Daily Current Affairs, 15th March 2018

1)  World Consumer Rights Day- 15 March

•World Consumer Rights Day is celebrated globally on 15th March. It is an awareness day and theme for this year's WCRD 2018 is ‘Making Digital Marketplaces Fairer’.

•The day is an opportunity to promote basic rights of all consumers, demanding that those rights are respected and protected. On this day in 1962, President John F Kennedy formally addressed the issue of consumer rights in US Congress and became first leader to do so. 

2)  President Of India Inaugurates World Hindi Secretariat In Mauritius

•President Ram Nath Kovind inaugurated World Hindi Secretariat in Mauritius capital, Port Louis. The Secretariat is fully financed by India and a grant of 33 crore rupees was provided. The land was provided by the Mauritius government.

•Prime Minister Narendra Modi had laid the foundation stone of this building in 2015. Hindi has played an important role in culture and society building in both India and Mauritius.

3)  Pune Tops In Improved Quality Governance: Survey

•Pune came on top in the fifth edition of the Annual Survey of India’s City-Systems (ASICS), edging out Thiruvananthapuram which had topped the previous two editions of the survey. Bengaluru was ranked at the bottom.

•Thiruvananthapuram dropped two ranks to be placed third out of 23 cities spread across 20 states in the survey done by urban governance watchdog Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy. The survey evaluated the quality of governance in India’s cities by assessing laws, policies and institutional processes currently in place.

•The top 5 cities in the list are- 

1. Pune,

2. Kolkata,

3. Thiruvananthapuram,

4. Bhubaneswar, and

5. Surat.

4)  World Happiness Report 2018: India Ranks 133rd, Finland Tops

•The World Happiness Report is a landmark survey of the state of global happiness. The World Happiness Report 2018, ranks 156 countries by their happiness levels, and 117 countries by the happiness of their immigrants.

•Burundi in East Africa is the unhappiest place in the world. The study reveals the US has slipped to 18th place, five places down on 2016. India ranks 133rd in the report after Pakistan (75th), China (86th) and Nepal (101st). 

•Top 5 countries in the list are-

1. Finland,

2. Norway,

3. Denmark,

4. Iceland, and

5. Switzerland.

5)  ICMR Wins 2017 Kochon Prize For TB Research

•The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) was awarded the International Kochon Prize 2017 for encouraging research and development (R&D) efforts towards tuberculosis treatment.

•ICMR received the $65,000 award from the Kochon Foundation, a non-profit organisation from Korea, for establishing the India TB Research Consortium to accelerate R&D efforts in the country.

6)  World Bank Projects India's GDP Growth At 7.3% For 2018-19

•The World Bank has projected India's GDP growth at 7.3% for 2018-19 and accelerates further to 7.5% in 2019-20. The World Bank's biannual publication, India Development Update - India's Growth Story, expects the economy to clock a growth rate of 6.7% in the current fiscal ending March 31.

•The report, however, observed that a growth of over 8% will require continued reform and a widening of their scope, aimed at resolving issues related to credit and investment and enhancing the competitiveness of exports.