DAILY CURRENT AFFAIRS: FEBRUARY 22, 2018

NATIONAL

Jaipur’s Gandhi Nagar becomes country’s first all-women railway station:

The Gandhi Nagar railway station in Jaipur, became the country’s first major railway station to be fully-managed by women. In a unique initiative, the North Western railway (NWR) has deployed a female employee on every single post in the station, making it the first such station in the country.

Note: Matunga railway station of Mumbai is also managed by women and it is in the suburban category while Gandhi Nagar railway station is first in the main line category.

RAJASTHAN

Capital: Jaipur
Chief Minister: Vasundhara Raje
Governor: Kalyan Singh

Kerala’s New Health Policy Makes Vaccination Card Mandatory for School Admission:

In its New Health Policy, the Kerala government has proposed to make vaccination cards mandatory for children seeking admission in first standard. The Pinarayi Vijayan cabinet approved the draft health policy that was announced by Health Minister KK Shylaja.

Earlier the government had constituted a 17-member experts panel headed by Dr E Ekbal to chalk out a comprehensive health policy. One of the key directives of the panel is to make vaccination compulsory for children. While enrolling children in schools, parents have to produce details of the vaccines administered to their wards. The panel has also proposed special clinics for transgenders.

KERALA

Capital: Tiruvanantapuram
Chief Minister: Pinarayi Vijayan
Governor: Sathasivam

Process for geo-tagging water sources in Himalayas initiated: Uma Bharti

As a special initiative, Union Minister of Drinking Water and Sanitation, Sushri Uma Bharti, launched the Bagori Ganga Gram project, New Swajal Project (drinking water programme) at Bagori and Gangotri Iconic Place at Dunda village in Uttarkashi district of Uttarakhand.

As a first step to it, the Minister inaugurated solid and liquid waste management scheme of Rs 11.88 lakh at Bagori. Centre has decided to give 27 crore rupees to Uttarakhand for the implementation of this projects. She also initiated the Process for Geo-Tagging water sources in Himalayas.

Uttarakhand

Capital: Dehradun
Chief Minister: Trivendra Singh Rawat
Governor: Krishna Kant Paul

Special package of Rs 925 cr for strengthening power transmission in Arunachal Pradesh:

The Centre has announced a special package of 925 crore rupees for strengthening the power transmission and distribution system in Arunachal Pradesh. Union Minister of State for Power and New and Renewable Energy, RK Singh made the announcement in a review meeting of the power sector with senior officers of the state government in Itanagar.

The Union minister said, of the 900 unelectrified villages across the country, about 600 are in Arunachal. He directed the officials to expedite the work to electrify every village in the state by May 1st, this year.

ARUNACHAL PRADESH

Capital: Itanagar
Chief Minister: Pema Khandu
Governor: B D Mishra

Saras completes second test flight successfully:

India’s indigenous light transport aircraft Saras was successfully test flown for a second time in Bangalore, Union Science and Technology minister Harsh Vardhan said. The design and development of the aircraft is being done by the CSIR-National Aerospace Laboratories.

In eNAM reboot, Govt introduces six new features:

eNAM- an online agriculture market offering the best prices to the farmers has 6.6 million farmers registered and 470 agriculture markets connected. Digital payments through BHIM-UPI have registered transactions of Rupees fifteen thousand Crore in January 2018. The eNAM website is now available in Gujarati, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali and Odia, besides Hindi and English, while the eNAM trading facility is available in six languages.

Six New Features:

To ensure timely payment to farmers after auctioning of commodities on the platform, the government has introduced Unified Payment Interface (UPI) facility through
The MIS dashboard has been introduced to provide a greater insight into the performance of each mandi in terms of arrival and trade.
A Grievance Redressal Management System is being set up at mandis to flag technology issues related to portal/ software and its operation and also track the status of redressal online.
E-Learning module in Hindi has also been incorporated in the website so that various stakeholders can learn about how to operate the system and continuously get trained at their convenience.
e-NAM has been integrated with Central Farmer Database so that the registration process becomes easier and Identification of farmers can be done easily on arrival at the Mandi Gate. Farmers can also see the real-time bidding progress and assaying certificates through app.
Mobile app has been made multilingual. e-NAM Mobile app is being enhanced in multi-dimension so that the entire operation for farmers can be user friendly. Mandi operators can now carry out one of the critical operation of Gate Entry directly from e-NAM Mobile App.

