Important Current Affairs - 12 February 2017 with PDF

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We bring you the Latest General Knowledge, Current Affairs daily news, Events, General awareness Today  12th February 2017 Section in FREE PDF (English & Hindi), a section which outlines the latest news, Events headlines which are hardly covered elsewhere.

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NATIONAL NEWS

 Arunachal Pradesh becomes first North-East state to implement e-Cabinet solution 

Arunachal Pradesh on 7 February 2017 became the first state in the northeast to implement e-Cabinet solution for the state cabinet members.

●    With the e-Cabinet solution, the Arunachal Pradesh Government plans to streamline its decision-making process.
●    The e-Cabinet solution facilitates the cabinet members to access the cabinet notes before the meeting. 
●    Moreover, the entire business of the Cabinet can be conducted using the system.
●    Once the state adopts the e-Cabinet system completely, the average length of the cabinet meetings will go down from 4-5 hours to just 30-90 minutes.
●    It will also help the government to eliminate the need to print and deliver thousands of pages of documents.
●    The e-Cabinet solution is a multi-user secure solution that keeps relevant information organised and updated in real time. 

OBITUARY

Nobel laureate Sir Peter Mansfield passes away

 Renowned physicist and Nobel laureate Sir Peter Mansfield passed away on 8 February 2017 in London, England. He was 83.

●    Mansfield, along with Paul Lauterbur, had won the 2003 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for developing magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).
●    Sir Peter Mansfield was an English physicist. He also served as a professor at the University of Nottingham.
●    Born on 9 October 1933 in London, he developed an interest in rocketry at the age of 18.
●    He took up a job with the Rocket Propulsion Department of the Ministry of Supply in Westcott, Buckinghamshire. 
●    Eighteen months later, he was called up for National Service.
●    In 1959, he earned a BSc from Queen Mary's.

SPORTS

 Official Mascot unveiled for FIFA U-17 World Cup India 2017

The Official Mascot of the FIFA U-17 World Cup India 2017 was unveiled on 10 February 2017 at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in New Delhi.

●    The Official Mascot is a clouded leopard called Kheleo. 
●    The clouded leopard is a vulnerable wild cat whose habitat extends from the Himalayan foothills to mainland Southeast Asia.
●    Kheleo will participate in several activities in the run-up to the first FIFA tournament to be hosted by India. 
●    The tournament will be played from 6 to 28 October 2017.
●    The 2017 FIFA U-17 World Cup will be the 17th edition of the FIFA U-17 World Cup.
●    The FIFA U-17 World Cup is a biennial international men's youth football championship contested by the U17 national teams of the member associations of FIFA.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

UK’s House of Commons passes Brexit bill

House of Commons, the lower house of British Parliament passed legislation on 8 February 2017, authorising Prime Minister Theresa May’s government to initiate Brexit talks with the European Union.

●    The historic legislation witnessed 494 Members of the Parliament voting in favour of Brexit and just 122 against. 
●    Among the MPs who voted against the bill, 52 were labour MPs,  the leading opposition party, who went against their party leader Jeremy Corbyn’s orders of backing the bill.
●    Few of the pro- European legislators even whistled European Union’s anthem, Beethoven’s ‘Ode to Joy’ while the votes were being tallied.
●    Though the members of the lower house had already shown overwhelming support to the bill in its initial reading, the final votes were cast following a seven-hour debate on amendments.
●    The bill was passed with no changes.

APPOINTMENTS

Hemant Bhargava appointed LIC MD

Hemant Bhargava was today appointed Managing Director of state-owned Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) of India.

●    He is at present LIC’s Zonal Manager, Delhi.
●    The Appointments Committee of Cabinet has approved Bhargava’s appointment to the post till his superannuation, i.e., July 31, 2019, an order issued by the Personnel Ministry said.
●    The top LIC management consists of the Chairman and three Managing Directors.
●    Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) is an Indian state-owned insurance group and investment company headquartered in Mumbai. 
●    The Life Insurance Corporation of India was founded in 1956 when the Parliament of India passed the Life Insurance of India Act that nationalised the private insurance industry in India. 
●    Over 245 insurance companies and provident societies were merged to create the state owned Life Insurance Corporation.

APPOINTMENTS

Ola appoints Badri Raghavan as Chief Data Scientist

The country’s largest online cab aggregator Ola has put together a data science team which will be headed by Dr. Badri Raghavan, an industry veteran, who earlier worked with FirstFuel Software, a leading energy and utilities analytics firm based out of Boston.

●    Ankit Bhati, CTO and co-founder at Ola, said the company was moving towards a much larger scale towards building technology based on deep insight into the Indian psyche, and for this Big Data is a must. 
●    Raghavan’s key responsibilities will include leading a data science team with cutting edge training in Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Decision Analysis, Pattern Recognition and related areas. 
●    The team will work across various business units and departments, to gain operational and business efficiencies, ranging from demand and supply prediction, driver behaviour and performance management and location Intelligence, among others.

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

 World’s first ‘solar panel road’ opens in France

The world’s first solar road is here, in the small village of Tourouvre-au-Perche in Normandy, France. 

●    The 1 kilometer road was opened yesterday by French Ecology Minister Ségolène Royal and could generate enough electricity to power the street lights.
●    That might not sound very impressive for 30,000 square feet of solar panels — and it kind of isn’t, especially for its $5.2 million price tag. 
●    The panels have been covered in a silicon-based resin that allows them to withstand the weight of passing big rigs, and if the road performs as expected, Royal wants to see solar panels installed across 1,000 kilometers of French highway.
●    Colas, the company that installed the road, hopes to reduce the cost of the panels going forward and it has around 100 solar panel road projects in progress around the world.
●    Solar Roadway is another company looking at building roads with solar panels, and it installed a small number of panels at the Route 66 Welcome Center in Conway, Missouri earlier this year.

PERSONS

Veerappan, Chasing the Brigand authored by K Vijay Kumar

The Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on 8 February 2017 released the book titled - Veerappan, Chasing the Brigand.

●    The book was written by K Vijay Kumar, Senior Security Adviser in the Union Ministry of Home Affairs.
●    The book is considered as an authoritative narrative as the author K Vijay Kumar spearheaded the Tamil Nadu Special Task Force (STF) that planned and executed the Veerappan’s encounter in 2004.
●    The book is a lucid and incisive account of the rise and fall of India’s most dreaded forest brigand.
●    The book narrates various incidents that shaped Veerappan’s life - whether it is his birth in Gopinatham in 1952 or his death in 2004 in a shootout in Padi.
●    The book describes ruthless killings and high-profile kidnappings masterminded by Veerappan in a fascinating detail.