations transparency) Bill, 2017 was passed in the state assembly with full support.
• The Assam government has decided to make Sanskrit a compulsory language for students up to class 8th in the state.
• Prime Minister Narendra Modi will dedicate to the nation a Petrochemical Complex of ONGC Petro Additions Limited at Dahej, Gujrat.
• The Prime Minister has inaugurated the 1.4 extra dose cable bridges on the Ahmedabad-Mumbai National Highway.
• Prime Minister Narendra Modi will release a special commemorative postage stamp on 100 years of Yogoda Satsang Math. Yogoda Satsanga Society of India (YSS) celebrated its 100 years journey.
• The Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bangalore has become the first Indian educational institution to make it to the top 10 of a global ranking for universities.
• GMR’s Hyderabad International Airport has secured first position in the world in the prestigious Airports Council International (ACI)-Airport Service Quality (ASQ) survey in the 5-15 million passengers per annum (MPPA) category for the year 2016.
• Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation has organized a national conference on Jal Kranti Abhiyan in New Delhi on March 07, 2017.

 BANKING AND FINANCE

• The government may make all savings bank accounts automatically Internet-enabled by March 31, in another step to further ease the use of cashless transactions.
• Global leader in payment solutions American Express has announced the launch of Buyer Initiated Payments (BIP), an electronic payment platform linked to corporate card that reduces processing costs and offers extended payment terms compared to traditional invoice payments.
• Centrum Group will offer wealth management services to rich clients of Lakshmi Vilas Bank (LVB) as part of a tie-up.
• The World Bank has announced an assistance programme of over $1 billion in the areas of urban transport and climate resilient agriculture in Maharashtra, over the next 2-3 years.
• The Reserve Bank of India has advised bank-operated Financial Literacy Centers to conduct special camps for one year beginning April 1, 2017 on “going digital” through Unified Payments Interface and the *99# service.
• Long-term life insurance provider HDFC Life has launched an exclusive Data-Led Group Term Insurance Plan in partnership with personal finance app ET Money of Times Internet. This is the country’s first term insurance plan which is based on the spending pattern of the users.
• SBI had suspended this charge in July 2012 to expand its customer base and generate low-cost deposits, as those in savings account earn interest rate of only 4 per cent.
• HDFC Bank announced the launch of an electronic virtual assistant (EVA), an artificial intelligence-driven chatbot, for customer services.

INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

• Russia has cast its seventh veto to protect the Syrian government from United Nations Security Council action, blocking a bid by Western powers to impose sanctions over accusations of chemical weapons attacks during the six-year Syrian conflict
• South Korean and U.S. troops began large-scale joint military exercise conducted annually to test their defense readiness against the threat from North Korea.
• The exercise, called Foal Eagle, comes amid heightened tension following the latest test launch of a ballistic missile by the North on Feb. 12.
• The Nepal Investment Summit 2017 in Kathmandu on March 2-3 will see the participation of nearly 250 companies from about two dozen countries.
• The All India Football Federation (AIFF) has appointed Portugal’s Luis Norton de Matos as the head coach of the India U-17 team for the FIFA U-17 World Cup scheduled to be held in October this year.
• The federal cabinet of Pakistan has accorded approval to the recommendations of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) reforms committee, which includes the merger of the tribal areas with Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province and repeal of the Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR).
• The Heads of State and Government of the Member States of the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) gathered on 13^th ECO Summit Meeting, in Islamabad, Pakistan under the theme “Connectivity for Regional Prosperity”, at the invitation of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, on 1st March 2017.
• Iran successfully test-fired a sophisticated Russian-made air defence system. The test targeted various flying objects, including missiles.
• Microfossils up to almost 4.3 billion years old found in Canada of microbes are similar to the bacteria that thrive around sea floor hydrothermal vents and may represent the oldest-known evidence of life on Earth.
• China’s banking system has surpassed that of the euro zone to become the world’s largest by assets, a sign both of the country’s increased influence in world finance and its reliance on debt to drive growth since the global financial crisis.
• Bharti Airtel and Millicom International Cellular have entered into an agreement to merge their respective units in Ghana to create the second-largest mobile carrier in the African country.
• A 14-day joint defence exercise Al-Nagah-II between the armies of India and Oman will begin in Himachal Pradesh from March 6.
• The Indian cabinet has gaven post facto approval to the memorandum of understanding (MoU) on renewable energy between India and Portugal. The MoU was signed on January 6, 2017.
• The Union Cabinet has approved the signing of agreement between India and UN Women to strengthen gender equality in governance institutions.

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

• India has successfully test-fired its indigenously developed supersonic interceptor missile capable of destroying any incoming enemy ballistic missile at low altitude.
• The Navy has successfully test-fired an anti-ship missile for the first time from an indigenously built Kalvari class submarine.
• Scientists in Britain have for the first time created a structure that resembles a mouse embryo using a 3D scaffold and two types of stem cells.
• Scientists at NASA have proposed that launching a giant magnetic shield into space to protect Mars from solar winds could give the Red Planet its atmosphere back and make it habitable for humans.
• A new gene therapy technique has been used to successfully reverse sickle cell disease for the first time. The early signs are encouraging, and the therapy could eventually lead to an effective treatment for the millions of people with this crippling disease worldwide
• After nearly 20 years, the indigenously-manufactured INSAS rifles will be finally ‘retiring’ from the army and replaced by an imported assault rifle to be manufactured in the country later.

SPORTS

OBITUARY

 OBSERVED DAYS IN MARCH