1) Captain Amarinder Singh to be sworn-in as CM of Punjab
•Captain Amarinder Singh, who led the Congress to victory in Punjab after a decade, will be sworn-in as the Chief Minister for the second time.
•Governor VP Singh Badnore will administer the oath of office and secrecy to Singh at Raj Bhawan in Chandigarh. 9 ministers will also take the oath.
•Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Party Vice-President Rahul Gandhi are among those who will attend the ceremony. Congress had won 77 of the 117 state Assembly seats in the recently held polls.
•The Aam Aadmi Party emerged as the largest opposition party with 20 seats. The Shiromani Akali Dal-BJP alliance finished third with 18 seats.
2) Govt approves National Health Policy
•The government has approved the National Health Policy which proposes to provide assured health services to all in the country.
•The policy was approved at the meeting of Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi. The policy increases the gambit of sectors covered in the Primary Health Centre (PHC) level and envisages a comprehensive approach.
3) Krishi Unnati Mela 2017 starts in New Delhi
•We are pleased to inform you that National Agricultural Fair "Krishi Unnati Mela 2017" is being organised during March 15-17, 2017 at IARI, PUSA New Delhi by ICAR-DARE, IARI supported by Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, Govt. of India. Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) is the Project Management Partner for the fair.
•ICAR Institutes, State Agricultural Universities, development agencies and leading companies from public and private sector and VOs will display their products, technologies and services during the mela. The mela is expected to attract thousands of farmers, farm-women, extension workers, scientists and sudents from different parts of the country. Live crop demonstrations, protected cultivation of vegetable and flowers, display of cut-flowers, exotic vegetables & fruits, sale of seeds of high yielding varieties and interface of the farmers with agro-industries industries personnel are some of the attractions of the mela.
•On this occasion it is our privilege to invite you to be part of this Endeavour by participating in the mela and show-casing the technologies, services and achieve achievement of your organization/firm/company which will be of benefit to the farming community as we stakeholders of agricultural development. The mela also offers a unique opportunity for your organization for promotion and sale of viable technologies, services and products.
Krishi Unnati Mela
Date: 15th to 17th March, 2017
Venue: IARI, PUSA New Delhi
For Further Information
Mr. Aman Deep Singh
Trade Fairs Secretariat
Mob: 0971 839 3922
Website: www.ficci.in
Website: www.agricoop.nic.in
4) Meeting held by 23 Asian countries in Pakistan to contemplate union like EU
•A Pakistani government official says representatives of 23 Asian countries are meeting in Islamabad to talk about creating a regional block similar to the European Union.
•The chairman of Pakistan's upper house of the parliament, Raza Rabbani, addressed the gathering on Tuesday. He urged the participants to take steps to ensure "that the destiny of Asia must not be directed by the capitalist Western" states.
•However, with huge rivalries among the countries of the continent, the possibility of an Asian bloc similar to the EU is remote.
•India and Afghanistan have both sent envoys to the gathering, which comes amid increasingly tense relations the two of them have with Pakistan.
•Ramzan Sajid, a parliament spokesman, said the Islamabad conference is likely to suggest the formation of an Asian Parliamentary Assembly.
5) Life-detecting tools of Mars rover got tested by NASA in a desert region
•NASA wanted to find out whether the Mars 2020 rover can truly drill for samples and look for signs of life at the same time. So, a team of scientists spent the whole February testing tools using a practice rover called the KREX-2 in one of the driest places on Earth: the Atacama Desert. It's the perfect location to trial instruments NASA plans to use on Mars, since it's as dry as the red planet and under constant assault from ultraviolet radiation. Microbes in the Atacama live underground or inside rocks -- if there's life on Mars, NASA expects to find it in similar locations.
•This is the Atacama Rover Astrobiology Drilling Studies (ARADS) team's second time testing Martian tools in the desert, following their first season in February 2016. This year, they took three life detection instruments with them, feeding them samples straight from the rover's transfer arm.
•One of the three is a modified Wet Chemistry Laboratory, which was also part of the 2007 Phoenix mission to Mars. They also tweaked the Signs of Life Detector they took with them last year. It was donated by Spain's Center for Astrobiology and can search for biological compounds by conducting various biochemical tests. The third tool called Microfluidic Life Analyzer, however, is a completely new addition. NASA JPL scientists created it to isolate amino acids, the building blocks of life, from very small liquid samples.
•ARADS Principal Investigator Brian Glass said "The drill, rover and robot arm combination behaved beautifully in the field." They're not quite done with their work, though: the team will come back for two more seasons until 2019. Next year, they plan to attach the instruments onto the rover to see if it can properly operate the drill alongside the life-detecting tools.
6) Hockey India hired 4 Scientific advisors to work with team’s fitness aspects
•Hockey India has roped in four scientific advisors from abroad to work with the fitness aspects of the senior and junior national teams. While Australia’s Scott Conway has taken charge as the new scientific advisor of the senior men’s team at the national camp that started in SAI Bengaluru yesterday, South African Robin Anthony Webster Arkell will take over as the scientific advisor for the junior men’s team.
•Wayne Patrick Lombard, also a South African, will join the senior women’s camp in Bhopal as scientific advisor. Australian Daniel Barry, meanwhile, has been roped in as scientific advisor for the junior women’s team.
•Md Mushtaque Ahmad, secretary general of Hockey India said, with their vast experience and knowledge in their domain, these scientific advisors will help Indian boys and girls to achieve their goals in the lead up to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and the senior World Cups.
