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Daily Current Affairs – 3rd March 2016, Thursday

Manaswini Panda
Daily

1. Poet Bhagwati Lal Vyas selected for 2015 Bihari Puraskar

  1. Eminent poet Dr Bhagwati Lal Vyas has been chosen for the 2015 Bihari Puraskar for his anthology of Rajasthani poems ‘Katha Sun Aawe Hai Sabad’.
  2. In his poetry, Vyas talks about the disagreeable changes in human relations, social disparity and loss of human values. However, positivity and his faith in human life are also dealt with in some of his works.
  3. His other popular works includes, Shatabdi Niruttar, Footpath Par Chiriya Nachti Hai and Suraj Leelti Ghatiyan.
  4. Bihari Puraskar was instituted by KK Birla Foundation in 1991 and is named after the famous Hindi poet Bihari Lal Chaube.

2. Former New Zealand cricket captain Martin Crowe passes away

  1. Former New Zealand captain Martin Crowe recently passed away due to cancer in Auckland at the age of 53.
  2. He played 77 tests and 143 one-day internationals for New Zealand in a 13-year career. He scored 5,444 Test runs at an average of 45.36 with 17 centuries.

3. Akito Tachibana appointed MD of Toyota Kirloskar Motor

  1. Akito Tachibana has been appointed as the Managing Director of Toyota Kirloskar Motor. He will replace the incumbent MD Naomi Ishii.
  2. Tachibana currently heads technical, purchase and quality assurance functions at Toyota Kirloskar and will take charge as the MD in April.
  3. Earlier, he has served as the head of corporate and product planning at Toyota Kirloskar’s units in Thailand, Vietnam and the US.

4. Paytm introduces Hindi interface on its app to expand seller base

  1. Mobile commerce platform Paytm has introduced Hindi interface on its app in order to widen its seller base in tier-II and tier-III cities.
  2. This feature will help Paytm expand its online-to-offline business for shipping large appliances and electronics beyond the current base of 10 cities.
  3. According to Sudhanshu Gupta, Vice-President of business at Paytm, “The top-10 cities of seller-app usage include metros as well as cities like Ahmedabad, Surat, Jaipur and others. These sellers usually deal in unstructured categories such as fashion, home and lifestyle products, and the demand to develop a local-language interface has come from the seller meetings”.
  4. The launch is in accordance with the company’s target of reaching the target of 5 lakh sellers by the end of 2016.

5. Intel appoints Nivruti Rai as India Site General Manager

  1. Intel Corporation has appointed Nivruti Rai as the Intel India Site General Manager. Rai will replace Kumud Srinivasan, who will relocate to the US.
  2. Rai has been associated with Intel for more than two decades and has worked at several technical and business management positions across different functions in both the US and India. She is currently serving as the Vice-President and Director of R&D in Platform Engineering Group (PEG), Intel Corporation.
  3. Rai holds a Master of Sciences degree from the University of Lucknow and a MS Degree in Electrical Engineering from Oregon State University.

6. March 3rd observed as World Wildlife Day

  1. World Wildlife Day is annually observed on March 3 in order to create awareness about the importance of safeguarding planet Earth’s varied wildlife population.
  2. This year the theme was “The future of wildlife is in our hands”.
  3. As per a report by the World Wildlife Fund, the global wildlife population has decreased by 53% per cent between 1970 and 2015.
  4. During its 68th session, the UN General Assembly decided to declare March 3rd as World Wildlife Day.
  5. The day is observed to reiterate the significance of the many beautiful and varied forms of wild fauna and flora and the host of benefits that we attain by ensuring their safety.

7. Delhi becomes first state to launch HPV vaccine as public health programme in schools

  1. Delhi became the first city in India to launch the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine as a public health programme for school children. The HPV vaccine protects people against the group of 150-odd HPVs, some of which can cause cervical cancer.
  2. Around 1-1.5 lakh girls studying in Class VI in government schools will be vaccinated in the first year and the task will be completed in two phases during the current academic year.
  3. The programme involves providing two doses of the vaccine; the first and second dose will be administered within 30 days of each other. A third booster dose will be given within 240 days of the first vaccine, which will be covered in the next phase.
  4. The Delhi government will buy the vaccines from GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and MSD Pharmaceuticals at a subsidised cost of Rs.450 per dose.

8. NASA astronaut Scott Kelly returns to Earth after spending 340 days in space

  1. NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko returned to Earth after spending 340 days aboard the International Space Station (ISS). With this, Kelly has now spent a total of 540 days of his life in space-the longest time period by an American astronaut.
  2. During this time, the crew conducted around 400 investigations and studies to collate information for NASA’s ‘Journey to Mars’ mission.
  3. This included research on how the human body adjusts to weightlessness, isolation, radiation and the stress of long-duration space flight.
  4. Over the course of the year, Kelly documented his stay in ISS by tweeting nearly 1,000 images of the Earth from different angles. During the mission, Kelly also went on three space walks to carry out maintenance tasks.

9. Switzerland tops the 2016 Global Energy Architecture Performance Index

  1. The World Economic Forum (WEF) recently released the fourth edition of the Global Energy Architecture Performance Index Report 2016 (EAPI), which ranks 126 countries on different parameters.
  2. Switzerland tops the list and is followed by Norway and Sweden.
  3. The index helps countries address energy transformation challenges and spot opportunities across their energy systems. The 126 countries were rated on 3 parameters, namely affordability, environmental sustainability, security and access.
  4. India has been ranked 90th on the list as the study noted that the country is facing challenges like the need to improve energy delivery in order to meet its growth targets and expand access. However, electrification has progressed and is now accessible to 79% of India’s population.

10. Whitfield Diffie and Martin Hellman win ACM 2015 A M Turing Award

  1. Whitfield Diffie and Martin Hellman have won the Association for Computing Machinery’s 2015 AM Turing Award for their contributions to modern cryptography.
  2. Whitfield Diffie is former Vice-President and Chief Security Officer of Sun Microsystems, while Martin E. Hellman is Professor emeritus of Electrical Engineering at Stanford University.
  3. The duo’s paper titled “New Directions in Cryptography” which was published in 1976 is a groundbreaking study that introduced the ideas of public-key cryptography and digital signatures, which are presently the foundation for regularly-used security protocols on the Internet.
  4. The award is often referred to as the “Nobel Prize for Computing” and includes a prize money of a $1 million funded by Google.

11. Japan pledges Rs.5,700-crore loan for highways in the north-east

  1. Japan International Cooperation Agency has pledged an overseas development assistance of Rs.5,700 crores for improving highways in India’s north-east region.
  2. As per reports, the assistance will be provided for widening and upgradation to two-lane with paved shoulder and geometric improvements of NH-54 in Mizoram and NH-51 in Meghalaya.
  3. The annual interest rates on the loan for construction and procurement of goods & services is 1.4% and for consulting is 0.01%, while repayment of principal amount will be made in 20 years after the disbursement period of 10 years.

12. TCS and GE join hands to develop digital solutions

  1. Recently, Indian software major TCS entered into a strategic alliance with US-based multinational conglomerate General Electric (GE) for the GE Digital Alliance Program through which it would develop digital solutions to enhance the productivity of mobile workforces and assets in motion.
  2. This will be achieved by leveraging Predix, GE’s cloud platform for industrial internet.
  3. TCS and GE will collaborate to establish an ‘industry solutions ecosystem’ by leveraging TCS’ business and digital expertise to enrich GE’s Predix platform.
  4. TCS has already developed new internet of things (IoT) solutions on the Predix platform, including Satellite Image Analytics, Supply Chain Monitoring, Prognostic Maintenance, and Engine Telematics.

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