Current affairs : March 11th, 2017 for all competitive exams
The Rajya Sabha has passed the Enemy Property (Amendment and
Validation) Bill, 2016. The 49-year-old law was amended to guard against claims
of succession or transfer of properties left by people who migrated to Pakistan
and China.
- The amendments proposed include that
once an enemy property is vested in the Custodian, it shall continue to be
vested in him as enemy property irrespective of whether the enemy, enemy
subject or enemy firm has ceased to be an enemy due to reasons such as
death.
President of India inaugurates
the 12th CII-Exim bank conclave on India Africa Project Partnership
President Pranab Mukherjee
has inaugurated the two-day 12th CII-EXIM Bank Conclave on India-Africa Project
Partnership in New Delhi.The first conclave has held in 2005.
- It was organized by the Confederation
of Indian Industry (CII) in partnership with the EXIM Bank of India with
the support of the Ministry of External Affairs and the Ministry of
Commerce & Industry, Government of India.
Himachal launches mobile app
'Mera Hunar HP' for job-seeker
Virbhadra Singh led Himachal
Pradesh government has launched mobile app and website titled ‘MeraHunar HP’ or
‘My Talent’ to help skilled and semi-skilled workers find jobs.
- The mobile app will connect
prospective employers with job aspirants as the latter’s resume will
contain addresses and contact numbers.
Supreme Court issues bailable
warrants against Justice Karnan
A seven-judge Bench,
comprising the seniormost judges of the Supreme Court, issued a bailable
warrant against sitting Calcutta
HC judge C.S. Karnan to secure
his presence in the Supreme Court on March 31 in a suo motu contempt case against him for denigrating the judicial
institution.
- It is the first time that the apex
court has served warrants or initiated a case of contempt of court against
a sitting judge.
Synchronous elephant count by four States in May
Four States — Odisha, West
Bengal, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand — which comprise India’s most
human-elephant conflict-prone region, have decided to count elephants synchronously
between May 9 and 12.
- This will be the first regional synchronous elephant census with an
identical set of rules for direct and indirect counting methods.
- The census has been consciously been scheduled for May 10, a full moon day on
which the chances of elephant sightings are higher.
Another river-linking project on cards
After successful linkage between the Godavari and Krishna
rivers through the Pattiseema project, now the Andhra Pradesh government is
embarking on linking the Godavari with the Penna.
- In this regard, highly advanced LIDAR
(Light Detection and Ranging) Survey will be taken up by Water and Power
Consultancy Services (India) Limited (WAPCOS) to prepare a Detailed
Project Report (DPR) for supplying Godavari water directly to Rayalaseema.
NASA to explore Jupiter’s icy moon
NASA’s ‘Europa Clipper’ set to launch in the 2020s will probe the habitability of
Jupiter’s icy moon Europa.
- The mission plan includes 40 to 45
flybys, during which the spacecraft would image the moon’s icy surface at
high resolution and investigate its composition and the structure of its
interior and icy shell.
- Europa has long been a high priority
for exploration because it holds a salty
liquid water ocean beneath its icy crust.
‘Lost’ Chandrayaan-1 orbiting Moon: NASA
India’s first mission to Moon, the Chandrayaan-1, that was considered lost
almost eight years back, has been found orbiting the Moon some 200 kilometers
above the lunar surface.
- According to a recent NASA report, “A new technological application of interplanetary radar pioneered by scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, has successfully located spacecraft orbiting the moon – one active, and one dormant. This new technique could assist planners of future moon missions.”
Pakistan’s Hindu marriage bill passed by both houses of
Parliament
A landmark bill to regulate marriages of Pakistan’s Hindu
minority has been unanimously passed by the lower house of Parliament, paving
the way for adoption of a comprehensive and widely acceptable family law for
Hindus.
- The Hindu Marriage Bill 2016 is the
first personal law for the minority community and will help Hindu women
get documentary proof of their marriage, which is needed while applying
for passports and other official documents.
South Korea constitutional court
dismisses President
South Korea’s Constitutional
Court removed President Park Geun-hye from office on Friday over a graft
scandal involving the country’s conglomerates at a time of rising tensions with
North Korea and China.
- Ms. Park becomes South Korea’s first
democratically elected leader to be forced out of office.
- Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn was
appointed acting President and will remain in that post until the
election.
Reliance Jio, Paytm apologise for
using Modi's picture without permission
Reliance Jio and Paytm have apologised
for their “inadvertent mistake” of using Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s
photograph in their respective advertisements without prior permission.
- The Department of Consumer Affairs
sought clarification from Paytm and Reliance Jio regarding use of the
photograph of the Prime Minister in their respective full page
advertisements contravening the ‘prior permission’ stipulation in such
cases under ‘The Emblems and Names (Prevention of Improper Use) Act,
1950’, Minister of State for Consumer Affairs, Food & Public
Distribution C.R. Chaudhary said in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha.
TRAI moots telecom ombudsman
The Telecom Regulatory
Authority of India on Friday made a strong pitch for establishment of an
ombudsman in the sector and suggested a three-tier mechanism for effective
resolution of consumer complaints.
- The Trai recommendations come amid a
large number of complaints arising on account of wrong billing, poor
quality of service and unsatisfactory resolution of consumer grievances by
the telecom operators.
- To function effectively, the proposed
ombudsman should have the power to levy penalties on the telecom service
providers, Trai said in its recommendations to the Department of
Telecommunications (DoT).
Paytm to levy 2% fee on
recharge via credit cards
Digital wallet player Paytm
will now levy a 2% fee for adding money to Paytm wallet using credit cards.
- This is a result of multiple users
using Paytm to get free credit by using credit cards to top up their
digital wallets and transferring the money back to their bank accounts at
zero transaction cost.
B.P. Kanungo appointed RBI deputy
governor in place of R. Gandhi
The government appointed B.P.
Kanungo as a deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Friday.
- In a notification on its website, the
Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) said that Kanungo will take
charge on 3 April, after present deputy governor R. Gandhi’s retirement.
- Kanungo is a career central banker and
was appointed as an RBI executive director on 1 March 2016. He has been
incharge of the foreign exchange department, internal debt management
department and department of government and bank accounts.
Narendra Kumar takes over as Chairman Central Water
Commission
Shri Narendra Kumar, an officer of Central Water Engineering
Service (1979 batch) has assumed the charge of Chairman, Central Water
Commission (CWC).
- Central Water Commission is a premier
Technical Organization of India in the field of Water Resources and is
presently functioning as an attached
office of the Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga
Rejuvenation, Government of India.
Manjeev Singh Puri is India’s envoy
to Nepal
Senior diplomat Manjeev Singh
Puri was on Friday appointed as India’s new envoy to Nepal.
- Mr. Puri, a 1982 batch IFS officer, is
currently India’s Ambassador to the European Union, Belgium and
Luxembourg. Mr. Puri will succeed Ranjit Rae, whose term came to an end
last month.
Nobel Laureate George Olah passed
away
George A. Olah, whose work
won a Nobel Prize in chemistry and paved the way for more effective oil
refining and ways of producing less polluting forms of gasoline, has died at
age 89.
- Olah’s research brought him the 1994 Nobel Prize in chemistry for his groundbreaking study of the unstable carbon molecules known as carbocations.
