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National:

National Highways Authority of India(NHAI) to start a pilot project called “payas you use” on the Delhi-MumbaiHighway to study and implement theability of the system in the country.

President Kovind inaugurated 88thMahamastakabhisheka Utsav of LordGomateshwara or Bahubali inSravanabelagola, Hassan district ofKarnataka. It is takes place once in 12 years.

Mahamastakabhisheka

Web-based monitoring System and a FlyAsh mobile application named ASHTRACK was launched to enable bettermanagement of the ash produced bythermal power plants by providing aninterface between fly ash producers(Thermal Power Plants) and potential ashusers such as – road contractors, cementplants etc.

Rear Admiral Mukul Asthana appointedas Assistant Chief of Naval Staff (Air) atNew Delhi.

Mukul Asthana

Union Cabinet given approval forcreation of National Urban Housing Fund(NUHF) for Rs. 60,000 crores. This fundwill be situated in Building Materials &Technology Promotion Council(BMTPC), an autonomous body under theMinistry of Housing & Urban Affairs.

Maharashtra govt. will roll out ‘AsmitaYojana’ on the International Women’sDay (March 8, 2018) to provide cheap(subsidised) sanitary pads to school girls& women.

Delhi government announced the launchof “Mission Buniyaad” for improvinglearning skills of children studying instate & municipal-run schools.

Haryana govt launched Parivartan, ascheme designed to address 10 issues,including cleanliness & pollution, in 46developmental blocks of the state.

National Payments Corporation of India(NPCI) appointed BiswamohanMahapatra as non-executive chairman fortwo years with immediate effect.

CURRENT AFFAIRS-2018FEBRUARY

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Biswamohan Mahapatra

Uttar Pradesh State government inassociation with UNICEF has launchedmassive door to door campaign DASTAKto eradicate deadly Acute EncephalitisSyndrome (AES) & Japanise Encephalitis(JE) disease in the state. The war cry ofDASTAK is ‘Darwaja Khatkhatao, AESaur JE ko bhagao’.

Kannada litterateur ChandrashekarKambar elected as president of the SahityaAkademi in the election held for the post.He has replaced Vishwanath PrasadTiwari. Hindi poet Madhav Koushik hasbeen elected as vice-president.

Chandrashekhar Kambar

- UIDAI introduced a ‘Baal Aadhaar’ cardfor children below the age of five years.No biometric details will be required toget this blue-coloured Baal Aadhaar card.A child below 5 years of age gets a blue

in coloured Aadhaar known as BaalAadhaar.

Swajal pilot project, which is acommunity owned drinking waterprogramme for sustainable drinking watersupply, was launched at VillageBhikampura in Rajasthan. The projectwould also generate employment.

Arunachal Pradesh CM Prema Khandulaid the foundation stone forRhododendron Park in Tawang. Tawangis home to 50+ different varieties ofRhodos.

Rhododendron Park

Andhra Pradesh govt. decided to hold thefirst-of-its-kind, one-day Pelican Festivalat Atapaka Bird Sanctuary on Kolleru.Kolleru is one of the largest freshwaterlakes in the country.

Pelican Festival

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singhlaunched Centre for learning Sanskrit

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language in Gujarat University,Ahmedabad. The centre will offer a six-month course for people on how to speakthe language.

Minister of Road Transport & HighwaysMr Nitin Gadkari released India’s firstever Highway Capacity Manual (HCM)in New Delhi. The manual is also knownas Indo-HCM and it has been developedby CSIR – CRRI.

In a first in the country, the Maharashtragovt. will be setting up an institute forartificial intelligence (AI) in Mumbai.

Archaeologist & historian Arvind P.Jamkhedkar will be the next Chairman ofthe Indian Council of Historical Research(ICHR).

Arvind P Jamkhedkar

India’s 1st Online Radio Station ‘RadioUmang’ launched in India. Listeners cantune in to this online radio station throughweb streaming or download the app.

- UP’s Khadi & Village Industries Boardsigned a pact with Amazon India tofacilitate online selling of Khadi products.

Claiming that the Bengal government hadalready enrolled 50 lakh people under itsown Swasthya Sathi programme, WestBengal has announced the decision to optout of Centre’s ‘Modicare’ scheme

becoming the first state to withdraw fromthe ambitious programme.

Television journalist Rahul Mahajan hasbeen appointed as editor-in-chief of thetelevision channel Rajya Sabha TV.

Rahul Mahajan

India has joined Ashgabat Agreement onthe establishment of an InternationalTransport & Transit Corridor between theIran, Oman, Turkmenistan & Uzbekistan.

Maharashtra govt. approved Ghodazari inChandrapur district as a new wildlifesanctuary in the state. It will include 159sq km of Brahmapuri forest.

ISRO is planning to launch Chandrayan-2 Mission around April 2018.Chandrayaan-2 is the country’s secondmission to the moon.

Lt. Gen Anil Chauhan took charge as thenew Director General of MilitaryOperations (DGMO) of the Indian Army.He succeeds Lt General A K Bhatt.

Anil Chauhan

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The Indian & Indonesian armies began thesixth edition of their annual militaryexercise named ‘Garuda Shakti’ inBandung, Indonesia.

Indian Olympic Association (IOA)appointed its joint secretary Vikram SinghSisodia as the Chef-de-Mission for theupcoming Commonwealth Games to beheld in Gold Coast, Australia.

Vikram Singh Sisodia

South Central Railway (SCR) become thefirst railway zone in the country tocomplete 100% LED lighting at all thestations under its jurisdiction.

