CURRENT AFFAIRS DAILY DIGEST

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1. Jon Huntsman Former US Governor appointed as US Ambassador to Russia

President Donald Trump has selected former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman to be U.S. ambassador to Russia at a time of tense relations with Moscow over the country’s election interference. Huntsman, whose father Jon Huntsman, Sr. is a billionaire who started a chemical company, has been offered the job and has submitted the paperwork to accept,

2. Aishwarya Rai Bachchan wins best actress award for Sarbjit

Actress Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, who was applauded for her performance in ‘Sarbjit’, won the Best Actress Award at the International Film Festival and Awards of Australia (IFFAA).  The actress played the role of Sarabjit’s sister Dalbir Kaur, and actor Randeep Hooda was seen as Sarabjit in the film.

3. CBSE introduces Exam Locator app to help students

CBSE has come up with a mobile application to help students locate their examination centre. The app, named ‘Exam Locator’, will help students to quickly know the exam centre on the basis of their roll number. A student can easily find the address, images and geolocation of the designated exam centre on the map and get to know how to reach there.

4. Tamil Nadu CM launches Rs.1,580 crore housing scheme

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister K Palaniswami has launched a housing scheme estimated at Rs 1,580 crore. The scheme was being implemented by the state government with Central assistance for the economically poor, an official release said. In the year 2016-17, concrete houses will be constructed for 50,170 beneficiaries in town panchayat limits, it said. To mark the launch of the scheme Palaniswami gave away work orders to five beneficiaries

5. IDFC Aadhaar Pay launched

The government has prodded all banks to move to the Aadhaar Pay platform at the launch of IDFC Aadhaar Pay—the first Aadhaar linked cashless merchant solution. Aadhaar Pay is a service for merchants which will enable them to receive payments from customers without any physical payment instrument. The Aadhaar Pay app has to be downloaded by merchants on their phones and linked to an Aadhaar biometric reader. Once the merchant has this infrastructure in place, consumers can start transacting.

6. Committee to resolve women’s grievances

The Sports Ministry has decided to constitute a high-level committee to resolve the grievances and complaints of women sports persons in India. Union Sports Minister Vijay Goel addressed a congregation of top women athletes of the country on International Women’s Day at the Dhyan Chand National Stadium, New Delhi. He assured the equality of right and all support to the sports women. He stated women athletes, if they will have any complaint can approach the committee for their grievance redressal.

7. India Has Highest Bribery Rate Among 16 Asia-Pacific Nations

Over 900 million people–one in four–across the 16 nations in the Asia Pacific region paid a bribe in the past year when trying to access basic services like education or healthcare. Among them India has the highest bribery rate of 69%, said a survey released by anti-graft Transparency International (TI). China topped this list with 73% saying they perceived an increase in corruption.

8. Vice President Hamid Ansari Attends IORA Summit in Jakarta

• Vice President Hamid Ansari was on a two-day visit to Indonesia to attend the 21-nation Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) Summit in Jakarta, Indonesia from March 6-7, 2017.
• The theme of Summit is ‘Strengthening Maritime Cooperation for a Peaceful, Stable and Prosperous Indian Ocean’.
• IORA has 21 member states, including Australia, Bangladesh, Comoros, India, Indonesia, Iran, Kenya, Madagascar, Malaysia, Mauritius, Mozambique, Oman, Seychelles, Singapore, Somalia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Thailand, UAE, and Yemen.

9. Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah launches ‘Pratibimba’ to project achievements

Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah has launched Prati Bimba (meaning reflection)— a website to highlight the achievements and progress of various government projects in the state. The website will serve as a tool to improve efficiency in governance, transparency and accountability and will also allow citizens to track the status on projects.

