Current Affairs : February 17, 2010

The list of winners is available on Nasscom Foundation site here

Bharat Gaurav award : Dr Aniruddha Ganguly
Dr Aniruddha Ganguly, faculty at the Harvard Medical School & Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston is honored with the Bharat Gaurav award and given a certificate of excellence by the India International Friendship Society in New Delhi

Some past recipients of the Bharat Gaurav award are Nobel Laureate Mother Teresa ; Harinder S Takhar, a minister in Canada’s Ontario province; Amir Raj Banshi, sports minister in South Africa ; Dr Sampat Shivangi, US-based physician; cricket legend Sunil Gavaskar ; movie legend Dev Anand.

Wipro: Global Impact Award
Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce Global Impact award has been won by Wipro Technologies. Wipro won in the category of Economic Development-Foreign Direct Investment for success in job creation and positive impact on Atlanta’s economy in 2009.

In line with its globalization strategy, Wipro opened the Atlanta Development Center (ADC) in 2008, to centralize its US delivery operations.

Events & Observances:
Mumbai: ACREX 2010
ACREX 2010 was an International Exhibition on Air-Conditioning, Refrigeration & Building Services, inaugurated at the Bombay Exhibition Centre , Goregaon on February 16,2010.

National Updates:
New Delhi: India’s first Dept of Interventional Neurology Opened by Max
Max Healthcare opens India’s first department of interventional neurology at New Delhi with an investment of Rs five crore.

Gaya: Second OTA for Army Officers
India has one Officers Training Academy for Army officers at Chennai. On February 17, 2010 Cabinet Committee on Security has approved the opening of a second officers training academy (OTA) in Gaya, Bihar. Its a long-term step to obviate the problem of reducing the shortage of officers in the Indian Army.

Hyderabad: Rajiv Gandhi Intl Airport declared world’s best
The Rajiv Gandhi International Airport has been declared as the world’s best airport for airport service quality in the five to 15 million passengers category by the Airports Council International (ACI), an independent authority that promotes professional excellence in airport management and operations worldwide. The unique achievement has come within two years of the Green Field Airport having commenced operations. It has been developed by GMR.

Aamir Khan resigns from Copyright Act committee
The central government has constituted a ten member committee to look into proposed amendments to the Copyright Act. The ten members included Amir Khan, Javed Akhtar, Boney Kapoor, Mukesh Bhatt, Vishal Bharadwaj, Vishal Dadlani, Prasoon Joshi, Anjum Rajabli, Madhu Manthena and Bhushan Kumar. Amir Khan resigns from this committee.
Update : February 18: Amir withdrew his resignation from a copyright panel he had quit a couple of days ago.

Punjab : On Punjab State Road Sector Project
For the second phase of “Punjab State Road Sector Project” world bank approves Rs. 2100 crore under the new concept of Output and Performance Based Road Contracting (OPRC) being introduced by the Punjab Government for the first time in the country. This will be used for the Upgradation of about 950 km of road in the state.

Kerala: Justice Rajendra Babu Commission
Kerala Government appoints a commission headed by Justice Rajendra Babu to study the pay revision of government employees and teachers in the state. Dr Mohanan Pillai of CDS and advocate P Venugopalan Nair are commission’s members

Jaipur: thirteenth National Conference on e-Governance
Governor of Rajasthan Prabha Rau inaugurates the two-day annual event, National Conference on e-Governance. The theme is “e-Governance from Citizens’ Perspective” which will explore how use of ICT has transformed governance from the perspective of the beneficiaries of the services.

Economy:
Zynga’s Office in India:
Zynga is a US-based largest social game provider company in the world. On February 17, 2010 it announces its first-ever overseas facility in India. This facility will be having large-scale infrastructure to support the delivery of the Zynga games to millions of players every day.

Max Bupa receives final approval from IRDA
Max Bupa Health Insurance Company Limited, the stand-alone health insurance company set-up as a joint venture between Max India Limited and Bupa Group received the R3 license from Insurance Regulatory and Development Association (IRDA) on February 17, 2010. The R3 license from the IRDA is the last of the three steps in the registration process and is the final approval to launch insurance business in India.

MoU signed between HRD and Railway Ministries
Ministry of Human Resource Development and the Ministry of Railways sign an MOU. As per this MOU, on the railway land identified by the Ministry of Railways, both ministries will strive to develop educational infrastructure in the form of around 50 Kendriya Vidyalayas in civil sector (about 20 during the 11th Plan and the balance during the 12th Plan), 10 Residential Schools on the pattern of Navodaya Vidayalayas ( to be set up by Ministry of Railways in collaboration with Ministry of HRD on mutually agreed terms), an appropriate number of Model Degree Colleges and Technical and Management institutions of National Importance to meet the demand for education including wards of Railway employees, either as per the norms specified under the existing schemes/programmes and projects being executed by Ministry of Human Resource Development or through special programmes and projects mutually agreed by the parties or through innovative financing under Public Private Partnership Models or any combinational thereof.

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