Current Affairs - March 4, 2018 Current Affairs

Punjab government in both transparent and smooth manner, the state government signed a MoU with e-Governance Foundation (e-Gov) of Nandan Nilekani. According to the MoU, a total of 67 services would be provided online within a span of 1 year under 12 modules namely Property Tax, Water & Sewerage Management, Complaints and Grievance, Licensing, Fire Service, Verification, Birth and Death, ULB web portal, Mobile App, State and ULB Dashboards, Payroll and Financial Accounting. On this occasion, Local Government Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu "The Punjab Government is fully committed to fulfilling promises of delivering the citizen-centric services to the people of the state in a transparent and smooth manner so as to ensure that they don't have to make rounds of government offices to avail the same."

The mega annual cultural festival 'India by the Nile' will be held in Cairo, Egypt from March 6, 2018 with main focus on classical culture. The 12-day event will host a wide range of events to celebrate Indian culture and its diversity. It is the biggest foreign festival in Egypt which provides audiences an Indian cultural experience and encourages artistic collaborations between India and Egypt will be held in several cities such as Cairo. The festival, which is organised by the Embassy of India in Egypt and the Maulana Azad Centre for Indian Culture in collaboration with entertainment company Teamwork Arts, is a celebration of contemporary and classical music, dance, theatre, visual arts, film, food and literature.

Actor-politician Shatrughan Sinha has been honoured with a lifetime achievement award for his contribution to the fields of arts and politics at a ceremony in the UK's Parliament complex on March 2, 2018. The annual 'Political and Public Life Awards' presented by Britain's Asian Voice weekly newspaper, recognises individuals who have made a significant impact on public life or made a difference in their local communities. Sinha, who started his career as an actor in late 1960s, has to his credit over 225 Hindi feature films besides several in other Indian languages. A member of the ruling BJP, he represents Bihar state's Patna Sahib constituency in the Lok Sabha, the lower house of Parliament.

Odisha State Government has launched 'Ama Gaon, Ama Vikas' (our village, our development) programme with an objective to reach out to the people in rural areas of Odisha and involve them in developmental activities. Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik flagged off 'Ama Gaon, Ama Vikas' video vans. These video vans will move across Odisha and will highlight various welfare schemes of Government. Through the Wi-fi enabled video walls in these vans, people would be able to send their grievances directly to the Chief Ministers' Office Secretariat in Bhubaneswar. Odisha State Government believes that this initiative will help in solving people's grievances instantly.

Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah inaugurated 'Shakti Sthala' a solar power park with 2,000 megawatt capacity at Pavagada in Tumakuru district of Karnataka. The Shakti Sthala is built on an area of 13,000 acres. It was set up at a cost of Rs 165 billion. It generated 600 MW power as of January 2018. Additional 1,400 MW would be generated by December 2018. Karnataka Energy Minister D. K. Shivakumar said that, farmers of the Pavagada region who have leased out land for the park are partners and beneficiaries of Shakti Sthala. Around 2,300 farmers are part of this project. They have rented their lands for Rs 21,000 per acre per annum.

Navin Vardarajan, an Indian-American scientist, along with a fellow researcher, has been granted over USD 1.1 million for cancer research. Navin Vardarajan and Sanghyuk Chung of University of Houston, were granted funds by Cancer Prevention & Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT). Navin Vardarajan is an associate professor of chemical and bimolecular engineering. He was granted USD 1,173,420 to improve effectiveness of T-cell immunotherapy. Sanghyuk Chung is an associate professor of biology and biochemistry. He was provided with USD 811,617 to define molecular targets for cervical cancer treatment.

According to data compiled by US Treasury Department, India's exposure to US government securities stood at USD 144.7 billion at the end of 2017. During 2017, India increased its holding of American government securities for most of the months and remained the 12th largest overseas holder of such securities. India's 2017-end holding of US Government Securities at USD 144.7 billion marks an increment of nearly USD 26 billion as compared to USD 118.2 holding in December 2016. During 2017, the exposure was highest in September 2017 - at USD 145.1 billion.

The Singapore-based holding firm of Indian online retailer Flipkart had invested 4843.4 crores into two of its India entities, in a bid to take on its rival Amazon. Flipkart Limited had put 4472.4 crores into the marketplace unit of Flipkart India, Another Singapore-based unit Flipkart Marketplace Private Limited had invested?370.9 crore into Flipkart Internet Private Limited, which owns and operates an online shopping portal in India. The funding is expected to help Flipkart build its war chest in the battle against Amazon.com Inc., which is rapidly gaining share in India's online retail market. The investment comes at a time when the company had raised about $4 billion last year in two funding rounds from investors including Chinese Internet giant Tencent, U.S.-based e-commerce firm eBay, software maker Microsoft and Japan's SoftBank Group. Last August, SoftBank, led by CEO Masayoshi Son announced an investment in Flipkart through its $100 billion technology-focused fund Vision Fund. Flipkart, which had in excess of $4 billion of cash on the balance sheet after that round, is now penetrating deeper into the Indian market.

, Indian shooter Shahzar Rizvi won gold medal with a world record score and Jitu Rai and Mehuli Ghosh won bronze medals at the ISSF World Cup in Guadalajara, Mexico. India's Shahzar Rizvi shot 242.3 making a world record in the finals of the men's 10m air pistol and defeated Germany's Christian Reitz (239.7). Shahzar Rizvi won gold medal in the 10m air pistol event. India's Jitu Rai scored 219 in the men's 10m air pistol event and won bronze medal. Mehuli Ghosh shot a world junior record 228.4 and won bronze medal in the women's 10m air rifle event.

Senior diplomat Vinay Kumar has been appointed as India's ambassador to Afghanistan, succeeding incumbent Manpreet Vohra. Mr. Kumar, a 1992 batch Indian Foreign Service officer, is currently serving as Joint Secretary in the headquarters of the External Affairs Ministry here. He has served in various positions and has worked in India's permanent mission to the UN in New York.

Vinesh Phogat won silver medal in in the women's 50kg freestyle event, at the Asian Wrestling Championships in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. India's Vinesh Phogat was defeated 2-3 by China's Chun Lei in the finals of women's 50kg freestyle event. She won silver medal in the women's 50kg freestyle event.

Davide Astori, an Italian footballer, passed away due to a sudden illness, in his room at the La di Moret hotel in Udine, Italy. He was captain and defender of the Fiorentina team. He joined Fiorentina team in 2016. Earlier he had played for Cagliari team. The game that Fiorentina team was scheduled to play on 4th March 2018 was cancelled due to Davide Astori's sudden demise.

Union Textile Minister Smriti Irani attended the 27th Technological Conference of Indian Jute Industries' Research Association (IJIRA) on Shaping the Future of Jute, in Kolkata, West Bengal. While addressing the conference, Ms Irani praised (IJIRA) for developing low-cost jute-based sanitary napkins. Jute based sanitary napkins have lesser chemical content. Moreover, the manufacturing of the jute-based napkin can lead to the development of women entrepreneurs. Ms.Irani also added that potential entrepreneurs who wish to start manufacturing of these jute-based sanitary napkins can benefit from the Mudra loan scheme of the government.

The Indian Snooker team has lifted the first edition of IBSF Snooker Team World Cup title and won the prize money of $15,000. The Indian duo of Pankaj Advani and Manan Chandra defeated Pakistan (Muhammad Asif, Babar Masih) in the best-of-five final played in Doha on March 2.