1. Sushila Karki to become Nepal’s first woman Chief Justice
a) Recently, Nepal’s Judicial Council recommended senior-most Supreme Court judge
Sushila Karki’s name for the top post i.e. the Chief Justice of the nation.
b) She will become the first woman Chief Justice of Nepal once her nomination is formally accepted by President Bidhya Bhandari (who was elected as the first woman President in October 2015).
c) The judicial council has decided to recommend her name for this position to the constitutional council headed by Prime Minister K.P. Oli. Nepal’s constitutional council is responsible for nominating the head of judiciary.
d) Karki will replace incumbent Chief Justice Kalyan Shrestha who will retire on April 13, 2016.
2. Sir Andrew Wiles wins 2016 Abel Prize for Fermat’s Last Theorem proof
a) British mathematician and number theorist Sir Andrew Wiles won the 2016 Abel Prize by presenting a proof for Fermat’s Last Theorem, a 300-year-old math problem which was first posed by French mathematician Pierre de Fermat in 1637.
b) Wiles, 62, who is a professor at Oxford University’s Mathematical Institute, got hooked to the equation at the age of 10. After seven years of hard work, he cracked the problem in 1994.
c) The techniques he used to prove the theorem led to further developments in number theory.
d) Considered to be the Nobel for mathematics, the Abel Prize comes with a cash reward of six million Norwegian krone (around £500,000). It was instituted in 2002 by the Norwegian Academy of Sciences and Letters in the honour of Niels Henrik Abel, one of Norway’s most celebrated mathematicians. Jean-Pierre Serre, John Milnor, Pierre Deligne, etc. are some of the Abel laureates.
3. Shehnai player Ustad Ali Ahmad Hussain Khan passes away
a) Legendary Shehnai exponent Ustad Ali Ahmad Hussain Khan passed away at the age of 77.
b) Ustad Hussain Khan represented the Benares school of Shehnai music. He was conferred with the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 2009 for his contribution to Hindustani instrumental music.
c) The West Bengal government honoured him with the ‘Bangabhushan’ award in 2012.
d) A top-level artiste of the All India Radio, he also used to teach in the ITC Sangeet Research Academy. His performances have been staged across the world, including Belgium, Russia, Switzerland, France, Tunisia, Singapore, Indonesia, Hong Kong and the Philippines.
4. Barack Obama nominates Merrick Garland as Supreme Court judge
a) US President Barack Obama nominated federal appeals court judge Merrick Garland as the Supreme Court judge.
b) Garland had been shortlisted twice but lost the position to Sonia Sotomayor (2009) and Elena Kagan (2010). He has been selected to succeed conservative Justice Antonin Scalia who passed away in February 2016.
c) Garland has been on the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit since 1997 and earlier served in the Justice Department under Democratic President Bill Clinton.
d) He has been chosen over Indian-born US Deputy Solicitor General Sri Srinivasan who was one of the candidates for the post.
5. USNDN releases World Happiness Report, 2016
a) The United Nations Social Development Network(USNDN) has released the fourth World Happiness Report in Rome. It has been released just before the UN World Happiness Day which will be observed on 20th March, 2016.
b) As per the report, Denmark is the happiest nation in the world whereas Burundi is the least happiest nation.
c) India was ranked 118th in the list, down one slot from last year on the index. India was among the group of 10 countries witnessing the biggest happiness declines, along with Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Yemen and Botswana.
d) The nation’s GDP per capita, life expectancy, social support and freedom to make life choices as indicators of happiness were taken into account while making this report.
6. Vatican decides to confer sainthood on Mother Teresa
a) Pope Francis recently announced that religious sister Mother Teresa will be canonised (to officially declare a priest or sister to be a saint) on September 4, 2016.
b) The announcement comes 19 years after the death of the Nobel laureate who also was honoured with the Bharat Ratna. She founded the Missionaries of Charity and devoted 45 years of her life for the service of the poor and sick on the streets of Kolkata.
c) She will now become a Saint of the Roman Catholic Church and was beatified (the first step towards sainthood) by then pope John Paul II in 2003.
d) She received her Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. In 2003, she was beatified as “Blessed Teresa of Calcutta”.
7. HDFC Bank launches SmartUp – a dedicated banking solution for start-ups
a) A banking solution for startups called SmartUp in order to meet all their needs and encourage innovation in the startup ecosystem.
b) It offers banking and payment solutions, along with advisory and forex services.
c) The SmartUp current account will provide benefits like waiver of average monthly balance for the first six months, employee salary account by not necessitating the minimum-number-of-employees condition, etc.
d) The product will be made available across India, even in tier-2 and tier-3 cities that are emerging as start-up hubs.
8. Amar Abrol will take charge as CEO of AirAsia India
a) Amar Abrol was appointed as the CEO of AirAsia India, succeeding Mittu Chandilya. He will take charge from April 1, 2016.
b) With over 20 years of experience, Abrol was earlier the CEO of Tune Money, a start-up that delivers inexpensive financial products in Southeast Asia. Before that he spent 19 years in American Express, leading various teams across markets like Hong Kong, Singapore, UK, India and Malaysia.
c) In other top appointments, AirAsia India also announced Ankur Khanna as the Chief Financial Officer and Kiran Jain as the Head of Commercial.
9. Abdulqadir Rashik receives first prize in the United Nations ‘Unite Ideas #LinksSDGs Data Visualisation Challenge’
a) Recently, Abdulqadir Rashik, software engineer and founder of India-based Miavy Systems, won the top prize in the ‘United Nations Unite Ideas #LinksSDGs Data Visualisation Challenge’.
b) The competition aimed to involve the public in sharing ideas about how to visualise interlinkages between the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
c) He was awarded the prize for his submission “Links to Sustainable Cities”, an interactive visualisation that identifies and maps the links between Sustainable Development Goal 11, Sustainable Cities and Communities, and the other 16 Goals.
d) The solution submitted will be used to spot research opportunities and steer policy decisions for the implementation of global sustainability initiatives.
e) SDGs is a set of 17 goals and 169 targets adopted by the General Assembly in 2015 and forms the basis of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
10. American singer Frank Sinatra Jr. passes away
a) Francis Wayne Sinatra a.k.a Frank Sinatra Jr. passed away at the age of 72.
b) He died ahead of a performance as part of his ‘Sinatra Sings Sinatra tour’, which included some of his father’s biggest hits.
c) Carrying forward his father’s legacy, Sinatra Jr. began singing at the age of 19 and later became his father’s musical director and conductor.
d) “Spice”, “Believe in Me”, “What Were You Thinking Of?”, etc. are some of the songs he composed.
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