Current Affairs Questions & Answers: February 11, 2017

Notes:
The National Productivity Week (NPW) is observed every year from February 12-18 by the National Productivity Council (NPC) to stimulate and promote productivity and quality consciousness across all sectors in India. The 2017 theme is “From Waste to Profits-through Reduce, Recycle and Reuse”. The National Productivity Council (NPC) is an autonomous body under Union Ministry of Commerce & Industry and was established on 12th February 1958.

Notes:
The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) is co-hosting the Second Gateway of India Geo economic Dialogue with Gateway House in Mumbai, Maharashtra on February 13-14, 2017 . This is India’s premier geo-economics conference on the theme ‘Where Geopolitics meets Business’ focused on building synergies between business and foreign policy. There will be panel discussions covering topics like Sovereign Funds, Global Taxation and Digital Economy.

Notes:
The 11th biennial edition of International Aerospace and Defence Exhibition – Aero India 2017 – will be held at the Air Force Station, Yelahanka in Bengaluru, Karnataka from February 14. In the 5-day event, 72 aircrafts, beside 270 Indian and 279 foreign companies will participate. Exhibitors from US, Russia, Israel, Germany, Singapore, UAE, South Korea and Australia will participate. The aerobatic teams participating in the show are Indian Air Force Sarang Team, the Indian Air Force Surya Kiran Team, the Scandinavian Air Show Team from Sweden and the Evolvkos Aerobatic Team from UK.

Notes:
The 2nd edition of International Conference on India Pharma & India Medical Device-2017 has been inaugurated by Ananth kumar, the Union Minister for Chemicals & Fertilizers and Parliamentary Affairs, in Bengaluru, Karnataka on February 11, 2017. The three day event, with the Vision – ‘For Responsible Healthcare’, is based on themes: Medical Devices- ‘Shaping the Future-Making the Right Choices’ and Pharma -‘Shaping the future of India Pharma’. This initiative will be a platform to give a push to the Indian Pharma & Medical Devices sector in becoming globally competitive.

Notes:
Ajay Tyagi, a 1984 batch IAS officer of the Himachal Pradesh cadre, has been appointed the new chief of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). Currently, Tyagi is an additional secretary at the finance ministry’s economic affairs department and will succeed U.K. Sinha, who retires from the post on March 1, 2017. The chairman of SEBI receives a consolidated pay package of Rs 4.5 lakh per month.

Notes:
India’s first inter-disciplinary school on Quality and Reliability (Q&R) will be set up by the IIT Kharagpur. The school will be truly interdisciplinary in which faculty members as well as students will be from various disciplines. The purpose for establishing the school is to improve the quality of life for the people of India as well as develop quality conscious global citizens. The school, in collaboration with other academic units in the Institute, will offer academic courses, research and mission-mode programmes in the area of Quality and Reliability (Q&R), which will bring social transformation. It shall also serve as a hub of Intellectual Property in Quality.

Notes:
The world’s first Braille Atlas for visually impaired persons has been launched by Dr. Harsh Vardhan, the Union Minister for Science & Technology and Earth Sciences. The special edition of the “Atlas for Visually Impaired (India)” in English Braille has been prepared by National Atlas and Thematic Mapping Organisation (NATMO) under the Department of S&T. The Atlas priced at Rs.600 and has 20 maps that cover themes such as physical, socio-economic and cultural aspects such as river system, natural vegetation, Metropolitan cities, roads, food and cash crops. The Atlas will be distributed free of cost to various schools across India for educating the students with visual challenges.

Notes:
The Union HRD Ministry has recently constituted a sub-committee of Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) under Chairmanship of Kadiyam Srihari to look into issues of girl’s education. Srihari is the Deputy Chief Minister and Education Minister of Telangana. The terms of reference of the sub-committee would be to examine the reasons for low participation of girls in education, including the socio-economic factors with resultant gender bias and suggest ways to reduce gender disparity so as to achieve better gender parity index. It will analyse girls’ participation at all levels of school education across socio-economic groups of SC/ST, minorities and in rural-urban areas and reduce existing educational disparities among them. It will also examine the existing schemes, measures and incentives aimed at enhancing girls’ participation and ensuring their retention in education and suggest improvements and modifications in the existing schemes.

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The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) has observed its 3rd National Deworming Day (NDD) on February 10 to tackle worm infections among pre-school (anganwadi) and school-age children across India. The aim of the NDD is to reach every child, regardless of their socio-economic circumstance. It is the world’s largest deworming programme that covers 340 million children under-19 years of age across 36 states/ UTs. The deworming programme is India’s commitment to a comprehensive national response to the public health threat posed by worms.

Notes:
The Pakistan Navy has started its 5th edition of multinational naval exercise “AMAN – 2017” at the Navy Dockyard in Karachi. The 2017 theme is ‘Together for peace’ and focus is on maritime security including counter-piracy and counter terrorism operations at sea. The naval exercise will include ships, aircraft, helicopters, Special Operations Forces (SOF), Explosives Ordinance Disposal (EOD), marine teams and observers from regional as well extra-regional navies. The 4-day naval drill involves 37 countries such as Australia, China, Indonesia, Turkey, Sri Lanka, UK, Unites States, Japan and Russia.