Dear Friends,
Welcome to the Quick Gyan (QG) Section of D2G. QG is just a glimpse of what happened today all over the world.
Only For Serious Candidates : We strongly recommend you to read the Current Affairs in detail. For your convenience, we have provided quick links under the updates. Make use of it.
Always Keep Yourself Updated!!!
AWARDS AND HONORS
Anand Mahindra conferred with France’s Chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur
Mahindra & Mahindra chairman and managing director Anand Mahindra has been conferred with Chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur (Knight of the Legion of Honour) by the French authorities. Francois Richier, Ambassador of France to India, conferred the Chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur (Knight of the Legion of Honour) on Anand G Mahindra. The highest French civilian distinction came in recognition of Mr Mahindra’s outstanding national and international achievements and initiatives at the helm of the Mahindra Group, it added. Mr Mahindra is recognised as one of the most prominent business leaders in India, who has turned Mahindra & Mahindra into a global company of outstanding repute. Under his leadership, fruitful partnerships have been developed, among many others, between French and Indian industries.
Quick Link – Legion d’Honneur
Ahmed Abul Gheit named as Secretary General of Arab League
Veteran Egyptian diplomat Ahmed Abul Gheit has been named as the Arab League’s new secretary general. Abul Gheit, who served as foreign minister under Egypt’s ousted president Hosni Mubarak, takes office at a time when the Cairo-based Arab League is facing several tests of its unity. At the top of the list is the war in Syria that has killed more than 270,000 people and displaced millions since it erupted in 2011. The more than five-year-old conflict has seen regional heavyweights Saudi Arabia and In addition, relations between Qatar and Egypt, which traditionally chooses candidates for the post of secretary general, have soured. Abul Gheit had accused the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas which rules Gaza of being responsible for the Israeli assault.
Quick Link – Ahmed Abul Gheit as Secretary General
NPS Hira appointed as Deputy Chief of Army Staff
Chief of the Army’s Northen Command, Lt Gen NPS Hira has been appointed as Deputy Chief of Army Staff and would assume office on March 14. Lt Gen NPS Hira is from the Sikh Light Infantry. He has commanded the Jallandhar-based 11 Corps ‘Defenders of Punjab’. He has vast experience of counter-insurgency operations in Jammu and Kashmir and in the North-East region, as well as conventional operations in Western Command of the Army. He commanded Sikh Light Infantry in Assam (Op RHINO), 12 Infantry Brigade in the strategic Uri sector deployed on the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir and later went on to command 10 Infantry Division on the LoC. Lt General Hira is also the Colonel of the Regiment of the Sikh Light Infantry.
Quick Link – NPS Hira appointed as Deputy Chief
INDIAN AFFAIRS
National Led Bulbs Scheme Gets a New Face in ‘UJALA’
Piyush Goyal, Union Minister of State (IC) for Power, Coal and New & Renewable Energy has announced the name ‘UJALA’ for the LED based Domestic Efficient Lighting Programme (DELP), which is currently running successfully in over 120 cities across India. UJALA, an acronym for Unnat Jyoti by Affordable LEDs for All, is being implemented by Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL). The National LED programme was launched by the Prime Minister on January 2015 with a target of replacing 77 crore incandescent lamps with LED bulbs. UJALA is successfully running across 12 states in India namely Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi, Andhra Pradesh, Puducherry, Jharkhand, Bihar and Uttarakhand. While more states are expected to join the initiative very soon.
Quick Link – UJALA
LS passes Aadhaar (Target Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Bill, 2016
The Lok Sabha has passed the Aadhaar Bill, providing statutory backing to the unique identification number for transferring government subsidies and benefits, as a money bill after government overruled opposition objections. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said thousands of crores of rupees would be saved by plugging leakages and diversions as he rejected opposition demand for referring the Bill to a standing committee and their concerns of privacy as well as Aadhaar potentially being used for “mass surveillance” and “ethnic cleansing”. Overruling Congress’ objections that the legislation has been turned into a money bill to avoid voting in the Rajya Sabha where the government does not have a majority, he said Aadhaar was a money bill in true definition.
Quick Link – Aadhaar Bill
Project Mausam aims to explore Multi-Faceted Indian Ocean World
Project ‘Mausam’ is the initiative of Ministry of Culture. The Project will be implemented by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) as the nodal agency with research support of the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA) and National Museum as associate bodies. This project aims to explore the multi-faceted Indian Ocean ‘world’ – collating archaeological and historical research in order to document the diversity of cultural, commercial and religious interactions in the Indian Ocean – extending from East Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, the Indian Subcontinent and Sri Lanka to the Southeast Asian archipelago.
