Current Affairs 2017 Quick Revision - National Affairs

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Medical examination card

• Union Cabinet Minister for Women & Child Development Maneka Gandhi has announced the creation of a compulsory medical examina-tion card for women, which will contain data on check-up of breasts, ovaries, and detection of TB and anaemia. 
• The National Health Policy 2017, in its non-communicable diseases section envisages screening for breast cancer as one of its thrust areas.

Chenani-Nashri tunnel

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi has inaugu-rated the 9.2 km long Chenani-Nashd all-weather road tunnel on the Jammu-Srinagar National Highway. The road tunnel will reduce the travel time between the two state capitals of Jammu and Srinagar by approximately two hours. 
• The two-lane Chenani-Nashri tunnel is Asia's longest bidirectional highway tunnel, which will cut the distance between Jammu and Srinagar to around 250 km from the current 350 km.

e-visa

• India has decided to liberalize e-visa regime by increasing the time limit for seeking the entry permit from existing 30 days to a maximum of tour months. The duration of stay for foreigners, coming into the country through select categories of a-visa, has also been extended to two months.
• Under the new simplified visa regime, three new sub-categories (e-tourist visa, e-business visa, and e-medical visa) for grant of a-visa. The liberalization of the visa regime will considerably facilitate entry of foreigners into India for tourism, business, and medical purposes. 

Green Corridors 

• The North-Western Railway has declared the 'Barmer-Munawab' (119 km) and 'Piped Road-Bilara' (41 km) in Rajasthan, rail routes as Green Corridors. The 'Manamadurai - Rameswaram stretch' (114 km) of Southern Railway was the first 'Green corridor' of India. 
• The trains in the section have been equipped with bio-toilets to ensure zero discharge of human waste on the rail tracks under the Swachh Rail-Swachh Bharat' initiative.

Mobile apps

• The Union Government has launched two mobile apps 'echallan' and 'mParivahan' to provide access to various services and information to enable citizens to report any traffic violation. 
• 'eChallan' is an integrated enforcement solution to manage traffic violations through mobile app. mParivahan' is an empowering app for the citizen which provides access t various services, information, and utilities related to the transport sector.

6 Agreements

• The PM Narendra Modi and Australian counterpart Malcolm Turnbull have signed six agreements after delegation level talks. The agreements will boost bilateral cooperation in various fields such as terrorism, sports, health, environment, aviation sector

RUSA

• The Union Human Resource and Development Minister Prakash Javadekar has launched its own portal Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA), and mobile app in New Delhi. The portal will act as a one-stop for States' Higher Education Plans, the decision of the States' Higher Education Councils and details of the resources under this scheme. The mobile application will ensure that all projects under RUSA are tracked 24 x 7.

Joint Feasibility Study Group

• India and Georgia signed a joint statement on free trade agreement. The purpose of establishing the Joint Feasibility Study Group is to provide an opportunity for more in-depth and systematic examination of the potential Free Trade Agreement (FTA). The Joint Feasibility Study Group shall issue a report with the relevant analysis and recommendations within a period of six months.

Prohibition on liquor sale

• Continuing with its earlier verdict, the Supreme Court clarified that its prohibition on the sale of liquor within a distance of 500 m includes liquor shops as well as other larger establishments serving liquor. The December verdict had directed States and Union Territories to stop the grant of licenses to establishments located within 500 m of National and State highways. April 1, 2017 was fixed as the date for phasing out existing liquor licenses. 
• Sikkim and Meghalaya exempted from the 500-m no-liquor zone ban alter the court took into consideration their hilly terrain and also the fact that 82 percent of its area was forest land and over 90 percent of its liquor shops would be closed if the ban was imposed strictly in its original form. 

Ujjwala Yojana

• The beneficiaries of Prime Minister's 'Ujjwala Yojana' have reached more than 2 Crores in less then a year. 'Ujjwala Vojana' is serving as a novel means of women empowerment and achieving the goals of providing clean fuel and a better life to the people. 
• This scheme was launched in May, 2016 with a target of providing 5 crore BPL households with free gas cylinders within 3 years by 2019.

Fund to finance energy projects

• India and the United Kingdom (UK) have decided to set up a 240-million Pound fund to finance clean energy projects. India had in 2015 set up the Rs.40,000 crore National Infrastructure and Investment Fund (NIIF) to finance greenfield as well as brownfield projects. 
• The Green Growth Equity Fund will be a sub-fund of NIIF. The fund will focus initial investments in India's rapidly growing energy and renewables market.

