Current Affairs - March 3, 2018 Current Affairs

Huawei launched Huawei Balong 5G01, claimed to be world's first 5G commercial chip. Huawei Balong 5G01 having peak rate of 2.3 GBPS (gigabit per second). Huawei is collaborating with 30 operators all over the world to deploy products based on Huawei Balong 5G01. Vodafone is also collaborating with Huawei for this. Huawei launched world's first 5G CPE (consumer premise equipment or router) which will deliver broadband speed up to 2 Gbps on 5G network. It will also support 4G network.

Tata Boeing Aerospace Ltd (TBAL) inaugurated facility to manufacture fuselages for the AH-64 Apache helicopter in Hyderabad. Tata Boeing Aerospace Ltd (TBAL) is a joint venture of Boeing Co. and Tata Advanced Systems Ltd (TASL).The facility has been established on an area of 14,000 square metres. 350 workers have been employed at the facility. The facility was inaugurated by Union Defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Telangana minister for Industries and IT, KT Rama Rao.

The Punjab National Bank (PNB) and ICICI Bank hiked the MCLR rates for loan borrowers. Taking a cue from SBI, country's second-largest private sector lender ICICI Bank also raised the one-year MCLR from 8.2% to 8.3%. The PNB, which is at the center of Nirav Modi fraud also increased one-year MCLR to 8.3% from 8.15%.

The Union territory of Lakshadweep joined UDAY (Scheme Ujwal DISCOM Assurance Yojana) Scheme. This will ensure operational turnaround of Lakshadweep's Electricity Department. Lakshadweep will receive an overall net benefit of around Rs. 8 crore through the UDAY Scheme. This will be achieved by cheaper funds, reduction in AT&C (Aggregate Technical and Commercial) losses, interventions in energy efficiency, etc. The Central Government will help Lakshadweep in improving Power infrastructure which will result in further reduction of the cost of power.

Indian companies can now participate in construction and installation works in the "non-critical" category for the Rooppur nuclear power plant in Bangladesh, according to the Russian atomic energy agency Rosatom. The Rooppur project is the first initiative under an Indo-Russian deal to undertake atomic energy projects in third countries. This will also be the first time Indian companies will be able to participate in a nuclear power project abroad. India, Bangladesh, and Russia signed an agreement in this regard in Moscow, Russia.

The first Mega Food Park in the state of Maharashtra, Satara Mega Food Park Pvt. Ltd. at Village Degaon, District Satara was inaugurated by Harsimrat Kaur Badal, Union Minister of Food Processing Industries. This is the 10th Mega Food Park being operationalized in the country. Satara Mega Food Park has been set up in 64 acres of land at a cost of Rs. 139.30 crore.

Luminous Power Technologies announced Virat Kohli as the brand ambassador for its new independent brand Amaze. It it would invest Rs 150 crore in the upcoming 3 to 5 years in Amaze to develop it. Amaze will produce totally different products compared to that of Luminous. Amaze will focus on the unstructured battery market.

HCL Infosystems Ltd. has appointed Rangarajan Raghavan, as its director and managing director. Rangarajan Raghavan is the president of HCL Infosystems Ltd. He has been appointed director & managing director of HCL Infosystems with effect from 1st April 2018. Rangarajan Raghavan is the president of HCL Infosystems Ltd. He has been appointed director & managing director of HCL Infosystems with effect from 1st April 2018. At present he is the president of the Project and Services division of HCL Infosystems.

Andhra Pradesh government is establishing an Academy of Adventure Sports at Gandikota village on the banks of river Pennar in Kadapa district. The Academy is being established to empower unemployed youth in taking up adventure sports /adventure tourism centres as career building. The government also aims attracting tourists apart from employment generation and promoting adventure sports.

Telangana government launched "T App Folio", a mobile governance application, for delivery of government to citizen (G2C) and business to citizen (B2C) services anytime and anywhere. Telangana IT Minister K T Rama Rao said that, Telangana has become the second state in India to launch a mobile governance application in place for provision of G2C services. T App Folio provides more than 150 services like MeeSeva services, RTA services, fee payments and bill payments, in the first phase. T App Folio will act as a platform to bring together all government departments. It has been launched in Telugu and English languages.

The Maharashtra government has partnered with Wikipedia, to spread the Marathi language and enhance its online usage. Maharashtra government made this announcement on Marathi language day (27th February 2018). It is aimed to spread the Marathi language across the world. It will also offer Marathi-speaking people a single platform to interact. It would also help to reach Maharashtrians who have migrated to the United States.

The 27th Sultan Azlan Shah Cup Hockey tournament begins in the Malaysian city of Ipoh. Six nations - India, hosts Malaysia, defending champions England, Australia, Argentina and Ireland - are taking part in the tournament. India, currently the world number six side, will take on world number two Argentina in their opening round-robin match.

Avaada Power Pvt Ltd, stated that, it will invest Rs 3,500 crore to establish 500 MW solar projects in Andhra Pradesh. An agreement regarding this was signed at the 'CII Partnership Summit 2018' in Vishakhapatnam. Avaada Power said that, the utility-scale solar projects will produce clean energy sufficient to sustainably power more than 2.4 million houses in Andhra Pradesh. This investment by Avaada Power would create over 1,200 job opportunities. Andhra Pradesh has a planned to achieve a goal of 18 GW of renewable energy capacities by 2021-22.

Armenian lawmakers elected Armen Sarkisian as the new president of Armenia. He will succeed Serzh Sarkisian. Armen Sarkisian was the ambassador to the United Kingdom. He will assume presidential duties after his predecessor steps down in April 2018. The political shift comes after President Sarkisian in 2015 initiated controversial constitutional amendments to turn the impoverished Moscow-allied country into a parliamentary republic with a powerful Prime Minister.

An all-women railway station is launched at Phirangipuram, Guntur, Andhra Pradesh. The railway station on the Guntur-Narsaraopet line would be handed over to an all-women crew from the station master to the signalling staff. Only the third-of-its-kind railway station in the country after Jaipur's Gandhi Nagar and Mumbai's Matunga, the all-women station is set to create history.

Delhi government has decided to establish State Sanskrit Education Council to improve formal education of Sanskrit in Delhi. Deputy Chief Minister of Delhi, Manish Sisodia has ordered the education department to go through representations received by Delhi government regarding Sanskrit education in schools and colleges.

Madurai police have come up with a new app "Cops Eye." Based on face recognition feature, it would help them detect people with criminal backgrounds by clicking photographs. The data of 2,000 criminals has their names, photographs and details of criminal cases.Taking photograph of any person whose data is available with the centralised criminal analysing system will give all particulars.