17th March 2017 Important Daily Current Affairs

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Dear Great Ambitionists, here are today's (17th March 2017) Important Current Affairs updates. Happy Reading :)

Daily Current Affairs of 17th March 2017

International Current Affairs

• UK's fertility regulator has granted the first license to use "three-parent baby" technique to a fertility clinic in Newcastle. 
• The procedure involves in-vitro fertilisation of an egg from two mothers with the father's sperm to prevent incurable genetic diseases in one of the mothers being passed on to the child. Notably, UK is the only country to legalise three-parent babies.
• India was ranked low at 148th in recently released 2017 Women in Politics Map report,
• Top 10 countries with highest women in parliament : 
• Rwanda
• Bolivia
• Cuba
• Iceland
• Nicaragua
• Sweden
• Senegal
• Mexico
• Finland 
  
• South Africa

MOUs & Agreements

• Saudi Arabia and China today signed deals worth $65 billion (over ₹4 lakh crore) on the first day of Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud's visit to China. 
• The deals included building refining and chemical plants in China.
• Saudi has sought to boost oil sales to China, the world's second-largest oil market, after losing market share to Russia last year.
• India along with other countries in the South East Asian Region have signed World Health Organisation’s (WHO) Call To end Tuberculosis (TB) by 2030 in the region.
• It was signed by Health ministers from countries in WHO South-East Asia Region (WHO SEARO) during two-day ministerial meeting towards ending TB in the region held in New Delhi.

National Current Affairs

• The 1st Indian-origin woman in space, Kalpana Chawla was born on this day (17th March) in the year 1962. 
• Chawla moved to the United States in 1982 and joined NASA in 1988. 
• Describing her first mission in space, she said, "You are just your intelligence", on experiencing weightlessness. 
• The astronaut died with six crew members on her second mission aboard the Columbia spacecraft in 2003.
• The Election Commission has announced that it will make the voting system watertight by introducing Voter-Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) by the 2019 General Elections. 
• The EC has asked for an additional fund of ₹3,174 crore for the purchase of VVPAT machines.

Banking & Economic Affairs

• Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today announced that there is no proposal to withdraw the ₹2,000 notes that were introduced after demonetisation. 
• The ₹2,000 banknotes were introduced along with new ₹500 currency following the withdrawal of old ₹500 and ₹1,000 notes. 
• Note : Jaitley further said old notes returned to the RBI amounted to ₹12.44 lakh crore as on December 10, 2016.
• A parliamentary panel has suggested the merger of state-run telecom firms Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL) and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam (MTNL) for their long-term survival. 
• The committee said the merger would give both the entities a chance to compete against private sector players. 
• The committee was formed to look into representation received by BJP MP Arvind Sawant regarding improvement in services provided by Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL).
• The committee was chaired by : Bhagat Singh Koshyari (BJP MP)
• State-controlled Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) is going to enter the travel business with the launch of a startup called 'Happy Roads', that would help travellers plan and execute road trips. 
• BPCL is looking to launch the startup's app in about two months. 
• The app will also give real time updates on travel destinations and suggest nearby places to explore.
• With a view to promoting outbound shipments, the Union Ministry of Commerce & Industry has launched Trade Infrastructure for Export Scheme (TIES) for developing export linked infrastructure in states.
• TIES seeks to bridge the critical infrastructure gap and provide forward and backward linkages to units engaged in trade activities.

Awards & Honors

• 17 year old Indian-American teenager Indrani Das has today won the top prize of $2,50,000 in the Regeneron Science Talent Search competition in the United States (US). 
• She has won the award for her research on treating brain injury and disease. 
• This research showed a way for increasing the survival rate of neurons affected by brain injury or neurodegenerative disease.

New Appointments

• The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) today elected Trivendra Singh Rawat as the next Chief Minister of Uttarakhand. 
• He was a member of RSS from 1983 to 2002 and held the post of organising secretary in the Uttarakhand region. 
• He will take oath as the CM tomorrow (March 18). 
• Amazon has promoted its India head Amit Agarwal to the post of Senior Vice President (SVP), making him one of the few SVPs at Amazon globally. 
• Agarwal will, however, continue to head Amazon India.

Sports Current Affairs

• As per reports, batsmen will wear helmet cameras in the tenth season of the IPL, which begins on April 5. The 100-gram cameras, which have been used in Australia's Big Bash League, will be stuck on the peak of the helmet with their weight being evenly distributed front-to-back. Fabric shrouds are reportedly being produced in each IPL team's colour.

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