GK & Current Affairs Quiz: March 08, 2018

Notes:
NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant has launched the Women Entrepreneurship Platform (WEP) on the occasion of 2018 International Women’s Day (IWD). The platform aspires to substantially increase the number of women entrepreneurs who will create and empower a dynamic New India. WEP will provide opportunities to women to realize their entrepreneurial aspirations, scale-up innovative initiatives and chalk-out sustainable, long-term strategies for their businesses. It aims to promote women entrepreneurship and provide industry linkages and partner support to women entrepreneurs.

Notes:
The International Women’s Day (IWD) is celebrated every year on March 8 to highlight the achievements of women. It is a global celebration of the social, cultural, economic and political achievements of women. The 2018 theme is “Time Is Now: Rural and urban activists transforming women’s lives”. Women’s Day was first observed on 28th February 1909 in New York. At 1910 International Woman’s Conference, 8th March was suggested to be observed as “International Woman’s Day.” March 8 also became a national holiday in Soviet Russia in 1917 after women gained suffrage there. Later, in 1975, International Women’s Day was celebrated for the first time by the United Nations.

Notes:
Noted Indian architect & urban planner Balkrishna Doshi has been named the prestigious 2018 Pritzker Architecture Prize for being able to interpret architecture and transform it into buildings that respect Eastern culture. He is the first Indian architect to be awarded the prize. The award ceremony will take place at the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto on May 2018. Doshi is widely known for designing extensive low-cost housing projects and public institutions. His designs include the IIM-Bangalore; Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology, Ahmedabad; cultural spaces in Ahmedabad such as Tagore Memorial Hall, the Institute of Indology, and Premabhai Hall; and private residence Kamala House (Ahmedabad), among many others. The Pritzker Prize is regarded as architecture’s equivalent to the Nobel Prize.

Notes:
Gita Mittal, the Delhi High Court Acting Chief Justice, has become the first woman from the field of law and justice to be conferred the ‘Nari Shakti Puraskar’, India’s highest civilian honour for women. Justice Mittal, who took over as Acting Chief Justice after the retirement of Justice G Rohini in April 2017, has introduced many welcome changes in the functioning of the Delhi High Court. She has been closely monitoring the dispensation of justice in Delhi and has also initiated a clean-up drive of the lower judiciary. The award has been presented to Justice Mittal in a private ceremony by the President at the Rashtrapati Bhavan on 2018 International Women’s Day (IWD). The Nari Shakti award is presented for exemplary service to the cause of upliftment of women.

Notes:
Minerva Punjab FC has won the I-League tournament (2017-18) after defeating Churchill Brothers in the final by 1-0 at the Tau Devi Lal Stadium in Gurgaon, Haryana on March 8, 2018. Thus, Minerva has clinched their first I-League title.

Notes:
Indian-origin steel tycoon Sanjeev Gupta has been appointed by Britain’s Prince Charles as an official ambassador for the Industrial Cadets programme designed to nurture manufacturing skills. Gupta was appointed to the flagship programme to give children and young people the direct structured experience of the industry at school or college level.

Notes:
Prakriti has been inducted as the first direct-entry combat officer in the border guarding force, ITBP. She has a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and is right now based in an ITBP unit in Uttarakhand’s Pithoragarh. She will soon join the Officers’ Training Academy of the force in Dehradun. The Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) force is the last of the CAPFs to induct women officers in combat roles after the government first allowed it to enroll them in 2016. The force already has women in combat roles but only in the constable ranks. The ITBP, that guards the 3,488 km-long Line of Actual Control (LAC) between India and China, was raised in 1962 in the aftermath of the Chinese aggression. Two other forces — the Border Security Force (BSF) and the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) — were allowed to directly induct women officers in 2013 and 2014 respectively.

Notes:
The Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) launched a Udyam Sakhi portal for women entrepreneurs of India on the occasion of 2018 International Women’s Day: The “www.udyamsakhi.org” portal is a network for nurturing social entrepreneurship and creating business models for low cost products and services in order to empower women and make them self-reliant and self-sufficient. The portal provides assistance through its platform for entrepreneurship learning tools, incubation facility, training programs for fund raising, providing mentors, one-on-one investor meet, provide market survey facility and technical assistance.

Notes:
Tech giant Microsoft has inked its first renewable energy deal in India for powering its new facility in Bengaluru. The facility, which will be operational from June 2018, is spread over 5.85 lakh square feet. The agreement will see Microsoft purchase 3 megawatts of solar-powered electricity from Atria Power to help power its new office building in Bangalore. This will meet 80% of the projected electricity needs at the new facility. This deal is part of Karnataka government program to encourage investments in local solar energy operations, in line with the country’s goal of ramping up solar power generation to 100 gigawatts by 2022. Once completed, the project will bring Microsoft’s total global direct procurement in renewable energy projects to nearly 900 megawatts. This is Microsoft’s first solar energy agreement in India, and one of the first ones in the Asian region.

Notes:
The Mundra Thermal Power Station is located at Mundra in Kutch district of Gujarat. The power plant is one of the coal-based power plants of Adani Power. The source of water for the power plant is sea water from the Gulf of Kutch. It is the world’s 11th-largest single location coal-based thermal power plant as well as India’s second largest operational power plant.