10. SBI launches ‘Work from Home’ facility for employees

• The State Bank of India (SBI), country’s largest lender has launched a new facility to enable its employees to work from home.
•   The board of SBI has recently approved the ‘work from home’ policy to enable its employees to work while at home using mobile devices to address any urgent requirement they may have, that prevents their travelling to work.
• The SBI will be using mobile computing technologies and shall have continuous control over all the enabled devices centrally to manage and secure the data and applications on the mobile devices,

11. Karur Vysya Bank launches 3 technology services

• To keep pace with technology across the globe, Karur Vysya Bank (KVB) has launched three technology services for the benefit of customers.
• Briefing reporters on the services, KVB Managing Director and CEO K Venkataraman said FASTag was launched in association with Indian Highways Management Company, a subsidiary of National Highway Authority of India, wherein pre loaded tags affixed to vehicles help them move on without having to join queues at toll plazas and handing cash for payment.

12. First time Mobile World Congress to be held in India

India will organise its first mobile congress in September with a special focus on reaching out to the South East Asian markets. There is Mobile World Congress in Barcelona and an edition in Shanghai. There is nothing in between for South East Asia. India is emerging as one of the global leaders in telecom which we will also showcase in the Indian Mobile Congress,

13. Kerala govt plans to restrict use of water by PepsiCo

Kerala government has said it plans to further restrict groundwater use by soft drink major PepsiCo at Palakkad in view of severe drought in the state. “The government will take stern measures to restrict usage of groundwater due to prevailing drought and if possible stop Pepsico from drawing it at its plant at Puthussery in Palakkad by using the power vested with it under the State Disaster Management Act.

14. Govt mandates Aadhaar for poor women to get free LPG connection

• The government has made having an Aadhaar card must for poor women to avail of free cooking gas (LPG) connection under the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana.
• While the government in October last year had made the unique identification number mandatory for everyone to get LPG subsidies, it has now extended the same for free cooking gas connections to women of BPL households.
• The government had last year launched the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana to provide 5 crore poor women with free LPG connections in three years with a view to providing clean cooking fuel.

15. ‘India by the Nile’ cultural festival begins in Egypt

India will organise the fifth edition of the mega cultural festival ‘India by the Nile’ in Egypt to showcase the diversity of the country’s culture, arts and cuisine for building enduring partnership between the two ancient civilisations.  For the first time, the Indian flag will be projected onto the Giza Pyramids as part of the celebration.

16. International Women’s Day being observed

• International Women’s Day is observed globally on 8th March every year.
• It is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. The day also marks a call to action for accelerating gender parity.
• The theme of International Women’s Day (IWD) 2017 campaign is ‘Be Bold For Change’.
• IWD has been observed since in the early 1900’s – a time of great expansion and turbulence in the industrialized world that saw booming population growth and the rise of radical ideologies.

17. 5th satellite of Copernicus observation program launched by EU

Europe launched the fifth of its Sentinel Earth observation satellites as part of its multi-billion-euro Copernicus program to provide speedy images of land, oceans and waterways. The Sentinel-2B satellite, part of a system of satellites that is to monitor Earth, blasted off on board a Vega rocket from Europe’s spaceport in French Guiana. The two satellites will orbit 488 miles (786 km) above Earth, on opposite sides of the planet.

18. Cuevas wins third Brasil Open tennis title

Uruguay’s Pablo Cuevas won his third consecutive Brasil Open title by beating Spain’s Albert Ramos-Vinolas in a final that eventually finished more than 24 hours late after successive rain delays.The final took almost three hours to complete and the victory gave Cuevas his sixth career title.

19. Veteran journalist Arvind Padmanabhan dies

Veteran journalist Arvind Padmanabhan, Executive Editor at IANS, died of cardiac arrest. Arvind Padmanabhan was born in 1967 at Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu Padmanabhan had a long inning at IANS, joining the India Abroad newspaper that was then part of the wire service in 1999 as in-charge of its Business Section.He was soon elevated as the Executive Editor and headed the business and economy team.He was earlier with the PTI, The Times of India and TV18.

20. M Chandrakasu ex Puducherry Minister passes away at age 65

Former Agriculture Minister of Puducherry M Chandrakasu died of renal failure.  He was 67. Chandrakasu is now the opposition AINRC legislator in Puducherry Assembly.  Chandrakasu was first elected as Congress legislator from Neduncadu reserved constituency in Karaikal in 1980.

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