Current Affairs - March 11, 2019 Current Affairs

Prime Minister Narendra Modi embarked on a visit to Kanpur, Ghaziabad and Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh. He laid foundation stone for various development projects and schemes during his visit. PM Modi during his visit to UP address a gathering and unveiled several development projects in Greater Noida. PM inaugurated Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya Institute of Archaeology and unveiled a statue of Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya at the campus. Modi inaugurated Noida City Centre - Noida Electronic City Section of the Delhi Metro which will provide a convenient and faster mode of transport for the residents.

Shri Manpreet Vohra (IFS:1988), presently Additional Secretary in the Ministry has been appointed as the next Ambassador of India to Mexico and is expected to take up the assignment shortly.

Korea Exim Bank has come forward to extend a Rs 4,100 crore loan for Visakhapatnam (VIZAG) Metro Rail project. The state government had earlier sent a proposal in this regard to the Central government, which in turn forwarded it to Korea Exim Bank.

The Supreme Court ordered a court-monitored mediation in the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid land dispute case to arrive at a "permanent solution" to the politically and religiously sensitive issue. The five-judge constitution bench headed by CJI Ranjan Gogoi appointed a panel of 3 mediators in the title suit with Retired Justice Kalifullah chairing the court-appointed and monitored mediation process. The other two members are spiritual leader Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and senior advocate Sriram Panchu.

China lifted its broadband communication system by launching a Long March - 3B carrier rocket with 'ChinaSat 6C' into a geostationary orbit in Sichuan province. The'ChinaSat 6C' was launched from Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Sichuan province. It is a 19 story tall rocket which is expected to provide high quality radio and television transmission services. It marked 300th launch of the Long March carrier rocket series which was developed by the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation and will be operated by China Satellite Communications Co. Ltd. The satellite will cover China, Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific Island Countries. Nearly 97% of China's total launch missions was on Long March rocket series.

India and Japan organised a joint space dialogue in New Delhi. It aimed at providing a platform for both the countries to explore ways to enhance cooperation between the space agencies of both the nations. Indra Mani Pandey, Additional Secretary for Disarmament and International Security Affairs, Ministry of External Affairs headed the Indian delegation while Kansuke Nagaoka, Deputy Assistant Minister, Foreign Policy Bureau, and Shuzo Takada, Director General, National Space Policy Secretariat jointly led the Japanese delegation.Topics discussed during the event were: collaboration between Japanese Exploration Space Agency (JAXA) and Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), global navigation satellite systems, space situational awareness (SSA), norms related to space security, etc.

Shri B. S. Mubarak, the Indian Foreign Service officer of 2001 batch, is presently the Ambassador of India to the Republic of Guatemala.

A bilingual correspondent with the BBC at its Delhi bureau, Priyanka Dubey won the Chameli Devi Jain Award 2018 as outstanding women journalist. She was chosen for her multi-faceted, interrogative and investigative reports. She helped to uncover the reality underlying in the social and political issues.Chameli Devi Jain Award has been awarded to women journalist for upholding standards of excellence through a sustained body of work for the past 37 years. The award was presented at a function in Delhi.She was a freedom fighter. This award is the countries longest running media award for women.

The Union Cabinet has approved the National Mission on Transformative Mobility and Battery Storage to promote clean, connected, shared, sustainable and holistic mobility initiatives in the country. The multi-disciplinary mission with an Inter-Ministerial Steering Committee will be chaired by NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant. The mission will also launch the Phased Manufacturing Programmes (PMP) for Batteries and for Electric Vehicle components. The PMPs will be valid for five years till 2024 to support setting up of a few large scale, export competitive integrated batteries and cell manufacturing Giga plants in India. The programme will provide a plan which will send a clear signal to the industry to make the necessary investments in capacity to localize the value chain. Hence, the creation of a PMP would localise production along the entire electric vehicles value chain. The mission will also coordinate with key stakeholders in ministries/ departments and states to integrate various initiatives to transform mobility in India.

National Immunisation Day was observed on March 10, Pulse Polio programme for 2019 launched by President on National Immunisation Day. Under this programme, more than 17 crore children aged below 5 years shall be administered with polio drops. he injectable inactivated polio vaccine has also been introduced under this programme. Mission Indradhanush has also been launched by the government for achieving an aim of 90% full immunisation coverage. Around 3.39 crore children and 87 lakh pregnant women received vaccination under Mission Indradhanush.

