GK & Current Affairs March 2016

Indian Railways on 8 March 2016 appointed Ernst & Young (EY) as a consultant to discover the advertising potential in trains and railway stations. 
•    EY will identify assets and formulate a pricing strategy for advertising across 7000 railways stations in the country.
•    This is the first time in India that such a large scale project on advertising for Railways has been initiated.
•    EY and Indian Railways will engage with leading advertisers through the course of the project for effective optimization of railway assets.
•    A unique aspect of the exercise will be the creation of a neutral assessment on the return of investments by advertisers in this medium.
•    Tapping the advertising potential of Indian Railways assets including fleet of trains spread in a wide network of about 7000 railway stations across India.
•    EY with its specialized offering Marketing and Advertising Risk Services (MARS) will help the Indian Railways to identify assets across its stations for the purpose of advertising.
•    It will also develop a pricing strategy to evaluate them for advertisers.
•    Ernst & Young is a multinational professional services firm headquartered in London, United Kingdom.
•    It is one of the Big Four audit firms and is the third largest professional services firm in the world by aggregated revenue in 2014, after PwC and Deloitte.
•    The current firm was formed by a merger of Ernst & Whinney and Arthur Young & Co. in 1989.
•    It was known as Ernst & Young until 2013, when it underwent a rebranding to EY.

Indian men's and women's team on 6 March 2016 bagged the gold medals at the Second Division of the World Team Table Tennis Championship held in Kuala Lumpur.
•    Indian women’s team defeated Luxemburg 3-1 in the event final of the Second Division, while Indian men’s team emerged victorious over Brazil with a score of 3-2.
•    In the women's team final, Mouma Das gave a winning start to her team when she defeated Danielle Konsbruck 3-0. 
•    Then, Manika Batra led India 2-0 against Tessy Gonderinger, who managed to win the third game. 
•    Manika clinched the fourth game to win 3-1 and provide India with a 2-0 lead.
•    Thereafter, India’s K Shamini lost her singles to Sarah De Nutte in straight games but Manika defeated Danielle 3-0 in the reverse singles to secure a win for India.
•    The World Table Tennis Championships have been held since 1926, biennially since 1957.
•    Five individual events, which include men's singles, women's singles, men's doubles, women's double and mixed doubles, are currently held in odd numbered years.
•    The World Team Table Tennis Championships, which include men's team and women's team events, are held in even numbered years.

Women have a poor 11% representation in India's Lok Sabha and 10.6% in the Rajya Sabha, making India 103th among 188 countries covered in the annual analysis on statistics of women members of parliament (MPs) conducted by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU).
•    The global average of women in parliaments as of November 2013 stood at 21.3%, a slight increase over the numbers in the immediately preceding two years (20.3% and 19.5%). 
•    Countries are ranked by the IPU based on percentage of women in the lower house of parliament. The top three countries in the 2013 analysis were Rwanda, Andorra and Cuba.
•    India fared poorly even when compared with her immediate neighbours. Here, Nepal, ranked at 24, led the pack, followed by China (55) and Pakistan (66).
•    With elections around the corner in India, several women groups have come together under the umbrella of 'Time for 33% Coalition' and are seeking passage of the women's reservation bill during the winter session which will start shortly.
•    The bill proposes to reserve 33% seats for women in the Lok Sabha and the state legislative assemblies. Various similar bills, introduced since 1996, have lapsed.
•    According to statistics released periodically by the Election Commission, for the 543 Lok Sabha constituencies, the number of elected women increased from 49 in 1999 to 59 in 2009, with 11% representation in the lower house. 
•    In 2009, the number of elected women over total seats was maximum in Punjab (30.8%), followed by Madhya Pradesh (20.7%) and Haryana (20.0%). Against this, the number of women voters in India has increased from 44.3% to 45.8%.

Union Minister for Women and Child Development Maneka Sanjay Gandhi on 7 March 2016 launched Mahila e-Haat portal in New Delhi.
The Mahila e-Haat portal, http://mahilaehaat-rmk.gov.in, is an online marketing platform. 
•    It allows women entrepreneurs to leverage technology for showcasing products made or manufactured or sold by women entrepreneurs. This facility is also available to services, like tailoring, also.
•    The product, along with photograph description, cost and mobile no./address of the participants will be displayed on the e-Haat enabling direct contact between seller’s/service providers and buyers.
•    It is open to all Indian women citizens more than 18 years of age and women SHGs desiring for marketing their legal products/services after indemnifying RMK from any or all acts of transaction.
•    Rahstriya Mahila Kosh (RMK) is primarily involved in the creation of the portal and the entire business of e-Haat can be handled through mobile phone.
•    3-Stages of women empowerment: The launch of Mahila E-Haat is the first stage towards achieving the objective of women empowerment.
•    In the second stage Mahila E-Haat will be integrated with e-commerce portals to provide a larger platform for selling and buying.
•    In third and final stage, it will culminate into Women’s Entrepreneurs Council which will help to expand this initiative further and give it an institutional shape.
•    It will benefit more than 10000 Self Help Groups (SHGs) and 1.25 Lakh women beneficiaries spread across the country.

