GK and Current Affairs Updates

To tame the world’s e-commerce giant Amazon, Alibaba is to invested 4000 crore rupees in m-commerce giant Paytm. Alibaba has picked up 25 per cent stake in Paytm’s parent company One97 through its subsidiary Ant Financial. Earlier it has done investments in Snapdeal, FreeCharge and now Paytm which is the largest mobile payments space in India. Paytm has around 80 million digital wallets and Alibaba is interested in this major mobile commerce player in this mobile-first market to topple the largest global rival Amazon. Through the partnership with Alibaba Indian e-commerce players now also has access to Chinese market. It should be noted that the Indian merchants are second biggest sellers on Alibaba portal after the Chinese.

About Alibaba
  Alibaba Group Holding Limited is a Chinese e-commerce company that provides consumer-to-consumer, business-to-consumer and business-to-business sales services via web portals. It also provides electronic payment services, a shopping search engine and data-centric cloud computing services. The group began in 1999 when Jack Ma founded the website Alibaba.com, a business-to-business portal to connect Chinese manufacturers with overseas buyers.

Mathematician Dr. Amalendu Krishna has won the Ramanujan Prize for year 2015. He has been bestowed with this award for his outstanding contributions in the area of algebraic cycles, algebraic K-theory and the theory of motives. Presently, Dr. Krishna is mathematician professor at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai.

About Ramanujan Prize

Established: in 2005. It is named after the noted Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan.
It recognizes a researcher from a developing country who has conducted outstanding research in a developing country and is less than 45 years of age.
Jointly awarded by: Italy based International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), Department of Science and Technology (DoST) of India and the International Mathematical Union (IMU)

Prize carries: 
citation and a monetary prize of US 15,000 dollars. 
The winner is invited to give a talk at the ICTP. 
It should be noted that Dr. Krishna is the second Indian to win this award. First was Sujatha Ramadorai who had won it in 2006.

Aprecia’s Spritam becomes first anti-epilepsy pill manufactured with 3D printer to get the US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) approval. The specified porous structure of the pill ‘Spritam’ was developed by using ZipDose 3D printing technology by Aprecia Pharmaceuticals. Designing detail structure of the Spritam pill made it possible for Aprecia to develop a pill that dissolve faster and delivers up to 1000 mg of medication in a single dose. The pill is supposed to reach in the market by 2016.
Implecations
Pill developed under 3D printer will reduce the costing of designing and creating complex structure in lesser time. 
This pill will improve the medications by delivering exact amount of content to the children and the elders.
 It will open endless possibilities of personalised medications.

About 3D Printer
3D printing  is any of various processes used to make a three-dimensional object. In 3D printing, additive processes are used, in which successive layers of material are laid down under computer control. These objects can be of almost any shape or geometry, and are produced from a 3D model or other electronic data source. A 3D printer is a type of industrial robot The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) was first to develop Powder-liquid three-dimensional printing (3DP) technology in 1980s.

Aprecia started developing Zip Dose 3DP technology in 2007 which was designed to enable delivery of high-dose medications in a rapidly disintegrating form. This technology enables the aqueous fluid to stitch together multiple layers of powder to create a wide range of products.

Union Ministry of Rural Development has launched ‘SAMANVAY’ web portal to monitor progress and implementation of the Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojana (SAGY) for development of Gram Panchayats. It was launched by Union Rural Development Minister Chaudhary Birender Singh. SAMANVAY web portal consist a compilation of all Government schemes of both Centra and State governments for Gram Panchayats. The purpose of this portal is to help Member of Parliament’s (MPs) to utilise relevant schemes in the planning and implementation of SAGY. It will act as a database for compiled and mapped information on various gram panchayat related activities through various schemes undertaken by the Centre and State Governments. In SAMANVAY, around 1800 state schemes from across all states have been documented. Apart from this, minister also launched a magazine Panchayat Darpan to monitor the progress of the SAGY. The magazine will act as a mirror of all the development activities by identifying 35 indicators undertaken in the village panchayats under SAGY. It should be noted that Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojana (SAGY) was launched in October 2014. Under this flagship scheme of Union Government, MPs have adopted a village (Gram Panchyat) to create Model Village. Under this scheme MP from either house of Parliament will develop three Adarsh Gram Panchayats by 2019.

Asia’s biggest telescope was inaugurated at the Udaipur Solar Observatory in Rajasthan. It was inaugurated by Professor U.R Rao, Chairman of Physical Research Laboratory, inaugurated.

