[CA] Daily News [March 11-12, 2018]

Around INDIA

# Founding Conference of International Solar Alliance (ISA) was held in New Delhi

- The conference was co-hosted by President of India, Mr. Ram Nath Kovind and the visiting French President, Mr. Emmanuel Macron

- India committed $1.4 billion for solar energy worldwide (27 projects in 15 countries)

- India presented a 10-point action plan aimed at making solar power more affordable

- The conference was attended by 23 Heads of State, 10 Ministerial representatives of different countries, head of UN agencies, Presidents of multilateral development banks, etc

- India’s target is to produce 100 GW of solar energy by 2022 [India to produce 175 GW of electricity from renewable sources by 2022, of which 100 GW are from solar] 
{What is International Solar Alliance?}

# National Legislators Conference 2018 was held in New Delhi with the theme "We For Development"; Vice Presdient, Mr. Venkaiah Naidu asked both the Union and State Governments to increase the number of sittings of Parliament and State Assembly

# Commerce Minister, Mr. Suresh Prabhu gets additional portfolio of Civil Aviation Minister too

# 1700 MLAs and MPs has 3045 criminal cases: Centre in Supreme Court; Uttar Pradesh leads with 248 followed by Tamil Nadu, Bihar and West Bengal

# West Bengal has become the best performing state both in terms of allotting jobs and utilizing funds under MGNREGA (2017-18); bottom three states are Goa, Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh (All the three are ruled by BJP governments)

Top 3 states in MGNREGA Performance (2017-18)
State	Work Days (Cr.)	Fund Spent (Cr.)
West Bengal	28.21	7, 335.31
Tamil Nadu	22.17	5, 981.75
Andhra Pradesh	18.16	5, 054.17

TAMIL NADU

# Major forest fire in Kolukkumalai (கொழுக்குமலை) area close in Kurangini (குரங்கணி) in Theni District; 9 treckers found dead

# Low pressure area that lay over the equatorial Indian Ocean and adjoining South West Bay of Bengal likely to bring rain in South Tamil Nadu; if it developed as cyclone, the name of the cyclone will be “Sagar”

STATES SCAN

# Gujarat: India’s first national coastal police academy to come up in Devbhumi Dwarka Dt of Gujarat by April 2018; Officially called as NACP (National Academy of Coastal Policing)

# Karnataka: Banaswadi railway station in the State became the first all-woman railway station in South Western Railway Zone and the fifth station in India to attain the all-woman crew

# Karnataka: 14th Annual National conference on electoral and political reforms was held at IIM – Bangalore

# Madhya Pradesh: Government announced the "Mukhyamantri Mahila Kosh" scheme that will offer pension to unmarried women above 50 years of age

# Maharashtra: India's biggest media and entertainment services market - enTTEch 2018 was inaugurated in Mumbai

# Maharashtra: farmers march from Nashik to Mumbai in demanding the complete farm loan waiver

# Sikkim: gets the air connectivity (passenger) for the first time; a SpiceJet airline from Kolkatta landed at the Pakyong airport (32 kms from Gangtok) in Sikkim

# Telangana: Government launched Women Entrepreneurship Hub (WE-Hub) in Hyderabad; WE-Hub is India's first state-led incubator exclusively for women entrepreneurs

BILATERAL ISSUES

# India's BSF (Borer Security Force) and BGB (Border Guard Bangladesh) declared an 8.3 km stretch of the Indo-Bangladesh border as a "crime-free zone"

# President Mr. Ram Nath Kovind to visit Mauritius and Madagascar.

# The first ever Indo-French Knowledge Summit ended successfully  with a landmark agreement on mutual recognition of educational qualifications between the two countries and a record 15 other MoUs between universities and research institutions on joint initiatives and partnerships. The two-day summit was held in New Delhi and coincided with the state visit of French PresidentMr. Emmanuel Macron to India.

WORLD

# 11 Pacific Rim countries signed the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) in Chile

- The 11 countries are: Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam

- The agreement is broadly aimed at lowering both non - tariff and tariff barriers to trade among signatory countries

# Bangladesh: to observe a one-minute “blackout” on March 25 5to mark “Genocide Day” in memory of the 3 million people killed by Pakistani forces during the Country’s liberation war in 1971

# China: NPC (national People's of Congress) of China cleared an amendment to its Constitution that will strike out a clause restricting the term of President to two five-year terms

# Iran and Serbia resumed direct flights after a gap of 27 years

# Poland: Shopping is banned on the first and last Sunday of the month

ECONOMICS

# Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency (IREDA) and European Investment Bank (EIB) inked a 150 million Euros loan agreement for a second Line of Credit (LoC)

# ELECRAMA-2018, the Indian Electrical and Electronics Manufacturing Association’s flagship event showcasing the electricity industry’s ecosystem was held in Noida, Uttar Pradesh

SPORTS

# Australia won the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup 2018 title by defeating England in the finals; Argentina - 3rd; Malaysia - 4th; India - 5th

# India’s Akhil Sheoran won Gold in Men’s 50m air rifle 3 position in World Cup shooting; this is India’s 4th Gold in the tournament

# Matt Wallace became the first Englishmen to win India Open (Golf)

# Hyderabad’s Anindith Reddy was crowned “motorsport person of the year 2017”

MISC

# India won the "Best Exhibitor Award" at 2018 ITB - Berlin (Internationale Tourismus-Borse Berlin)

- ITB-Berlin is the world's largest tourism trade fair which takes place annually in March at Berlin, Germany

# Renowned actor Amol Palekar was honoured with the "Godavari Gaurav" award

# A new species of Himalayan moth named "Eucyclodes gavissima" has been discovered in Papikonda National Park, Andhra Pradesh

# 3 Indians posted to three mission in US (*Washington, Chicago and New York) to promote “Indian culture” as part of diplomacy; they are designated as “Yoga and Indian Culture Acharya”

- They are experts in Sanskrit, Yoga and Hindu scriptures

- Selected by ICCR

- Have diplomatic passports and offices in Indian missions

- They are:

(1) Dayashanakr Vidyalankar – New York

(2) Prerna Arya – Chicago

(3) Mokshraj – Washington D.C.