Daily Current Affairs, 01st March 2019

1) PM Modi Confers Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prizes For Science & Tech

•Prime Minister Narendra Modi conferred the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prizes for Science and Technology for the years 2016, 2017 and 2018 in New Delhi. There were 34 prize winners.

•The Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize is the most coveted national recognition bestowed upon young scientists and engineers to honour their research and developmental work in India. It was first instituted in 1957 to honour the eminent scientist Dr. Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar.

2) NITI Aayog’s Atal Innovation Mission Partners With Adobe

•NITI Aayog’s Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) and Adobe signed a Statement of Intent (SOI) to collectively drive the charter of developing creative skills and spreading digital literacy across all Atal Tinkering Labs (ATL) in India.

•100 schools will be adopted by Adobe under the ATL initiative and will be implementing its Digital Disha Program in ATLs, under which free licenses of Adobe Spark premium shall be offered to ATLs.

3) MSP For Minor Forest Produces Issued By Ministry Of Tribal Affairs

•Union Minister of Tribal Affairs Jual Oram launched the ambitious scheme of the Ministry of Tribal Affairs named Van Dhan.  The scheme is for Minimum Support Price (MSP) for Minor Forest Produce (MFP) and Development of Value Chain of MFPs at a National Workshop organized by TRIFED. The Scheme will offer remunerative Minimum Support Price for 50 commercially viable items to the Tribals.

•6000 Van Dan Vikas Kendras comprising 300 tribal gatherers are to be set up to provide employment to almost 45 Lakh Tribal. He also launched the TRIFOOD Scheme, a joint initiative of Ministry of Food Processing Industry, Ministry of Tribal Affairs and TRIFED, and the “Friends of Tribes” initiative of the Ministry.

4) ‘International Digital Health Symposium’ Inaugurated In New Delhi

•Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare, Anupriya Patel, inaugurated the International Digital Health Symposium and an exhibition on Digital Health as a part of the Symposium, in New Delhi, where participant countries along with various Government Ministries, states and other stakeholders showcased key innovations, implementation experiences, and innovative Digital Health Interventions.

5) New Railway Zone Announced For Andhra Pradesh

•Union Railway Minister Piyush Goyal announced a new railway zone for Andhra Pradesh,that is the Southern Coast Railway and it will be headquartered in Visakhapatnam.

•It will be the 18th zone in the country. The new zone will comprise the existing Guntakal, Guntur and Vijayawada divisions that currently fall under the South Central Railway.The cost of creating infrastructure for a new zone is around Rs. 205 crore.

6) PNB Ranks 1st In Implementation Of ‘Reforms Agenda’

•According to BCG-IBA Report – EASE Reforms for Public Sector Banks, released by Union Minister of Finance & Corporate Affairs, Punjab National Bank (PNB) secured the top spot among all public sector banks in the implementation of ‘Reforms agenda’.

•PNB which topped the list with a score of 78.4 out of 100 in the EASE-index was followed by BoB (77.8), SBI (74.6), and Oriental Bank of Commerce (69).

•The EASE (Enhanced Access and Service Excellence) report has shown significant enhancement in PSB performance on the back of Government’s 4R’s strategy- recognition, recovery, recapitalisation and reforms. The index has measured Banks on 140 objective metrics across 6 themes including customer responsiveness, credit off-take and digitalization.

7) 7TH Guiness Book of World Record Created By DEPwD In Bharuch, Gujarat

•A National Conference on “Deendayal Disabled Rehabilitation Scheme (DDRS)” was inaugurated by the Union Minister of Social Justice & Empowerment Thaawarchand Gehlot. Mr. Gehlot stated that the “7th Guinness Book of World Record” has been created by the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (DEPwD), at Bharuch, Gujarat.

•‘Modern Artificial Limbs (Legs)’ were implanted on 260 Divyang jans within 8 hours in Gujarat. DEPwD has already created 6 World Records in other categories.

8) Deepak Singh Wins Gold At Makran Cup In Boxing

•National Boxing champion Deepak Singh (49kg) was the only Indian boxer to notch up the gold medal, while five others claimed silver medals in the Makran Cup in Chabahar, Iran. Deepak defeated Jaafar Naseri in the finals.

•P. Lalitha Prasad (52kg), Commonwealth Games silver-medallist Manish Kaushik (60kg), Duryodhan Singh Negi (69kg), Sanjeet (91kg) and Commonwealth Games silver-medallist Satish Kumar (+91kg) claimed silver medals.