Facts in News (FIN) : February 1 – February 15

• Underground storages are being built at Mangalore, Visakhapatnam and Padur
• To guard against global price shocks
• Adnoc(Abu Dhabi National oil company) has agreed to store crude oil in it

• Community development programme designed to educate milk producers
• Punjab government has launched an extensive mission to develop pure breed of the ‘Sahiwal’ cattle under this yojana

• Project to connect all India’s households, particularly rural areas, through broadband by 2017.
• It will be backbone of “Digital India Programme”
• PPP model used to implement the project.

• Solid waste management is one of key feature of it
• It has been made mandatory for fertilizer company to buy compost that is extracted from municipal solid waste

• In a verdict, Bombay High court directed the Central Railways to grant 180 days of maternity leave to a woman who had a child through surrogacy.

• No waiting time to travel to India
• Only business and conference VIsa seekers are allowed right now
• Categories like research and medical are “not” allowed right now
• 113 countries citizens can get Visa on Arrival facility

• Pope Francis and the head of the Russian Orthodox Church will meet in Cuba.
• It could be a historic step towards healing the 1,000-year-old rift between the Western and Eastern branches of Christianity.

Maritime cooperation

• India and Bangladesh signed a Standard Operating Procedure(SOP) to operationalise the agreement on coastal shipping
• China had earlier offered to develop the Chittagong port and India sees it as encircling by China under its”String of Pearls” strategy

• Joint task force meeting to deepen maritime and defence cooperation, ocean safety, disaster management and anti terror drills

• Organised from 13-18th February in Mumbai
• Showcasing the potential of design, innovation and sustainability across India’s manufacturing sectors in the coming decade. A week that will spark a renewed sense of pride in India’s manufacturing – and take corporate and public participation to the next level.

• Held in siliguri, West Bengal government has decided to set up a central nodal agency to  fight against human trafficking

• Showcases the richness and diversity of Handicrafts, Handlooms and Cultural heritage of the country
• It’s the 30th year of the mela, held for 15 fifteen days
• 23 countries will participate this year.
• China and Japan will be the “focus countries”

• Standing Conference Of Public Enterprises.
• An international conference summit was held jointly with ILO, titled ”Reinventing HR”
• U.D.Choubey is Director General of SCOPE

• A US led free trade deal in Asia-Pacific
• 12 countries signed the agreement in feb 2016
• China not part of the agreement

• First joint tactical exercise in border(Chushul-Moldo) area
• Previously joint exercise was conducted in Sikkim
• Part of ongoing initiatives for better cooperation

• An Asia Pacific multilateral amphibious exercise held in Thailand every year

• India ratified the Convention on Supplementary Compensation for Nuclear Damage(CSC)
• CSC allows for increasing the compensation amount in the event of nuclear incident

• Foreign exchange derivative between two institutions to exchange the principal and/or interest payments of a loan in one currency for equivalent amounts, in net present value terms, in another currency
• Recently there is currency swap agreement between RBI and UAE’s central Bank

• This is the first time that the government has ordered a merger between two private entities under Section 396 of The Companies Act, 1956

• NSEL  was embroiled in a Rs.5,600 crore settlement scam in July 2013

• Detected Gravitational waves from space
• It is in US

• A low cost Indian satellite still orbiting Mars beyond its mission time
• NASA, Mars society Australia and Birbal Sahni institute will travel to ladakh to study topography and microbial life
• Collaboration with France for a second Mars mission

• European Organization for nuclear research, houses the large hadron collider.
• Has succeeded in showing atom of anti-Hydrogen is charged neutral

• A 14 seater battery powered driverless shuttle
• “Robotic Systemz” manufactured Novus at their Gurgaon facility
• The homegrown vehicle has a range of 150Kms in a single charge.

• Lightest solid material known to man
• Finest insulation material
• It has super high oil absorption capacity
• Singapore scientists have successfully converted paper waste into green cellulose aerogels which are light, non toxic and flexible.

• Scientists in the US are using empty Hepatitis E virus shell to transfer anti cancer vaccine and drugs in the body to treat cancer or other illness

• Clustered Regularly Inter Spaced Short Palindromic Repeats
• Have resistance to foreign genetic elements and provides a form of acquired immunity
• Ethical debates have arisen in changing DNA sequence related  unborn human babies

• A transportation concept by Elon Musk, co-founder of Tesla motors.
• Pods will have 20-30 people, which would travel in tubes at speeds of about 1127 Kms per hour.

