1.
Indian-American journalist receives Edgar Allan Poe award
(i) Indian American journalist Neela Banerjee, along
with her colleagues from Inside Climate News – John Cushman Jr, David Hasemyer
and Lisa Song – have been conferred with the Edgar Allan Poe award.
(ii) The award was shared by Washington Post reporter Terrence
McCoy, who explored the issue of lead poisoning among poor black children in
Baltimore.
(iii) A Yale University graduate, Banerjee was Moscow
correspondent with the Wall Street Journal. Earlier she was with the Los
Angeles Times’ Washington Bureau as energy and environmental reporter.
(iv) The annual award by White House Correspondents
Association (WHCA) honours outstanding journalistic work.
2.
IISc professor among Royal Society Fellows
(i) Three Indians have made it to the list of 50 scientists
who have been elected as Fellows of The Royal Society, the foremost scientific
academy of the U.K. and the Commonwealth.
(ii) These are: Physicist Sriram
Ramaswamy, Director of TIFR Centre for Interdisciplinary Sciences, Hyderabad;
biochemist Ramanujan Hegde, MRC Laboratory of Microbiology, U.K. and applied
mathematician Lakshminarayanan Mahadevan, Harvard University.
(iii) Ramaswamy works on Collective movement of
self-propelled (“active”) matter through fluids and non-living imitations of
self-propulsion. Ramanujam work shows that even modest failures of proteins to
reach their correct cellular destination could cause neurodegeneration, which
cells avoid by targeting the proteins.
(iv) Lastly, L Mahadevan’s work attempts to understand
the geometrical and dynamic patterns of shape and flow in physical and
biological systems.
(v) Since the Royal Society’s establishment in 1660, around
8,000 Fellows have been elected, with around 60 persons of Indian origin making
the cut.
3.
PM launches Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana
(i) Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently launched the
Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana, which aims to provide five crore LPG connections
to women in Below Poverty Line (BPL) households, at a cost of Rs. 8,000 crore
over the next three years.
(ii) The scheme will be partly funded from the savings
the government accrues from LPG users who surrendered their subsidy as part of
the Give It Up programme.
(iii) New users who get LPG connections under this scheme
will not have to pay security deposit, while the government will bear the Rs.1,600
administrative costs, cost of pressure regulator booklet and safety hose.
(iv) Note: Presently, India has 16.64 crore active LPG
consumers with a requirement of about 21 million tonnes per annum. Further, as per
government reports, demand for LPG is likely to witness a double-digit increase
over time.
4.
International Labour Day observed
(i) International Labour Day or International Workers’
Day was celebrated on March 1 in order to recognise the hard work of labourers all
over.
(ii) The theme this year was ‘ Celebrating the
International Labour Movement’. This theme assumes importance with economic
relations experiencing changing reapidly in today’s emerging global economic
order.
(iii) This day is a declared national holiday in around
80 countries, while it is celebrated as an unofficial event many.
5.
India, New Zealand ink pact for direct flights between the two countries
(i) In a bid to boost tourism and trade, India and New
Zealand have signed a deal that paves way for direct flights between the two
countries.
(ii) Air New Zealand, Air India and Singapore Airlines
are some of the airlines that have the potential to run direct services.
(iii) New Zealand airlines now also have the
opportunity to code-share to seven Indian cities, namely Bangalore, Chennai,
Hyderabad, Kochi, Kolkata, Mumbai and New Delhi.
(iv) Further, as per the agreement, for code-sharing,
India will have any point in New Zealand. As intermediate points, India can
have Singapore, Hong Kong and Bangkok and any two points in Australia.
6.
Dilip Tuli appointed as Housing.com senior vice-president
(i) Dilip Tuli has been appointed as Housing.com senior
vice president for strategy and new business initiatives like transaction
facilitation and fulfilment services.
(ii) Tuli was earlier a director with the deal
advisory division at KPMG consultancy. He brings with him business strategy and
model development abilities, managerial skills, and wide domain knowledge.
7.
India win one silver, two bronze in Archery World Cup
(i) The Indian women’s team won silver after losing to
Chinese Taipei in the final, while men’s trio and mixed pair bagged their
respective bronze playoffs in the first stage of Archery World Cup.
(ii) The women’s team comprised Deepika Kumari,
Bombayla Devi Laishram and Laxmirani Majhi. They lost 2-6 to Chinese Taipei.
(iii) The third seeded Indian men’s recurve team comprising
Atanu Das, Jayanta Talukdar and Mangal Singh Champia deafeated ninth seed
British team 6-0 to win the bronze medal.
(iv) Further, the mixed pair of mixed pair of Deepika and
Atanu overcame the Koreans 5-4 in a shoot-off to bag another bronze.
8.
Indian shooters win 3 gold, 1 bronze at ISSF Junior World Cup
(i) Indian
shooters bagged three gold medals and a bronze medal on the first day of the
ISSF Junior World Cup.
(ii) Indians won a gold each in the team events of
men’s 25m standard pistol and women’s 50m rifle prone competitions. Indian
player Rituraj Singh also won an individual gold medal in the men’s 25m
standard pistol competition.
(iii) The Indian team of Rituraj Singh (569), Shivam
Shukla (550) and Arjun Das (542) won the gold medal in the team event, shooting
a total of 1661.
(iv) Gaayathri Nithyanadam bagged a bronze in the
women’s 50m rifle prone competition.
(v) While France won the silver medal with 1659 points,
Australia settled with the bronze medal with 1648 points.
9. Nico Rosberg wins Russian Grand Prix
(i) German driver for Mercedes Nico Rosberg has won the Russian Grand Prix, his fourth win in a row this season. British driver Lewis Hamilton finished second in the event.
(ii) Rosberg’s victory has extended his championship lead to 43 points.
(iii) Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel crashed on the first lap after being hit twice by Red Bull’s Daniil Kvyat.
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