Facts about of MAST
The telescope was installed under the project undertaken by Union Ministry of Science and Technology and was funded by Department of Space (DoS). The project will be monitored by Ahmedabad based Physical Research Laboratory
Features:

(1)MAST has a lens of 50 cm in diameter. These lenses were developed on the basis of optical and mechanical system of Belgium. 
(2)The rear part of MAS has been developed by the observatory while its front part was developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). 
(3)MAST has been designed in 2004 and its optical elements were added to it in 2008.
 In 2013, it was installed at the Udaipur Solar Observatory.
 Applications:
 (1)It will provide 3 Dimensional (3D) images of solar activities such as solar blast and solar flares.
 (2)It will also in vital studies about other planetary movements even in the day time.
 Site Specifications Udaipur Solar Observatory was chosen as project site due to pleasant temperature around it as it is surrounded by water. Besides, the site provides ambient spot for observatory as it has more than 250 days of continuous sunshine, allowing observing the sun properly during day time.

Noted Hindi litterateur Kashinath Singh has been chosen for the state's highest literary award, Bharat Bharti. The award, given by UP Hindi Sansthan, carries a cash prize of Rs 5 lakh. The award list for 2014 was announced on Monday,Singh (78) has penned many novels and short stories. His most famous novel is 'Kashi ka Assi', which captures the vibrant hues of Banaras. The novel has been adopted for the upcoming movie 'Mohalla Assi'. The litterateur is known to have candid political opinions and opposed Modi's arrival in Varanasi for Lok Sabha elections, saying he would use the holy city for Hindutva agenda. Singh had said that such agenda would pose threat to Varanasi's composite culture. Apart from him some other prominent writers were also chosen to the award in various categories. They are Vinod Kumar Shukla (Hindi Gaurav), Mridula Garg (Lohia Sahitya), Krishna Bihari Mishra (Mahatama Gandhi Sahitya Samman), Ramkrishna Rajput (Avantibai Sahitya Samman) and Abhiraj Rajendra Mishra (Deendayal Upadhaya Sahitya Samman) . 

About kashinath singh-
 He  is an Indian writer and scholar of Hindi language and known for writing novels and short stories in Hindi. He was formerly a professor of Hindi literature in Banaras Hindu University
Other awards got by him are
Kendra Sahitya Akademi Award( 2011 for his novel Rehan Par Ragghu),Sharad Joshi Samman Sahitya Bhushan, Katha Samman, Rajbhasha Samman

The Esri Special Achievement in GIS Award 2015 for exemplary work in Dairy Geographical Information System (GIS) has been awarded to the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) at the annual Esri International User Conference held in San Diego. The NDDB was awarded for successful implementation of GIS applications in its dairy operations. NDDB has internet-based Dairy Geographical Information System (i-DGIS) application that uses to integrate data of dairy operations at the village level. NDDB is the first to start using of GIS in India where the GIS application is used to integrate data of livestock, land use or land cover and human census at the village level
                    Esri is based in New York, it develops geographic information systems (GIS) and offers project consulting and implementation services so as to provide knowledge to help users to deploy GIS on their own and delivery of ready-to-use enterprise systems. It presents GIS Awards for special achievement every year to those who successfully implement geographic information system (GIS) in their projects.

Roland S Folger has been appointed as new Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer for Mercedes-Benz India. He will replace Eberhard Kern who is going to head company’s operations in Europe. Eberhard Kern headed India’s operations for past three years and was responsible for expansion for production capacity and extension of network and product portfolio. Roland S Folger is the current President and CEO of Mercedes-Benz Malaysia will assume charge of Mercedes-Benz India from October 1. He has been with Mercedes-Benz for over thirty years. He has also assumed charge of sales department for Mercedes-Benz passenger cars and commercial vehicles with responsibility for the Southeast region. Note: Mercedes-Benz is a wholly owned subsidiary of the German Daimler AG. It started its operations in India from 1994 and is headquartered at Pune (Maharashtra)

 India’s largest telecom operator Bharti Airtel has acquired YTS Solutions a mobile payments solutions company for an undisclosed price. YTS Solutions will be integrated with the operations of Airtel Money Services Ltd a subsidiary of Airtel. This acquisition will help Airtel to expand its footprint in the payments sector by integrating business capabilities and unique service delivery model of the YTS. In line with this acquisition the co-founder and MD of YTS Solutions, Manish Khera, will be appointed as CEO of Airtel M Commerce Services Ltd (AMSL) which offer wallet service under the brand name ‘Airtel Money’.

Indian gymnast Dipa Karmakar has won bronze medal in women’s vault event at the 6th Senior ART Gymnastics Asian Championships held in Hiroshima, Japan. Yan Wang of China successfully defended her title to win  gold medal with 14.988 points. The silver medal was won by Japanese Sae Miyakawa with 14.812 points. Karmakar, finished at in third position with 14.725 points. Earlier in February 2015, Karmakar had won total of five gold medals while representing Tripura state in the 35th National Games in Kerala. In the 2014 Asian Games held in Incheon, South Korea, she had finished fourth in the final of vault event with a score of 14.200.