Quick Link – Multi-Faceted Indian Ocean World
Railways launch online “Clean My Coach” service
Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu launched an online “clean my coach” service that allows travellers to get their compartments cleaned by sending an SMS or by using an app or a designated website. As per the scheme, for any cleaning requirement in the coach, passengers have to send an SMS on a mobile number 58888. Alternatively, passengers can use the android app or Web page www.cleanmycoach.com for logging the request. Following this, a passenger’s request is immediately acknowledged via SMS on mobile phone along with a code. This service empowers the citizen to get an important service on board and is in line with the objectives of the ‘Digital India’ programme. Mr. Prabhu had announced this scheme in the rail budget for the next fiscal.
Quick Link – Clean My Coach
Govt to computerise all ration shops by 2019
Government aims to computerise the PDS sector to help check pilferages and plug leakages by installing electronic Point of Sale (ePoS) devices at all fair price shops across the country by March 2019 (rpt 2019). Government has also started a pilot project linking the PDS with Aadhar card under Direct Benefit Transfer scheme in Puducherry, Chandigarh and in urban areas of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and, depending upon its success, it will be extended across the country to help remove corruption in PDS, Food Minister Ram Vilas Paswan told the Rajya Sabha. There are a total of 5.35 lakh Fair Price shops across the country and government has installed 91,000 electronic Point of Sale (ePoS) devices till March 2016. Government intends to achieve a target of installing three lakh such devices to computerise fair price shops by March 2017.
Quick Link – Computerise ration shops by 2019
Parrikar launches Kendriya Sainik Board School
The Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar launched an interactive web portal of Kendriya Sainik Board (KSB) Secretariat, under the Department of Ex-Servicemen Welfare (ESW) of Defence Ministry. The interactive portal facilitates Ex-Servicemen/dependents to submit online applications under various welfare schemes. At present, it contains website and workflow software for online submission of Prime Minister Scholarship Scheme (PMSS) for the sons and wards of Ex-Servicemen. On this occasion the Defence Minister also unveiled the User Manual of the interactive web-portal. The portal, developed by NIC at a cost of Rs. 58.93 lakhs, will later contain workflow software for all the schemes of the Secretariat which will provide complete information about KSB secretariat, its welfare schemes and allied activities.
Quick Link – KSB
SEBI bars wilful defaulters from raising funds
The SEBI board has approved curbs on ‘wilful defaulters’, which entails ban on public issue of securities. Any entity declared wilful defaulters will also not able to take control in any other listed entities. The SEBI board accepted most of the broad recommendations made in the discussion paper on wilful defaulters it floated last year. The move by Sebi will help other regulators, particularly the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in its drive against cracking down on wilful defaulters. Under the current framework, wilful defaulters were allowed to issue equity by way of initial public offering (IPO) or follow-on offering (FPO) by merely making adequate disclosures in the offer document. The market regulator has also proposed to widen the definition of control under the Takeover Regulations to provide more transparency in mergers and acquisitions (M&As).
Quick Link – Wilful defaulters
Kakrapar power station shuts down after leakage
One of the two 220 MWe units at the Kakrapar Atomic Power Station (KAPS) in Gujarat had to be shut down at 9 am on Friday (March 11, 2016) after leakage of heavy water from its coolant system. The Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) has sent a team of experts for an independent assessment of the situation. The KAPS, located on the border of Surat and Tapi districts near Vyara town of Tapi, is run by Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL). According to KAPS website, the power station has two generation units of Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors (PHWR) that were commissioned during early 90s. An expert from the nuclear regulator is learnt to have reported that the leakage was restricted to the Primary Heat Transport (PHT) system of Unit 1 of the station in Vyara district, and that the “safety system of the reactor had worked as intended, including the backup cooling systems”.
Quick Link – KAPS
Call drops in India above global average : Survey
A survey has found out that on average 4.73 per cent of calls get dropped in the country, much higher than the global average of three per cent. By the RedMango Analytics report, 59.1 per cent of dropped calls were due to poor quality and 36.9 per cent of all the dropped calls were due to network faults. RedMango Analytics conducted the survey across 20 cities, including Mumbai, Kolkata, Bengaluru and Jammu. Poor quality can be defined as high interference in the radio signal from the mobile phone to the tower and vice versa that causes calls to drop. According to the report, higher-priced smartphones worth Rs 30,000 and above experienced lowest call drops followed by mid-range smartphones.
Quick Link – Global average
Govt sets new norms for Hydrocarbons licensing
Government of India has approved a new policy for exploration and also defined the norms for pricing of existing and new discoveries made in difficult areas. The petroleum minister said the new oil and gas exploration policy will now be based on a revenue-sharing model, as opposed to cost-and-output-based norms earlier. The difficult areas for which the new pricing norms have now been formulated are defined as those from deep-water, ultra deep-water and high pressure-high temperature areas. Such areas were not considered when prices were fixed for normal gas discoveries in 2014. The bulk of such fields are with Reliance Industries and state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corp.
