Current Affairs - March 15, 2019 Current Affairs

The Supreme Court appointed senior advocate PS Narasimha as a mediator for resolving various disputes related to cricket administration within the cricket body, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). Narasimha will hear the BCCI's position, and then make recommendations to the Committee of Administrators (CoA). Narasimha is assisting the apex court as amicus curiae in the BCCI matter. The court restrained all other courts in India from entertaining any matter pertaining to BCCI and state cricket associations.

The government has appointed MR Kumar as the Chairman of Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) and Vipin Anand and TC Suseel Kumar as the managing directors (MDs). LIC's executive board comprises of 1 chairman and 4 managing directors. MR Kumar is currently the Zonal Manager, Delhi at LIC.

India and Pakistan have agreed to work expeditiously on operationalizing the Kartapur corridor. The corridor will facilitate Indian pilgrims to visit the holy shrine of Gurdwara Darbar Sahib at Kartarpur in Pakistan. The agreement was reached during the first meeting between the representatives of the two countries held at Attari in Punjab.

The Austrian capital Vienna has topped Mercer's index of most liveable cities for the 10th year in a row. Zurich in Switzerland, is placed second in the index, while Auckland, Munich and Vancouver came joint third. Chennai, the capital of Tamil Nadu is ranked at 105 in Mercer's Quality Of Living Index and is the number one city from India. Luxembourg was named the safest city in a separate personal safety league table. Global consulting firm Mercer surveyed in 231 cities across the globe and were ranked them based on factors such as healthcare, education, public services, recreation, crime, housing and personal freedom. The ranking was based on data analysed between September and November 2018.

World Consumer Rights Day is celebrated every year on 15 March as part of an initiative by Consumer International, a membership organization for consumer groups around the world. The theme for World Consumers day 2019 is "Trusted Smart Products". World Consumer Rights Day was inspired by President John F Kennedy, who sent a special message to the US Congress on 15th March 1962, in which he formally addressed the issue of consumer rights. He was the first world leader to do so.

As per RBI notification, IDBI Bank has been categorized as a private sector lender following the acquisition of majority stake by Life Insurance Corporation. IDBI Bank has been under the prompt corrective action framework of RBI that bans it from corporate lending and branch expansions, salary hikes and other regular activities. In January 2019, LIC completed the process of picking up a controlling 51% stake in the nearly crippled IDBI Bank. IDBI Bank has been categorized as a 'private sector bank' with effect from January 21, 2019.

The Five day long, 34th edition of Aahar- the International Food and Hospitality Fair which is organized by India Trade Promotion Organization (ITPO) begins in New Delhi on 12th March 2019. Participants from China, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Indonesia, Japan, Russia, Spain, USA and UK are participating in the event. The Food fair features Food Products, Hospitality and decor solutions, confectionery items, Food beverages equipment and machinery from more than 560 National and International Participants.

A social entrepreneur from Tamil Nadu, Padmanaban Gopalan, founder of No Food Waste, was named the winner of the Commonwealth Youth Award for the Asian region worth 3,000 Pounds at a ceremony at the Commonwealth Secretariat in London. His initiative runs a geo-mapping platform, which allows users to drop food at located "hunger spots" and has so far recovered over 650,000 meals across 14 cities and the platform has been used by over 12,000 volunteers.

Corporation Bank celebrated its 114th Foundation Day on 12th March at various centres of the bank across the nation and undertook 114 Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities to mark the day. CEO and MD for the bank P.V Bharathi, Executive Directors Gopal Murli Bhagat and Birupaksha Mishra and other senior officials were present at the occasion. Corp Ease- which is a mobile banking app in 10regional languages, was launched by P.V Bharathi.

A new coin that features the Crimea or Kerch Strait Bridge released by Russia's central bank, to mark Crimea's reunification with Russia. Two million new five ruble (about $0.08) coins were pressed which depict an outline of the peninsula which was annexed by Russia in 2014.

Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish student and activist has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts in climate activism and fighting global warming. She began her weekly protest in August 2018 by riding her bicycle to the Swedish Parliament with ''School strike for climate'' sign. The #FridaysForFuture movement went viral and spread over 80 countries. If she were to win, she would be the youngest recipient since Pakistan's Malala Yousafzai, who was 17 when she received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014.