Surface-to-air missile (SAM)

• India and Israel have signed mega defence deals worth over 2 billion USD for advanced surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems to destroy hostile aircraft, missiles, and drones at a range of 70-km. 
• The major deal was for the joint project between the Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO) and Israel Aerospace Industries (IA1) for the Barak-6 medium-range SAM systems to initially include one regiment of 16 launchers and 560 missiles for the Indian Army.

GST Bill

• Parliament on 6th April, 2017 has approved the passage of bills for GST. These are : 
• Central Goods and Services Tax (GST) Bill 
• Integrated GST Bill 
• Compensation GST Bill 
• Union Territory GST Bill 2017
• This move will pave the way for rollout of the ambitious indirect tax reform to be implemented on July 1, 2017. And to decide how to fit various goods and services in different tax slabs. GST council will hold a meeting in May in Srinagar. The tax reform will subsume central and states levels such as excise duty, additional duties of customs, service tax, value added tax, central sales tax, entry tax, octroi and luxury tax and is expected to clean up messy indirect tax structure. 

North Koel Irrigation Project

• Union Government will revive 45 year old North Koel Irrigation Project in order to facilitate irrigation for almost 1 lakh hectare farmland in Palamu and Daftonganj regions of Jharkhand as well as some neighbouring districts of Bihar. 
• The coat to revive the project is expected to be around Rs.1622 crores.

Sheikh Hasina's visit

• Twenty two agreements have been signed between India and Bangladesh in various fields, namely, defence, nuclear energy, cyber security and media during Bangladesh Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina's visit to India.
• Prime Minister, Narendra Modi offered $4.5 billion concessional line of credit to help implement the projects in Bangladesh. He also offered $ 500 million of additional line of credit for military supplies to Bangladesh.

MGNREGS

• The Ministry of Rural Development ha released nearly 23,500 Crores to the states a the first tranche for this Financial Year, under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) 
• The Government has laid considerable emphasis on Water Conservation and Water Management works under MGNREGS and list of 2264 water-stressed Blocks in 324 dis trios of 21 states has been prepared.

Glass roof coaches

• Railway Minister Smash Prabhu has flagged-off first-ever train with glass roof coaches on 'Visakhapatnam-Araku' mute (/28-ion) through video conferencing from Bhubaneswar (Odisha). Vistadome coach launched with an aim to provide a delightful traveling experience of the picturesque Araku Valley.

Bharat ke Veer

• The App, 'Bharat ke Veer' was launched collectively by Union Home Minister, Rajnath Singh and Bollywood actor, Akshay Kumar. It has been launched as a mobile app as well as a web portal. 
• The aim of the app is to help in contributions towards the families of soldiers who lost their lives while on duty. The amount donated through the am! portal will be provided to the 'next of kin' of the soldiers of Central Armed Police Force/ Central Para Military Force.

URJA MITRA

• 'URJA MITRA' app launched by the Union Power Ministry for empowering citizens by real-lime information sharing on the power supply. The app is a first of its kind which provides a central platform, web-portal 'urjamitra.com' as well as a mobile app for state power Distribution utilities to disseminate power outage information to rural/ urban power consumers through SMSI push/ email notifications across the coun\try.

Inter-Disciplinary Committee

• The Union Government has set up a time-bound Inter-Disciplinary Committee to examine the existing framework with regard to Virtual Currencies. The committee will suggest mea-sures for dealing with such currencies Including issues relating to consumer protection and money laundering. 
• The circulation of Virtual Currencies which are also known as digital and Crypto Currencies has been a cause of concern. The Committee will submit its report within three months.

Dhaka-Kolkata Maitree Express train

• The Railways, Minister of Bangladesh Mazibul Hogue and Indian High Commissioner Harsh Vardhan Shringla have inaugurated a fully-airconditioned Dhaka-Kolkata Maitree Express train in Dhaka, Bangladesh. A total of 456 passengers will now be able to travel in the comfort of air-conditioned coaches, with four of them belonging to the first-class. 

Thermal power plants

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi has inaugu-rated various units of the thermal power plants (total capacity 3230 Mega Watts) at Koradi, Chandrapur, and Parli of Maharashtra. These include three super-critical units 660 MW each at Koradi, two of 500 MW each in Chandrapur and one of 250 MW at Parli. 
• Koradi Thermal Power Station (KTPS) is located at Koradi near Nagpur, Maharashtra. It is one of the four major power plants in Vidarbha. 

Shared by Shravan Varma Gadhiraju

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