Daily Current Affairs, 24th February 2018

1)  44th Khajuraho Dance Festival Held In Madhya Pradesh

•The 44th edition of Khajuraho Dance Festival 2018 was held at Khajuraho temple, a UNESCO world heritage site in Madhya Pradesh. It was inaugurated by Madhya Pradesh Governor Anandiben Patel and was organised by culture department of state government.

•Khajuraho Dance Festival is an annual cultural festival that highlights the richness of various Indian classical dance styles. The 6-day festival showcased classical dances including Kathak, Odissi, Bharatnatyam, Kuchipudi, Kathakali and Mohiniattam.

2)  India To Host 1st International Solar Alliance In March 2018

•India will host the first International Solar Alliance (ISA) summit on 11th March 2018. It will be attended by French President Emmanuel Macron and United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

•The summit will be held in Delhi. The ISA aims to launch 121 projects during the summit. During the summit, two new programmes will be inaugurated on- Scaling Solar E-Mobility and Storage, and Rooftop Solar.

3)  India Successfully Test-Fires ‘Dhanush’ Missile

•India has successfully test-fired the nuclear-capable surface-to-surface Dhanush ballistic missile with a strike range of 350 km from a naval ship off Odisha coast. This naval variant of the indigenously-developed Prithvi-II missile was test-fired from the ship positioned near Paradip in the Bay of Bengal.

•It was developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation. ‘Dhanush’ missile is is capable of carrying a payload of 500 kg and hitting both land and sea-based targets.

4)  India's 1st 5G Trial Successful, 3 GB/Sec Speed Achieved

•Chinese technology giant Huawei and telecom services provider Bharti Airtel announced to have successfully conducted 5G network trial under a test set-up in India. The trial was conducted at Airtel’s Network Experience Centre in Manesar (Gurugram).

•During the test trial, the speed of more than 3Gbps was achieved. This is the highest measured throughput for a mobile network in 3.5 GHz band with 100MHz bandwidth and end-to-end network latency of approximately 1 msec.

5)  RBI Launches Ombudsman Scheme For NBFCs

•The Reserve Bank of India has launched Ombudsman Scheme for non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) for redressal of complaints against them. The scheme will provide a cost-free and expeditious complaint redressal mechanism relating to deficiency in the services by NBFCs covered under the scheme.

•The scheme will cover all deposit-taking NBFCs, and based on the experience gained. The offices of the NBFC ombudsmen will function at four metro centres – New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai.

6)  Cricket Canada Unveils ICC-Approved T20 League

•Canada’s own first franchise-based Twenty20 league “Global T20 Canada”, was announced in New Delhi. The Global T20 Canada League will begin functioning from July 2018 at three venues in Toronto. It is conceptualised, designed, developed and managed by Mercuri Group with Cricket Canada.

•Global T20 Canada League has received official sanction of the International Cricket Council (ICC). Cricket Canada has become the first Associate member of the ICC to start a Twenty20 franchise league in the North America market.