A group of Indian and British researchers discovered a new species of burrowing snake in the Western Ghats.
The snake has been named after well-known herpetologist from Maharashtra, Neelam Kumar Khaire, as Melanophidium Khairei.
The research paper about it has been published in the scientific journal, Zootaxa in the first week of March 2016. Researchers were studying the species since 2001 and confirmed the new species.
•    The genus Melanophidium, commonly referred to as Black shieldtail, is endemic to the Western Ghats.
•    Three species of the genus were previously known.
•    The new species, Melanophidium khairei is distinct from three other species.
•    Melanophidium khairei is a highly iridescent burrowing snake that inhabits everg-reen forests.
•    It is rarely seen above ground.
•    It eats earthworms and is believed to bear young as mammals.
•    At present, it is known in a few locations in southern Maharashtra, Goa and northern Karnataka.
•    It is a small snake. The largest known specimen is 550 mm in length.
•    It is not poisonous.

International Women's Day was observed across the world on 8 March 2016. 
•    This year's theme for the Day is “Planet 50-50 by 2030: Step It Up for Gender Equality”. 
•    The campaign theme for the day is #PledgeForParity.
•    The special focus is on Achieving gender equality and empower all women and girls and Ensuring inclusive and quality education for all and promote lifelong learning.
•    2016 International Women's Day (IWD) was observed in India by conferring the Nari Shakti Awards by President Pranab Mukherjee at Rashtrapati Bhawan. 
•    Around 40 acid attack survivors were felicitated with the Rani Laxmi Bai award and provided financial assistance in Uttar Pradesh.
•    In context of Uttar Pradesh, a special eating joint ''Café Sheroes'', was inaugurated for acid attack survivors. 
•    The United Nations started celebrating International Women’s Day (IWD) on 8 March during International Women’s Year 1975. 

The Reserve Bank of India will share FDI-related information with country's intelligence agencies IB and RAW to check black money from entering the country. 

•    The decision was taken during a recent meeting of a government group, headed by Revenue Secretary, to check economic crimes. 
•    During the meeting of "Working Group on Intelligence Apparatus", representatives of Intelligence Bureau felt that it is important to have the information. 
•    It was decided that RBI should share with IB and Cabinet Secretariat, information on FDI which actually enters the country, the sources said. 
•    Foreigners who bring FDI may also get long-term visa or residency permit as the option is being explored by the government to make travel easy for businessmen as part of its 'Make In India' campaign, the official said. 

•    In 2016-17 budget, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has announced 100 per cent FDI through government approval route in the marketing of food products produced and manufactured in India. 
•    FDI flows into India nearly doubled in 2015 to USD 59 billion, according to a report of United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. 
•    Foreign Direct Investment is important for the country as it needs around USD 1 trillion worth investments between 2012-13 and 2016-17, the 12th Five Year Plan period, to fund infrastructure growth covering sectors such as ports, airports and highways. 

On 6th March 2016 Australian golfer Adam Scott won the 2016 WGC-Cadillac Championship at Doral, Florida, U.S.
•    The victory was Scott's second consecutive win on the PGA Tour, having won The Honda Classic in February 2016.
•    Australian professional golfer, Adam Derek Scott plays mainly on the PGA Tour.
•    He was the World No. 1 ranked golfer from mid-May to August 2014.
•    He has won 29 professional tournaments around the world.
•    His biggest win to date was the 2013 Masters Tournament, his first major championship and the first Masters won by an Australian in its 77-year history.
•    The WGC-Cadillac Championship is a professional golf tournament, one of the four annual World Golf Championships.
•    It is sanctioned and organized by the International Federation of PGA Tours and the prize money is official money on both the PGA Tour and the European Tour.
•    The 2016 WGC-Cadillac Championship was played on the TPC Blue Monster course at Trump National Doral in Doral, Florida.

On 5th  March 2016 The Union Minister Prakash Javadekar released the list of re-classified industries based on pollution levels.
•    Four-colour scheme was announced as per the resolution adopted at the two-day State Environment and Forest Ministers' Conference in April 2015.
•    New Pollution Index (PI) scores and the new categories are as follows 
•    Red category – PI Score 60 and above – 60 Industries
•    Orange Category – PI Score 41 to 59 – 83 Industries
•    Green Category – PI Score 21 to 40 – 63 Industries
•    White Category – PI Score 0 to 20 – 36 Industries

•    The purpose of the categorization is to ensure that the industry is established in an environmental friendly manner.
•    No Red category of industries shall normally be permitted in the ecologically fragile area or protected area, 
•    The White category was created to identify non-polluting industries.
•    White category is a newly-introduced industry category and contains 36 industrial sectors which are practically non-polluting.
•    There shall be no necessity of obtaining the Consent to Operate for this category of industries and intimation to concerned SPCB / PCC shall suffice.

On 5th March 2016 the Patna Pirates defeated U Mumba 31-28 & won Pro Kabaddi League trophy in the final played in New Delhi.
•    Rohit Kumar of Patna Pirates was awarded Best Raider and Mohit Chillar of U Mumba was announced the Best Defender of the Match.
•    U Mumba’s Rishank Devadiga finished the season as the Most Successful Raider with 106 points.
•    The Pro Kabaddi League (PKL) is a professional kabaddi league in India.
•    It is known as the Star Sports Pro Kabaddi.
•    The first edition of the tournament was played in 2014 with eight franchises representing various cities in India.
•    Star Sports Pro Kabaddi is organized by Mashal Sports and Star India in association with the International Kabaddi Federation, Asian Kabaddi Federation and the Amateur Kabaddi Federation of India.
•    U Mumba was the winner of the 2015 Pro Kabaddi League.