INTERNATIONAL

Cobra Gold military exercises 2018 begins in Thailand:

The United States and Thailand will kick off the 2018 iteration of the annual Cobra Gold exercises – an engagement that began as a bilateral drill between the two allies and has now grown into Asia’s largest multinational drill. This was the 37th iteration of exercise. A U.S. Marine drinks the blood of a cobra during a jungle survival exercise as part of the “Cobra Gold 2018” (CG18) joint military exercise, at a military base in Chonburi province, Thailand.

THAILAND

Currency: Thai baht
Capital: Bangkok

India International Textiles Expo begins in Colombo:

A three –day India International Textiles Expo (IITExpo) of India began in Sri Lankan capital of Colombo. It is being organized by Powerloom Development & Export Promotion Council (PDEXCIL) with the support of Union Ministry of Textiles & Ministry of Commerce & Industry. Sri Lankan minister of Special Assignments Dr. Sarath Amunugama inaugurated the event.

He urged Sri Lanka to make use of fully-funded training opportunities in India, under Indian Technical & Economic Cooperation (ITEC) programme, in which a number of slots is earmarked for textile related subjects.

SRILANKA

Currency: Sri Lankan rupee
Capitals: Colombo, Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte
Prime minister: Ranil Wickremesinghe

BANKING & BUSINESS

Google begins replacing Android Pay and Google Wallet with new app:

Google’s new unified payments service “Google Pay”, which combines Google Wallet and Android Pay is finally rolling out with a new app for Android devices. Google Pay app interface has two tabs – Home and Cards. As per the images on the Google Play store, the Google Pay app shows recent payment activity, offers and stores available nearby, and a card-style interface which includes a user’s debit, credit, and other cards.

EPFO fixed interest rate at 8.55 % for 2017-18:

The Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation, EPFO has declared 8.55 per cent interest rate for 2017-18 for its about 5 crore members. This was decided during the meeting of Central Board of Trustees of EPFO in New Delhi. For 2016-17 the rate was 8.65 per cent and in 2015-16 the rate was 8.8 per cent. In order to maintain the interest this fiscal, the organisation had sold a portion of its investment in the Exchange Traded Funds.

Andhra Pradesh government, Facebook India collaborate for IT projects:

The government of Andhra Pradesh will collaborate with Facebook (India) in a bid to take up innovative pilot projects in the state. Andhra Pradesh Information and Technology Minister Nara Lokesh met Facebook (India) Connectivity Policy Head Aswani Rana regarding the same.

They decided to work on providing internet facility to every household through fiber grid project, internet, WiFi, and TV services at nominal cost of Rs 149. They further decided to provide training to women, small scale and cottage industries so that they can sell their products online.

India 7th Most Targeted Nation for Web Application Attacks, Finds Akamai’s State of Internet Security Report:

Nearly 40 percent of over 53,000 cyber-attacks in India occurred in the financial services sector during 2017, placing it at the seventh spot in the list of targeted countries for Web Application Attacks (WAA), a new report said.

The report, titled “Akamai State of the Internet Security Q4 2017,” also stated that the Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack frequency in the BFSI sector increased by 50 percent in the fourth quarter of 2017 over the last quarter.

Government sets up the “NITI Forum for Northeast”:

The Union Government has issued order setting up the ‘Niti Forum for North-East’. The forum will be co-chaired by the Vice-Chairman of NITI Aayog (Dr. Rajiv Kumar) and Minister of State (I/C), Ministry of Development of Northeastern Region (DoNER). The forum will have its Secretariat in the Ministry of DoNER. Forum to identify constraints and recommend suitable interventions for speedy and sustainable growth in NER.

APPOINTMENTS

Govt appoints two new EDs in banks:

Debashish Mukherjee and Murali Ramaswami were appointed executive directors of Canara Bank and Vijaya Bank respectively, according to an official order.

