Daily GK Potion – 4th and 5th August 2015

 

  1. Bihar Assembly passes grievance redressal Bill
    • In a move which will empower people to seek redressal of their grievances in a time-bound manner by government officials, the State legislative Assembly on Tuesday passed the Bihar Public Grievance Redressal Bill, 2015.
    • It will empower the people to seek redressal of their grievances by government servants in a time-bound manner.
    • Failure to do so it time will amount to misconduct for which errant officials could be dismissed from service.
  2. Alibaba set to invest Rs 4k cr in Paytm
    • Alibaba, via its group entity Ant Financial Services, is about to infuse Rs 4,000 crore into Paytm, which is run by One97 Communications.
    • This amount is expected to come within next sixty days.
    • In the first tranche, Paytm had received $200 million (around Rs 1,280 crore) from Alibaba Group.
  3. Australian court revokes environmental nod for Adani’s $ 16-bn coal mine project
    • Australia’s Federal court on Wednesday overturned the government environmental approval for Adani Group’s $ 16 billion Carmichael coal mine.
    • Adani took over the Carmichael coal project in 2010 with plans to develop a coal mine, a connecting rail link and the Abbot Point port to transport the coal to India.
    • The under construction mine is one of the biggest in the world and has been facing opposition from environmentalists, who claimed it to be a threat to the Great Barrier Reef, from the start.
  4. Amalendu Krishna of TIFR wins Ramanujan Prize
    • The Ramanujan Prize for 2015 has been won by mathematician Amalendu Krishna of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai.
    • The prize is awarded jointly by the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), Italy, the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, and the International Mathematical Union (IMU) to a person under 45 working in a developing country.
    • Dr. Krishna has been recognised for outstanding contributions in the area of algebraic K-theory, algebraic cycles and the theory of motives.
  5. Kashinath Singh chosen for Bharat Bharti
    • 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’.
  6. NDDB wins special achievement in GIS Award
    • The National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) on Tuesday said it has won the Esri Special Achievement in GIS Award 2015 for exemplary work in Dairy Geographical Information System.
    • NDDB’s Internet-based Dairy Geographical Information System (i-DGIS) application is the first attempt of its kind in India, where village-level integration of data has been done, at such a large scale, for the dairy sector.
    • GIS analysis, both spatial and non-spatial, is now possible on an integrated dataset of village level livestock census, human census and land use/land cover for over 500,000 villages out of around 620,000 villages of India. This represents the major milk producing states of the country, which produce around 92% of India’s bovine milk.
  7. McCann bags Incredible India ad campaign
    • The Tourism Ministry’s Incredible India advertising campaign has been bagged by advertising agency McCann India for a period of three years. The incumbent agency is Ogilvy India.
    • The Ministry said McCann was chosen because of its unique consumer understanding, intrinsic reflection of the social conscience cultural insight and superlative creative work.
    • McCann has also been responsible for the set of four commercials on ‘Atithi Devo Bhava’, from the Tourism Ministry, which is currently playing on air, and which feature superstar Aamir Khan.
  8. ‘Ultimate Frisbee’ Recognized by the International Olympic Committee
    • The International Olympic Committee (IOC) fully recognized the World Flying Disc Federation (WFDF), ultimate frisbee’s governing body, during its 128th session in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
    • That means ultimate frisbee is eligible for IOC funding and can compete with other sports for inclusion in future Olympic games

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