Quick Link – Hydrocarbons licensing
Users can now complain against misleading Ads vis WhatsApp
Consumers can now file complaints against misleading commercials by companies to advertising watchdog ASCI through mobile messaging app WhatsApp. Consumers can now WhatsApp the objectionable advertisement to +91 77-100-12345, from where the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) would lodge ‘suo moto’ complaints using this number. Consumers can send pictures of print ads, hoardings, packaging or screen shots of websites, links of YouTube videos etc and a ASCI team would be scrutinising these complaints and take it further if found valid. WhatsApp will serve as only the first touch point for consumers to reach ASCI with their main objections and images of the objectionable advertisement. Last year, it had launched a mobile app to connect with the consumers and curb misleading advertisements.
Quick Link – Misleading Ads vis WhatsApp
INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
UN adopts plan to curb sex abuse by peacekeepers
The UN Security Council has adopted a resolution to take strong action to confront the problem of sexual exploitation and abuse committed by peacekeepers. The resolution, drafted by the United States, requests UN Secretary-General to replace all military and police unit of a troop or police contributing country in UN peacekeeping operations if the country has not taken appropriate actions to investigate their personnel or hold perpetrators accountable. Fourteen members of the 15-nation Council voted in favor of the resolution. Egypt abstained. Before voting for the resolution, the Security Council voted for an amendment to the resolution proposed by Egypt, which was intended to slightly adjust the language on conditions of contingent repatriation. Nine members of the Council voted against the amendment including the United States.
Quick Link – Sex abuse by peacekeepers
Wikipedia to develop speech engine for blind
The Wikimedia Foundation is currently developing a speech synthesis engine to its encyclopedia. In parallel with the release of its new app for iOS , the Wikimedia Foundation is currently developing a multilingual engine in partnership with the Royal Institute of Technology KHT. It will be optimized for Wikipedia but available as open source. Joakim Gustafson, professor of speech synthesis technology said in a statement that the project aims to facilitate access content from Wikipedia to the visually impaired or have difficulty reading. Mr. Gustafson added that the first tests will be carried out in Sweden. He added, “then we will do a basic English voice, which should be pretty good since we have full linguistic resources in open source.” Eventually the work will be carried on a voice in Arabic.
Quick Link – Speech engine for blind
Snowden starts campaign against cyber censorship
Prominent activists ranging from Edward Snowden to Pussy Riot have planned to spread online protests against growing government restrictions on citizens’ expression, marking an annual world day against cyber censorship. In one message, Snowden, will tell the public: “Even if you’re not doing anything wrong, you’re being watched and recorded.” The Chinese artist Ai Weiwei will also take part. One of his messages will read: “Without freedom of speech there is no modern world, just a barbaric one.” The online messages are part of activities to mark World Day Against Cyber Censorship, an annual online event started in 2008 by Reporters Without Borders and Amnesty International.
Quick Link – Snowden starts campaign
FOREIGN RELATIONS
India, US launch Fulbright–Kalam Climate Fellowship
India and the US have launched the Fulbright-Kalam Climate Fellowship, in a new initiative to advance bilateral cooperation on climate change, that will enable Indian research scholars to work with American institutions in the field. The first call for applicants was announced on Friday for the fellowship jointly funded by both the governments and will enable up to 6 Indian PhD students and post-doctoral researchers to work with US host institutions for a period of 6-12 months, according to a press release. The fellowship, named after the late Indian President Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, is part of a commitment made by the US President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Narendra Modi to build long-term capacity to address climate change-related issues in both the countries. The fellowship will be operated by the binational US-India Educational Foundation (USIEF) under the umbrella of the prestigious Fulbright programme.
Quick Link – Fulbright–Kalam Climate
India to supply 18 Meter Gauge Diesel Electric Locomotives to Myanmar
India will supply 18 Meter Gauge 1350 HP Diesel Electric Locomotives to Myanmar to augment locomotive fleet of Myanmar Railways to meet increasing demand for passenger and freight traffic. The supply contract of locomotives is a vital project being funded under an existing line of credit extended to Myanmar by Government of India. These locomotives will be manufactured by Diesel Locomotive Works, Varanasi with several modern features like microprocessor controls, fuel-efficient engine and ergonomic cab design etc. Both men and women in Myanmar use a yellow paste from the bark of the Thanakha tree as a cosmetic. Applied to the face, it is an effective sunscreen that also tightens the skin and prevents oiliness. The traditional Burmese dress is the longyi, a wraparound skirt worn by men and women. Men tie theirs in the front and women fold the cloth over and secure it at the side.
Quick Link – HP Diesel Electric Locomotives
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Scientists find Plastic eating bacteria
Scientists in Japan have discovered a form of bacteria that can digest the plastic in disposable plastic water bottles, raising hopes it could be used to dispose of some of the 311 million tons of plastic produced annually worldwide. Plastic bottles contain polyethylene terephalate, or PET, a plastic ingredient which is also found in lots of other products, like polyester clothing, soda bottles, and tennis balls. PET is great for products but terrible for the environment, because until now it was believed to be unable to be broken down by microbes, which means it couldn’t be biodegradable. Much of the pollution in the ocean is made of PET.
Quick Link – Plastic eating bacteria
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