GK and Current Affairs Updates

US novelist Pat Conroy, who wrote several acclaimed novels and memoirs, died on 4 March 2016 in Beaufort, South Carolina. 
•    He was 70. 
•    He was suffering from pancreatic cancer. 
•    Two of his novels, The Prince of Tides and The Great Santini, were made into Oscar-nominated films. 
•    He is recognized as a leading figure of late-20th century Southern literature.
•    Donald Patrick Conroy was born on Oct. 26, 1945, in Atlanta had written numerous books. Some of his works includes
•    Prince of Tides 
•    Water is Wide 
•    The Great Santini
•    The Lords of Discipline
•    My Losing Season (memoir)
•    The Boo 
•    Beach Music
•    The Pat Conroy Cookbook: Recipes and Stories of My Life
•    My Reading Life 
•    The Death of Santini: The Story of a Father and His Son
•    Unrooted Childhoods: Memoirs of Growing up Global (contributing author)
•    South of Broad

Renowned Dogri poetess and writer Padma Sachdev was 6 March 2016 was awarded Krutitava Smagra Samman for the year 2015.
•    The award was given by Bharatiya's Bhasha Parishad in Kolkata for her outstanding contribution in literature and great service to Dogri Language.
•    She was presented with the award by the West Bengal Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi. 
•    The Award carries an amount of one lakh rupees, a shawl and citation.
•    She writes both in her mother tongue Dogri and the national language Hindi
•    She has to her credit six collections of Dogri poetry, eight books of Hindi prose including two novels.
•    She also writes an occasional article in Hindi for newspapers and journals.
•    She won the Sahitya Akademi Award at the young age of thirty for her first collection of Dogri poetry title Mere Kavita, Mere Geet (1969)
•    She also has won Soviet Land Nehru Award, Hindi Academy Puraskar, U.P. Hindi Academy Pruaskar, Raja Ram Mohan Roy Puraskar, Joshua Poetry Award, and the Jammu & Kashmir Government’s Robe of Honour.
•    She is the writer of following Dogri poetry
•    Meri Kavita, Mere Geet (1969)
•    Tawi Te Chanhaan (1976)
•    Nehriyan Galiyan (1982)
•    Pota Pota Nimbal (1987)
•    Uttarbaihni (1992)
•    Tainthiyaan (1999)

Raymond Samuel Tomlinson, the inventor of E-mail and the man who picked @symbol for addresses, passed away in Washington on 6 March 2016. 
•    He was 74.
•    He was an American computer scientist who became a cult figure for his invention in 1971 of a program for APRANET
•    APRANET, was the internet predecessor that allowed people to send person to person messages to other computer users on other servers.
•    He was working at Bolt Beranek and Newman – now Raytheon BBN Technologies – when he made his email breakthrough
•    In 2000, he received the George R. Stibitz Computer Pioneer Award from the American Computer Museum. 
•    He also received Webby Award from the International Academy of Digital Arts and Science. 
•    He also won Innovation award from Discover magazine, and the Eduard-Rhein Cultural Award.
•    In 2012, Tomlinson was inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame by the Internet Society.
•    He was born on 23 April 1941 in Amsterdam in New York, Unites States (US).

Indian cricket team led by Mahendra Singh Dhoni won the Asia Cup for the record sixth time. 2016 Asia Cup was played from 24 February to 6 March 2016.
•    To win the trophy, India defeated Bangladesh by eight wickets in the final played at Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium in Mirpur, Bangladesh.
•    Batting first, Bangladesh made 120 runs by losing 5 wickets in rain truncated 15 over while India chased down the target by losing two wickets and seven balls to spare.
•    Shikhar Dhawan was adjudged Man of the Match for his 44-balls 60 runs.
•    This was the first time that Asia Cup was played in T20 format and the countries that played in 2016 Asia Cup were India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and United Arab Emirates (UAE).
•    Sri Lanka has won the Asia Cup title five times including the 2014 Asia Cup and Pakistan has won it two times.
•    Asia Cup is a men's One Day International & Twenty20 International cricket tournament. 
•    It was established in 1983 when the Asian Cricket Council was founded as a measure to promote goodwill between Asian countries. 

