RAJASTHAN
Indira’s name removed from Girls scheme in Rajasthan.
- The Rajasthan education department replaced the name of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s name from a scheme for meritorious girls in secondary schools.
- The Indira Priyadarshini Puruskar Yojana, given to girls who score the highest in their district in Classes 10 and 12 of the Rajasthan Board of Secondary Education (RBSE), will now be called Padmakshi Puruskar Yojana.
- Padmakshi, meaning a woman with lotus-like eyes, is another name for Goddess Saraswati, the deity of wisdom and knowledge. The award will be given on Basant Panchami at district-level functions every year beginning 2017-18 session.
- Girls of general, scheduled caste, scheduled tribe, other backward class, minorities and below poverty lines categories who score the highest in RBSE exams in Class 8, 10 and 12 will be awarded with cash and a certificate.
Gk byte– Basant Panchami
- Basant Panchami, the birthday of the goddess, marks the beginning of spring (Basant in Hindi) and falls on the fifth day (Panchami) of Maagh in the Hindu calendar. Hindus worship the goddess on this day and wear yellow, the colour of spring.
Anganwadi Chalo Abhiyan to start in state from today.
- The ministry has taken a string of steps to transform the anganwadi centres from just feeding centres to pre-school learning centres. It has renamed them as anganwadi paathshalas, distributed stationery kits to children, and also developed workbooks for them with the help of UNICEF Rajasthan.
- The drive carried out in July last year had upped the enrolment from 1.2 lakh to 2.8 lakh in anganwadis. The state has nearly 61,000 anganwadi centres.
INTERNATIONAL
- China launches its first X-ray space telescope.
- China launched its first x-ray telescope, a significant step in the country’s race to develop a space program that can rival that of the US or Russia.
- The Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope (HXMT) took off from China’s Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, the country’s first satellite launch site, located in Inner Mongolia via a domestically-developed Long March-4B rocket.
- Once in orbit, the telescope will be used to observe high-energy entities like black holes, pulsars and gamma-ray bursts in order to understand more about their energy sources.
- World’s first train that runs on virtual tracks in China
- China has unveiled the world’s first ‘railless’ train – a train that runs on virtual tracks.
- China is also testing a bus that can straddle the road, and allow traffic to pass under it.
- New train is part of China’s attempts to develop “intelligent rail express system”. Instead of railway tracks, the train runs on rubber tyres.
- The train can move at a maximum speed of 70 km/hour.
- 65 million people displaced in 2016: UN
- Record 65.6 million people worldwide were forcibly displaced from their homes owing to conflict or persecution by the end of 2016
- It includes 22.5 million refugees, 40.3 million internally displaced people and 2.8 million asylum seekers.
- For the third consecutive year, Turkey hosted the largest number of refugees worldwide, with 2.9 million people.
- It was followed by Pakistan (1.4 million), Lebanon (1 million), Iran (979,400), Uganda (940,800), and Ethiopia (791,600)
NATIONAL
- Union Government launches National Biopharma Mission
- The Union Ministry of Science & Technology has launched National Biopharma Mission, a first ever Industry-Academia mission to accelerate biopharmaceutical development in India.
- Under this mission, the ministry also launched Innovate in India (i3) program to create an enabling ecosystem to promote entrepreneurship and indigenous manufacturing in the sector.
Indian biopharmaceutical industry is still 10-15 years behind their counterparts in the developed countries and faces stiff competition from Korea, China and others.
- Innovate in India (i3) program is a flagship program of the Government of India in collaboration with World Bank. It is committed to make India a hub for design and development of novel, affordable and effective biopharmaceutical products and solutions.
It promises to boost the growth of domestic biopharma industry by accelerating the translation of research concepts into viable products and supporting clinical validation.
National Biopharma Mission
- The mission aims to enable and nurture an ecosystem for preparing India’s technological and product development capabilities in biopharmaceuticals to be globally competitive level over the next decade.
- The mission will be implemented by Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC), a PSU of Department of Biotechnology. It will bring together expertise from national and international corridors
- KK Venugopal appointed as Attorney General of India
- President Pranab Mukherjee has appointed senior advocate and constitutional expert K K Venugopal (86) as the new Attorney General of India. He will be 15th Attorney General of India. He succeeds Mukul Rohatgi as the country’s top law officer. Earlier, in the Morarji Desai’ government (1977-79), Venugopal had served as Additional Solicitor General of India
Gk byte – Attorney General of India
- Attorney General for India is the Indian government’s chief legal advisor, and its primary lawyer in the Supreme Court of India.He is appointed by the President of India under Article 76(1) of the Constitution and holds office during the pleasure of the President. He is part of Union Executive.
- Attorney General is the first law officer of the government of India and acts as top advocate for Union Government. He is responsible for giving advice to President/ Union Government upon such legal matters and to perform such other duties of legal character which are assigned to him by the President.
- He has right of audience in all courts within the territory of India. He has also the right to speak and take part in proceedings of both the houses of parliament including joint sittings. But cannot vote in parliament. Further, he can also be made a member of any parliamentary committee but in the committee also, he has no power to vote.