Mukherjee is at present the general manager of United Bank of India and Ramaswami is the GM of Vijaya Bank. Mukherjee’s appointment is initially for three years but it is extendable by two years after review of his performance. Ramaswami will have tenure till December 31, 2020.

CANARA BANK

Headquarters:Bengaluru
CEO:Rakesh Sharma
Tagline: Together We Can.

VIJAYA BANK

Headquarters: Bengaluru
CEO: A. Sankara Narayanan
Tagline: A friend you can bank on

Avani Chaturvedi becomes first Indian woman to fly fighter aircraft solo:

Flying officer Avani Chaturvedi has scripted history by becoming the first Indian woman to fly a fighter aircraft solo. An Indian Air Force official said, she flew a MiG-21 bison in her first solo sortie from IAF’s Jamnagar base in Gujarat.

SPORTS

Norway’s Bjoergen becomes most successful Winter Olympian:

Norway’s Marit Bjoergen (14 Olympic medals) became the most successful athlete in Winter Olympics history as she took bronze in Pyeongchang, South Korea in cross country skiing’s women’s team sprint free. However, Kikkan Randall and Jessica Diggins won the gold and the first Olympic cross country title for the United States.

Norway’s Martin Johnsrud Sundby and Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo won the men’s title by 1.71sec ahead of the Olympic Athletes from Russia, with France finishing third.

Australia beat New Zealand by 19 Runs in T20 Final:

Australia clinched the T20 tri-series against New Zealand after cruising to a 19-run victory in the rain-affected final at Auckland.

It also means Australia leapfrog Pakistan to become the top-rated T20 team in the world. This will be the first time for Australia to hold the number one spot since rankings were introduced in 2011.

AUSTRALIA

Currency:Australian dollar
Capital:Canberra

Top-ranked Kohli breaches 900-point mark in ODIs:

Virat Kohli became only the second batsman after AB de Villiers to cross the 900-point mark simultaneously in both Tests and ODIs and the fifth overall, in the latest rankings for the 50-over format announced by the ICC. He has reclaimed the No 1 spot in the ICC ODI batsmen rankings.

ICC ODI rankings for teams: 1. India (123 points), 2. South Africa (117), 3. England (116).
Rankings for batsmen: 1. Virat Kohli (909 points), 2. AB de Villiers (844), 3. David Warner (823).
Rankings for bowlers: 1. Rashid Khan and Jasprit Bumrah (787 points), 3. Trent Boult (729).

IMPORTANTS EVENTS OF THE DAY

World Thinking Day 2018: Feb 22^nd

World Thinking Day is a way to celebrate with girls all over the world on Feb 22^nd by doing the same activities. Making an impact means having a strong effect on something or someone. Impact for the Girl Guides and Girl Scouts is all about bringing positive change.

Theme of 2018:“Impact”

International Mother Language Day 2018: Feb 21^st

International Mother Language Day 2018, which is celebrated every year on 21 February for the last 20 years, is an endeavour stop this disintegration of language and culture. This year it is the 18th anniversary of IMLD.

Theme of 2018: “Linguistic diversity and multilingualism count for sustainable development”.

OBITUARY

Evangelist Billy Graham dies at age 99:

Billy Graham, one of the most widely heard Christian evangelist in history passed away at the age of 99 at his home in North Carolina. In 1983, President Reagan gave him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America’s highest civilian honour.

Dr BK Goyal, cardiologist with ‘clinical sixth sense’, is no more:

Eminent cardiologist Dr BK Goyal breathed his last in Mumbai following a cardiac arrest. He was 82-years-old. He was known to the world for having received top civilian awards — the Padma Vibhushan, Padma Bhushan and Padma Shri — and for treating ministers, industrialists and bureaucrats.

Renowned writer Kunhiraman Panoor passes away:

Renowned writer and social activist Kunhiraman Panoor popularly known as K Panoor passed away due to old age ailments at a private hospital. He was 84. Panoor won the Kerala Sahithya Academy award in 2006 and Ramasramam award in 2002. The renowned writer retired from the State Revenue Department as Deputy Collector.

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