• An indigenously developed Runway Visual Range system
• Beneficial in the severest of the fog

• A mission to study the Sun sanctioned, likely  to be launched 2019-2020 on PSLV
• L1 is lagrangian point in an orbit where the gravitational pulls of Earth and Sun don’t affect the spacecraft
• Aditya has been designed by ADCOS, a multi faculty body of ISRO, which also designed the 2008 Chandrayaan I and 2013 Mars Orbiter Mission

• Project of Google to provide internet connectivity to rural and remote areas
• It will use helium filled balloons to provide connectivity to provide to an area of 40 Kms in diameter at 4G speeds.
• Google is hoping to launch it India  

• A rare and endemic frog species found in Kerala
• Its was reported as extinct but now has been found again from the Periyar Tiger Reserve

• COral Reef Airborne Laboratory, a NASA 3 year airborne experiment
• To survey the conditions of major coral reefs through remote sensing
• Portable remote imaging spectrometer(PRISM) will be deployed measure optically, area covered by the reef and the reef productivity

• 2nd feb marks the signing of Convention on wetlands, called Ramsar Convention.
• Theme this year is “ Wetlands for our future- Sustainable Livelihood”

• Kashmir’s Endangered and vulnerable lovebirds
• Its number has gone up

• Karnataka tops the chart with 406 Tigers

• Half of these tigers is in Bandipur and Nagarhole National Park

• Was Lance Naik in Indian Army
• Rescued from 35 feet beneath the snow in  -45°C temperature, six days after an avalanche hit an Indian Army post in Siachen
• But died of multiple organ failure

• Appointed as one of the five Vice-Presidents of the newly established Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank(AIIB)
• Designation of Chief Investment Officer(CIO) to focus on infrastructure in Asia
• He was former bureaucrat with the Govt. of Gujarat

• First woman to head a paramilitary force(SSB)
• 1980 batch IPS of Tamil Nadu cadre
• Currently special Director NCRB

• First women Qazis of Rajasthan

• Australia’s new High Commissioner to India
• She is of Indian Origin

• A well known cartoonist, died at 55 of brain tumour
• A Padma Shri awardee,2004, for contribution to the art of cartooning

• Umpire from Pakistan
• Banned by BCCI on charges of corruption and misconduct in relation to IPL spot fixing scandal

• Malayalam poet died recently
• Recipient of Jnanpith award and Padma Vibhushan

• A NASA astronaut, Sixth man to set foot on the moon, died.
• Space mission- Apollo 14
• Died 1 day before his 45th anniversary of moon landing in 1971

• An Indian political strategist and advisor to Chief Minister of Bihar on Policies and Program Implementation

• Public Health expert by training and had formerly worked with the United Nations

• Dalit Research scholar of University of Hyderabad
• He committed suicide

• Appointed lokayukta of U.P,succeeding justice(retd.) N.K.Mehrotra, who held the post since 2006
• He has retired from the Allahabad high court

• A shooting sportsperson qualified in the Asia Olympic shooting competition
• He will now join shooters who will represent India in RIO Olympics

• Pulitzer winning composer died recently

• Appointed as new Chief Justice of Bombay High court
• Was previously Chief Justice of Orissa High court and Karnataka High court

• Noted Urdu poet died of heart attack at 78
• He was awarded Padma shri in 2013

• Due to the claim on the disputed  structure here by both Hindus and Muslims, it has come to be known as ‘mini-Ayodhya’

• It is in Madhya Pradesh

• Northeast’s first Smart village
• It is along Indo-Bhutan border, in Baksa district of Assam
• It is done under aegis of Nanda Talukdar Foundation (NTF)

• Gives preferential option for the poor and Dalits in admissions and appointments

• Won Best first foreign film award
• Conferred by the French Syndicate of Cinema Critics(FSCC) 2016
• Directed by Kanu Behl

• West Indies won the series
• Defeated India in the final

• 12th version of South Asian Games
• “Tikhor” , a playful rhino is the mascot of the games

• “Peace,Prosperity and Progress”, motto of the games
• Ghosal took oath on behalf of participating athletes

• An Indian company accorded PQP(prequalification of medicines programme) certification from WHO
• PQP certification helps to participate in the global immunization programme

• By US
• chamber of commerce Index is based on 30 criteria critical to innovation like patent, copyright, trademark protection, etc
• India ranked 37 among 38 countries

• Provides free legal services to weaker sections of the society, constituted in 1995
• Union Govt. will extend Rs.148 crore to help provide free legal services to those who cannot afford

• Feb 4, an international day founded by the Union for International Cancer Control(UICC)
• Aims to raise awareness of cancer, encourage prevention, detection and treatment.

• Araku valley is a hill station in Andhra Pradesh famous for coffee plantations
• Premium organic “Araku Emerald” brand sells globally

• A traditional form of wrestling of Mysore
• “Garadis”- traditional wrestling gymnasiums
• Vajramusthi Kalaga- Fist fighting

• An international publication with black and white pictures of two wrestlers in a Garadi
• Tomasz Gudzowaty- a renowned Polish photographer
• Edited by Nan Goldin- a well known American photojournalist

• A place name used to identify the origin, quality or reputation
• Indian Basmati rice is set to get GI tag

• Vinita Gupta, Chief Executive Officer, and Nilesh Gupta, Managing Director, Lupin Ltd.