Sona Yukti, a skill development institute, was honoured with the Social Enterprise Network (SEN) sustainability award for education by Young Presidents Organisation at its annual event held in Cape Town, South Africa. It is the only Indian organisation to be selected as part of the SEN awards for 2018. The award was given to Sona Yukti for helping over 55,000 economically disadvantaged individuals, mostly women, by training them to achieve highly skilled jobs in marginalised communities. The organisation focuses on providing opportunity for the disadvantaged, in partnership with the government of India, and follows standards set up by the National Skills Development Corporation.

By using Indian multi-wavelength space observatory AstroSat, the astronomers from Thiruvananthapuram and Mumbai have identified a new population of ultraviolet stars in the globular cluster NGC 2808. Globular clusters are collections of thousands to millions of stars, moving as one unit. These stars are tightly held together by gravity of the cluster itself, and are believed to have formed together at roughly the same time. The NGC 2808 is one of the most massive globular clusters that we know of, and is located at a distance of 47,000 light years from us. This cluster was observed by the team of researchers using the UltraViolet Imaging Telescope (UVIT) on-board AstroSat. So far, AstroSat has taken images of over 2,000 individual stars in NGC 2808 through various ultraviolet filters. AstroSat is the India's first dedicated multi wavelength space observatory. It was launched in September 2015. It orbits in low earth equatorial orbit at altitude of 650 km and has mission life of 5 years. It observes universe in the optical, Ultraviolet (UV), low and high energy X-ray regions of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Spanish football club Real Madrid has re-appointed Zinedine Zidane as its coach till 30th June 2022. He had earlier led the team to victory in three consecutive Champions League titles. He succeeds Santiago Solari from France, who was removed from the post less than five months in charge. Zinedine Zidane had earlier won 9 trophies at Madrid. The team was eliminated from the Champions League by Ajax Amsterdam.

Special Olympics World Games 2019 is held at Abu Dhabi, from March 14 to 21. The Games were declared open by Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi. There are 7,500 athletes from 190 countries taking part at the Games this year. Team India is the second largest contingent after the host UAE with 387 players, along with coaches and other staff. The Special Olympics takes place every two years and alternates between summer and winter.

State-run National Thermal Power Corporation Ltd. (NTPC) has teamed up with the Indian Railways for fly ash transportation. The partnership is to help enhance ash utilisation at Rihand and Vindhyachal Super Thermal Power plants. NTPC had signed a memorandum of understanding with Hazipur-based East Central Railway Zone for transportation of fly ash under Indian Railways' Special Freight Train Operator scheme.

WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) Hall of Famer, Kurt Angle announced his retirement after the match at WretleMania 35 in April 2019. Kurt Angle has been wrestling since the age of 7 and he had won Gold Medal at the 1995 Olympics.

12th March 2019 marks the 89th anniversary of the Dandi Satyagraha, an act of nonviolent civil disobedience in colonial India led by Mahatma Gandhi. Mahatma Gandhi had undertaken a 26-day march from March 12, 1930 to April 6, 1930 as a direct action campaign of tax resistance and nonviolent protest against the British salt monopoly.

Shri AK Bhalla, Secretary Ministry of Power inaugurated the India Smart Utility Week (ISUW) 2019 which is being held is New Delhi from 12th March to 16th March 2019. ISUW 2019 is organized by India Smart Grid Forum (ISGF). Experts and think-tanks from more than 55 countries and over 300 utility officials will discuss on the latest developments, trends and technologies. Key topics to be discussed in the event are Digitization and Digital customer, energy storage technologies and energy storage roadmap for India, energy and mobility transition, resiliency & future readiness and Electric vehicle roll out challenges in India. ISGF is also conducting a roundtable of Women for the first time, in partnership with C3E initiative of the IEA (International Energy Agency) to discuss the challenges faced by women and actions required to achieve gender equality in energy sector.

Pakistan Air Force (PAF) successfully test-fired an indigenously developed "smart weapon" from a JF-17 Thunder fighter jet amid tensions between India and Pakistan. JF-17 was previously referred as FC-1 Xiaolong which is a single-engine multi-role light fighter was being jointly produced by Pakistan with China for several years with engines supplied by Russia. JF-17 Thunder fighter jet will provide it a very potent day and night capability to engage a variety of targets with pinpoint accuracy. The trial is a great milestone for the country as the weapon has been developed, integrated and qualified solely through indigenous efforts of Pakistani scientists and engineers.