National News Affairs
- Inaugurating India’s first electric mass mobility system, Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis and Union Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari flagged off 200 electric public transport vehicles in Nagpur
- The pilot project, comprising 100 e-taxis and 100 e-rickshaws with four charging stations, would run on Ola’s app.
- Prime Minister Narendra Modi has laid the Foundation Stone of the Indian Agricultural Research Institute at Gogamukh in Assam’s Dhemaji district located on the Assam-Arunachal Pradesh border.
- This will be the third Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI).
- Note : Apart from IARI in the national capital, the work on setting up of second IARI in Ranchi, Jharkhand has commenced.
- Modi also laid the foundation stone for All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) at Changsari in the Kamrup District of Assam.
- The institute will be constructed at a distance of 26 km from Guwahati and will be constructed at a cost of Rs 1,123 crores as part of the ‘Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana’.
- The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) has been given back the power to grant licenses for defence manufacturing.
- Note : Earlier the Home Ministry had this responsibility.
- The candidates fighting election will now have to declare their as well as spouse’s sources of income while filing nominations.
- The government has amended the Conduct of Election Rules to include a fresh column in the affidavit relating to the source of income of self and spouse.
MOUs & Agreements
- India and Mauritius today signed 4 agreementsafter delegation-level talks between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Mauritius counterpart Pravind Kumar Jugnauth in New Delhi.
- The Signed Agreements are :
- Memorandum of Understanding Between Government of the Republic of India and Government of the Republic of Mauritius for Setting up of Civil Services College in Mauritius;
- Agreement on Maritime Security;
- Memorandum of Understanding between Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, India and Mauritius Oceanography Institute, Mauritius for Research and Education in Marine Sciences and Technology;
- Dollar Credit Line Agreement Between SBM Mauritius Infrastructure Development Co. Ltd and Export-Import Bank of India
- Note : India also announced $500 million line of credit for Mauritius.
- The Signed Agreements are :
Banking, Business & Economic Affairs
- ICICI Bank CEO Chanda Kochhar has drawn ₹7.85 crore as total remuneration in 2016-17, a jump of nearly 64% from a year ago.
- The hike was primarily driven by performance bonus, which Kochhar had forgone a year ago owing to the bank’s weak financial results.
- Note : In 2015-16, Kochhar was the third-highest paid bank chief with a pay of ₹4.79 crore.
- Apple has opened its first store in Southeast Asia at Singapore’s upmarket shopping district.
Science & Technology
- The construction of the world’s largest optical and infrared telescope has begun in Chile‘s Atacama Desert.
- Named Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), it will have a 39-metre-diameter primary mirror housed in an 85-metre rotating dome weighing 5,000 tonnes.
- ELT will gather 100 million times more light than the human eye to observe Universe’s first galaxies and search for “Earth 2.0”.
New Appointments
- Flipkart CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy has taken additional charge of the Human Resourcesat the e-commerce startup amid merger talks with Snapdeal.
- He took over the HR function from Chief Operating Officer Nitin Seth.
General Knowledge
- Longest Bridges in India
- The 9.15-kilometre long Dhola-Sadiya bridge in Assam, which was inaugurated yesterday by the Prime Minister Modi, is the longest bridge in India.
- It is followed by the 5.6-kilometre Bandra-Worli Sea Link in Mumbai, which was built in 10 years.
- The Mahatma Gandhi Setu in Bihar, which is 5.58 kilometres in length, is the third-longest.
- Important Note : Five of India’s 10 longest bridges are in Bihar.
Current Sports Affairs
- In a bid to boost sports in the state, Jammu and Kashmir‘s 1st professional football academywas launched in Srinagar
- Initially, the academy will train footballers in the age groups of 13, 15 and 18, and three professional coaches will be employed for the purpose.
Note : India footballer Mehrajuddin Wadoo would be the head of the academy.