Prof. Sirshendu De, Head of the Chemical Engineering department of the IIT, Kharagpur on 4 March 2016 was selected for the Innovation Award 2016 given by the Indian Desalination Association (IDA), South Zone.
•    He was selected for the award for developing an ultra-low-cost eco-friendly laterite based arsenic water filter.
•    The cost-effective filter would provide safe drinking water in areas contaminated with arsenic. 
•    The indigenous filter, made from naturally occurring red laterite soil, is capable of absorbing arsenic to the extent of 32mg per gram.
•    This material has undergone chemical treatment to enhance its capabilities to adsorb arsenic. 
•    Ultra-low cost of the filter media compared to available such filters, appropriate for the socio-economic conditions of our country
•    Arsenic concentration of filtrate is always within the WHO drinking water permissible limit, independent of the ground water concentration
•    Extremely long life of the filters (about five years)
•    No power requirement for the household filter
•    Removal of arsenic (below 10 ppb), iron (below 0.3 ppm) and bacteriological contamination (more than 98%) together in a single unit
•    The capacity of domestic filter is in the range of 80-100 litres/day
•    Cost of the treated water is less than 3 paisa/litre

On 3 March 2016 The International Hockey Federation (FIH) promoted Hockey India national-level umpire Napoleon Singh as the International Outdoor Umpire.
•    The FIH took the decision after seeing his performance in the recently-concluded 12th South Asian Games 2016.
•    It was held at Guwahati from 5 to 16 February 2016.

•    Napoleon started his career as an umpire from Manipur in the third Hockey India Junior Women National Championship 2013 which got held at Ranchi, Jharkhand.
•    He was also appointed as umpire in the eighth Junior Men Asia Cup, held at Kuantan, Malaysia in 2015.
•    The 30 year-old Napoleon is among those young umpires from India who have recently been upgraded to international-level outdoor umpire. 
•    With Napoleon's promotion, a total of 14 Indian umpires  are now in the category of international-level umpires.
•    Out of those 14 10 are men, 4 are women.
•    He has been a national level hockey player and completed a diploma in Sports Coaching from the National Institute of Sports, Patiala in 2011. 
•    Currently he is presently working as a coach at Kokrajhar, Assam.

International Finance Corporation, a member of the World Bank Group, on 1 March 2016 launched its first Uridashi Masala Bond. 
•    The bonds are worth 300 million rupees and will be utilised to promote private sector development in India.
•    The three-year Uridashi Masala Bond is Japan-specific and builds on IFC’s Masala bond Program.
•    While Masala bonds are rupee-denominated instruments sold only to offshore investors, Uridashi bonds are sold to Japanese household investors.
•    Earlier, in November 2014, the IFC issued first-ever Masala Bonds in London. 
•    The bonds were worth 10 billion rupee and listed in the London Stock Exchange.
•    So far, the IFC raised 1.7 billion US dollars from international investors under the Masala Bond Program.
•    This is going to be huge for Indian market as it is supposed to bring a huge money inflow in the country. 
•    Indian economy is going through slow down and this is intended to bring foreign currency to the country.
International Hockey Federation promoted Napoleon Singh as international Umpire
On 3 March 2016 The International Hockey Federation (FIH) promoted Hockey India national-level umpire Napoleon Singh as the International Outdoor Umpire.
•    The FIH took the decision after seeing his performance in the recently-concluded 

On 1st March 2016 Vineet Taneja resigned as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Micromax Informatics Ltd. 
•    Taneja’s departure was the second high-profile exit from the company with a span of one year.
•    Earlier, in October 2015, Bharti Airtel CEO Sanjay Kapoor resigned as the chairman of the company.
•    Taneja joined Micromax from Samsung Electronics’ Indian business arm in 2014. 
•    His appointment came in the backdrop of company’s plans to expand its operations abroad.
•    At present it is India’s second-largest phone manufacturer and the 10th largest mobile phone player in the world.
•    The Gurgaon-based company is the first to introduce many features in mobile handsets in India.
•    The features include the 30-day battery backup, Dual SIM Dual Standby phones, QWERTY keypads, universal remote control mobile phones and first quad-core budget smart phone.This is a major setback for the company specially when it has planned to launch itself in genera other than mobiles.

National Safety Day was observed across India on 4 March 2016. 
•    The day is annually organised by the National Safety Council (NSC) to commemorate its establishment and enhance the safety awareness among people. 
•    It is a national movement carried out on annual basis to prevent and lessen the loss of life including various human being problems and their financial loss through availing them with safety, health and environment related support services.
•    National Safety Council of India is a self-governing body (non-profit and nongovernmental organization for public service) which was established on 4 March 1966 under the Societies Act in Mumbai, having over 8000 members. 
•    Apart from this, to create awareness about safety, NSC will also celebrate National Safety Week from 4 March to the 10 March 2016. 
•    During whole week campaign celebration, varieties of specific activities are displayed to the people as per the safety requirements.

Veteran All-India Forward Bloc leader Ashok Ghosh died on 3 March 2016 in Kolkata. 
•    He was 93.
•    He created a record of sorts by remaining the head for over six decades to the Bengal unit of Forward Bloc. 
•    The Bloc was founded by Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose on 3 May 1939.

•    He joined the All-India Forward Bloc in 1941 by getting influenced by Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose.
•    He was elected as the state secretary of the Forward Bloc on 22 June 195.
•    He, along with Jyoti Basu played an important role in the formation of the first Left Front government in 1977, which was in power till 2011 for almost 34 years. 
•    He was well known for his Spartan lifestyle and affable personality and his popularity is across party lines.