The Indira Gandhi International (IGI) airport, New Delhi was declared as the best airport in the category of over "40 million passengers per annum (MPPA)" in Asia Pacific by Airports Council International (ACI) in the Airport Service Quality (ASQ) Programme for 2018.It had maintained the position of World no. 2 from 2011 to 2013 and in 2014 went up to become the World no. 1 in the 25-40 MMPA category and stayed at that position in 2015.It stood World No. 2 in the highest category of more than 40 MPPA in 2016 and in 2017, it was adjudged as the best airport in the highest category of over 40 MPPA.

The Ministry of Tourism, Government of India has won the First Prize in the category of TV Cinema Spot at the prestigious international Golden City Gate Tourism Awards 2019. The awards were received by Yogendra Tripathi, Secretary, Tourism at ITB, Berlin.

Mohammad Shtayyeh has been named as Palestinian Prime Minister by President of Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas. A member of the West Bank's dominant Fatah party is a long time ally of Abbas. The announcement came after Rami al-Hamdallah tendered his resignation from the post and of his unity government to President Mahmoud Abbas, underscoring the failure of Hamas and Fatah to implement a power-sharing deal.

A 116-year-old Japanese woman who loves playing the board game Othello is being honored as the world's oldest living person by Guinness World Records. Tanaka was born January 2, 1903, the seventh among eight children. The previous oldest living person was another Japanese woman, Chiyo Miyako, who died in July at age 117.

India and Costa Rica signed two documents during Vice President Venkaiah Naidu's first visit to the Central American nation. The documents were signed and exchanged following talks between Naidu and Costa Rican President Carlos Alvarado Quesada. The 2 agreements were signed on waiving visa requirements for Diplomatic and Official passport holders and the signing of the Letter of Intent to collaborate in the field of Biotechnology.

State Bank of India has become the first domestic bank to link the interest rate it offers on savings account deposits to an external benchmark - the Reserve Bank of India's repo rate. By doing so, the bank will effectively link all loan rates to an external benchmark either directly or indirectly, thereby attempting to speed up the transmission of any changes in the benchmark monetary policy rate to depositors and borrowers.

ACKO General Insurance a new-age digital insurance company was awarded the coveted Golden Peacock Innovative Product Award - 2019, for their contextual micro insurance product -"Ola Ride Insurance". The award was presented to Mr. Biresh Giri, Appointed Actuary & CRO, Acko. The award ceremony was held in Dubai.

The Reserve Bank of India has eased business guidelines for white label ATMs by allowing companies that manage these machines to source cash directly from the central bank. sThe guidelines released by RBI include managing machines to source cash directly from RBI offices, offer non bank services like bill payment and advertise even non financial products in their premises.As per the statement, RBI has allowed the operators to source cash from any Scheduled banks in India including cooperative and rural banks.RBI allowed White Label ATM Operators (WLAO) to offer bill payment and deposit services depending on the technical feasibility of the device as determined by NPCI. The ATMs setup, owned and operated by non-bank Entities are called White Label ATMs (WLAs). They provide banking services to customers of banks based on the debit/credit/prepaid cards issued by banks.

The government allotted its 7-croreth free cooking gas (LPG) connection, as a part of the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY).7 crore free LPG connections have been issued in the past 34 months which approximates to almost 69,000 connections per day. This scheme was launched on 1st May, 2016 with the aim of issuing 5 crore connections to women from poor families.42% of the total connections have been issued to SC/ST. The highest number of connections have been issues in Uttar Pradesh (1.26 crore), followed by West Bengal (78 lakhs) and Bihar (77.51 lakh).

Kavinder Singh Bisht in the 56kg-category struck gold while Shiva Thapa in the 60kg category and three others claimed silver medals to end a fine Indian campaign at the 38th GeeBee Boxing Tournament in Helsinki, Finland. Bisht defeated Commonwealth Games bronze-medallist Hussamuddin in the 56kg summit clash. Signing off with silver medals were three-time Asian medallist Shiva Thapa, Govind Sahani, Commonwealth Games bronze-medallist Mohammed Hussamuddin and Dinesh Dagar.