Current Affairs Questions & Answers: March 15, 2017

Notes:
The United Kingdom (UK) will host the 25th edition of Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in April 2018 after a gap of over 20 years. The Commonwealth Summit is held in every two years and the position of Commonwealth Chair-in-Office will be transferred at the 2018 summit from the Prime Minister of Malta to the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom who will hold the post until the 26th CHOGM expected in 2020.

Notes:
The World Consumer Rights Day (WCRD) is observed every year on March 15 to promote the basic rights of all consumers, demanding that those rights are respected and protected. It also gives people a chance to protest against the market abuses and social injustices. The 2017 theme is ‘Building a Digital World Consumers can Trust’. In India, besides the WCRD, we observe the National Consumer Day (NCD) on 24th of December every year.

Notes:
The committee constituted under the Chairmanship of Madhukar Gupta, has submitted its report to the Government of India (GoI) to strengthen border protection and address vulnerabilities in fencing along the Indo-Pakistan border. The Committee has given its recommendations broadly on the issues of threats and border protection, assessment of force level, deployment on the border, infrastructure and technology issues for protection of border and administrative issues. It has been decided to initiate action in light of the recommendations of the Committee in consultation with the stakeholders. This was stated by the Minister of State for Home Affairs, Kiren Rijiju in a written reply to question by J.J.T. Natterjee and E.T. Mohammed Basheer in the Lok Sabha on March 14, 2017.

Notes:
The 2017 International Conference on the “Vision Zero” and its relevance to Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) has started in New Delhi from March 15 and will continue till March 17. The conference will provide a forum for promoting safety and health at work by exchanging knowledge, practices and experience. During the conference, an exhibition on “OSH – INOSH EXPO 2017” will also be organize to show-case new trends in Personal Protective Equipments (PPEs), Occupational Health Promotion (OGP), etc. The 3-day conference is organized by Directorate General Factory Advice and Labour Institutes (DGFASLI), Government of India, Ministry of Labour and Employment and German Social Accident Insurance (DGUV), Germany in association with International Social Security Association (ISSA).

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The book “When Breath Becomes Air” has been authored by Indian-American author Dr. Paul Kalanithi. It is a memoir which chronicles Kalanithi’s transformation from medical student to neurosurgeon, patient and father before his sad death from cancer while working on this book. Recently, it is in news because the book has been shortlisted for the 2017 Wellcome Book Prize. It is the first posthumously published title to be in contention for the Wellcome Book Prize.The award celebrates fiction and non-fiction works engaged with the topics of health and medicine. Apart from this, Indian-American author Siddhartha Mukherjee is also on the list of the annual prize for his study of genetics and mental health in his book “The Gene: An Intimate History”. The winner will be announced at a ceremony at Wellcome Collection on April 2017.

Notes:
The All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) IT wing has launched the first-of-its-kind women safety application ‘Ammavin Aran’ in Tamil Nadu. The app will give the user details about the nearest police station and hospital along with map details and phone number. There is an in-built whistle, which can manipulate the phone speaker to create a loud noise when pressed by anyone in distress. The app also carries an in-built call recorder and ‘Tips’ icon to provide life saving information. The meaning of ‘Ammavin Aran’ is “mother’s fortress”. Currently, AIADMK is in power in Tamil Nadu and is the third largest party in the Indian Parliament.

Notes:
The Karnataka government has launched a Rs 10-crore Idea2POC (Idea to Proof of Concept) fund for women entrepreneurs. Under the fund, the Department of Information Technology, Biotechnology and Science & Technology can sanction upto Rs 50 lakhs for any woman innovator looking for funds for proof of concept validation, certification, and for other purposes such as to cover costs in manufacturing pilot devices. The new fund for women entrepreneurs was set up by the IT, BT and S&T Department, under the MultiSector Startup Policy of Karnataka. Apart from this, Karnataka already has three other Idea2POC funds, one for all technology sectors (Rs 10 crore), one focused on agriculture (Rs 2.5 crore) and another focused on tourism (Rs 2.5 crore).

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Amy Krouse Rosenthal (51), the prolific American author of both adult and children’s books, has recently passed away in Chicago, United States. She is best known for her memoir “Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life”, her children’s picture books and the film project “The Beckoning of Lovely”. She is the only author to have three children’s books make the Best Children’s Books for Family Literacy list in the same year. She was a contributor to Chicago’s NPR affiliate WBEZ, and to the TED conference.

Notes:
The Arunachal Pradesh government has launched a new scheme “Adarsh Gram Yojana” for rural poor. The purpose of the scheme is to reach the poor people in rural areas of the state to serve them better. Under the scheme, 123 villages (comprising one village per circle) will be developed as ‘Model Villages’ during the fiscal year 2017-18. The state government has allocated an amount of Rs.93 crore in the Budget 2017-18 for infrastructure development and for creating employment opportunities and community assets for the people of those villages.

Notes:
The National Thermal Power Corporation Limited (NTPC) has recently installed India’s largest floating solar Photo-Voltaic (PV) plant at Rajiv Gandhi Combined Cycle Power Plant (RGCCPP) in Kerala’s Kayamkulam district. This 100 kWp (kilowatt peak) floating solar generation plant has been indigenously developed by NTPC Energy Technology Research Alliance (NETRA) in collaboration with Central Institute of Plastic Engineering & Technology (CIPET), Chennai. The system was installed by Swelect Energy Systems Ltd, Chennai with support from NETRA & NTPC Kayamkulam station in a short span of 22 days. The solar PV plant has various benefits like conserving water through reduction of evaporation, increased generation due to cooling effect on the panels, reduced installation time etc and could be installed on saline water environment.