Senior-most Indian Information Service(IIS) officer Neelam Kapur was appointedDirector-General of Sports Authority ofIndia (SAI). It is for the first time that anIIS officer has been appointed as SAIchief.

Neelam Kapur

India successfully test-fired itsindigenously developed nuclear capablePrithvi-II missile from Integrated TestRange at Chandipur, in Odisha. It iscapable of carrying 500-1,000 kilogramof warheads and is a surface-to-surfacemissile and has a strike range of 350 km.

Prithvi 2

DRDO successfully flown its UnmannedCombat Aerial Vehicle RUSTOM 2 inKarnataka. It has the capability to fly for24 hours at a stretch at over 200 km/hrspeed, & can, not only conduct sustainedsurveillance but will be able to destroyenemy targets.

Rustom 2

Hindustan Aeronautics Limiteddeveloped the first flight of Hawk-i withindigenous Real Time Operating System(RTOS). Hawk-i is the first indigenousRTOS developed in India from scratchand certified by Center for MilitaryAirworthiness and Certification(CEMILAC).

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Hawk-i

Indian PM Modi inaugurated WorldSustainable Development Summit 2018(WSDS 2018) in New Delhi. The summit’stheme this year was ‘Partnerships for aResilient Planet’.

India successfully test-fired the nuclear-capable surface-to-surface ‘Dhanush’ballistic missile with a strike range of 350km from a naval ship off Odisha coast.

Flying officer Avani Chaturvedi scriptedhistory by becoming the first Indianwoman to fly a fighter aircraft solo.

Avani Chaturvedi

Gandhi Nagar railway station in Jaipur,Rajasthan became the state’s first andcountry’s second railway station to befully-managed by women.

Magahi writer Shesh Anand Madhukar,who has been working extensively for thedevelopment of the language, washonoured with this year ’s SahityaAkademi Bhasha Samman award.

Shesh Anand Madhukar

The book penned down by PM NarendraModi named ‘Exam Warriors’ waslaunched to reach out to the studentsacross the country ahead of their exams.

International:PepsiCo Chairman and CEO Indra Nooyiappointed as the International CricketCouncil’s (ICC) first-ever independentfemale director.

Indra Nooyi

India ranked 81st in the global corruptionperception index for 2017, released byTransparency International. In the latestranking New Zealand & Denmark wereplaced the highest, with scores of 89 &88, respectively.

Ethiopia’s PM Hailemariam Desalegnsuddenly resigned in what he describedas a bid to smooth reforms, followingyears of violent unrest that threatened theruling party’s hold on Africa’s secondmost populous nation.

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Hailemariam Desalegn

Cyril Ramaphosa, head of the rulingAfrican National Congress (ANC) swornin as South Africa’s new President.

Cyril Ramaphosa

K.P. Sharma Oli was sworn in as Nepal’sPM for the second time, weeks after hisLeft alliance with the Communist Partyof Nepal-Maoist (CPN-Maoist) swept theparliamentary polls.

K P Sharma Oli

Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades haswon re-election for a second term.

Nicos Anastasiades

India ranked 47th out of 86 countries onthe Inclusive Internet Index by theEconomist Intelligence Unit (EIU), whichwas commissioned by Facebook. Swedentook the first place, followed by Singapore& the US.

India has slipped to 42nd place on anannual Global Democracy Index as perthe data compiled by the EconomistIntelligence Unit (EIU). The top 5Countries in the list are: Norway, Iceland,Sweden, New Zealand & Denmark.

PM Modi laid the foundation stone of thefirst Hindu temple Swami NarayanTemple in Abu Dhabi.

PM Modi conferred the ‘Grand Collar ofthe State of Palestine’ by President ofPalestine Mahmoud Abbas, recognisinghis key contribution to promote relationsbetween India and Palestine. Modi is thefirst Indian PM to make an official visitto Palestine.

Vikas Sathaye, a Pune-born personhonoured with the Scientific &Engineering Academy Award at theOscars Scientific & Technical Awards2018 at Beverly Hills in Los Angeles,California.

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Vikas Sathaye

US-based SpaceX successfully launchedthe world’s most powerful operationalrocket Falcon Heavy towards Mars.

Falcon Heavy

Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency(JAXA) launched world’s smallest rocketwith the ability to put a tiny satellite intoorbit. It carried a microsatellite TRICOM-1R, a three-unit CubeSat weighing about3 kilograms.

Business & Finance:

RBI raised the exposure limit underExchange Traded Currency Derivatives(ETCD) trading for residents and foreignportfolio investors (FPIs) to USD 100million across all currency pairs involvingthe Indian rupee.

In order to remove existing ambiguitiesdue to multiple Acts and rules for SmallSaving Schemes, GOI proposed mergerof Government Savings Certificates Act,1959 and Public Provident Fund Act, 1968

with the Government Savings Banks Act,1873.

Bank of Baroda decided to exit by March-end its South Africa operations after 21years amid a probe into allegedcompliance lapses by the bank there.

Competition Commission of India (CCI)imposed a fine of around Rs. 136 croreson search engine major Google for unfairbusiness practices in the Indian market foronline search.

ONGC (Oil and Natural Gas Corporation)Videsh Ltd and its partners acquired a10% in a large offshore oilfield Abu DhabiNational Oil Co.’s (ADNOC) in AbuDhabi for $600 million. It is the first timeany Indian company has set foot in oil-rich Emirate.

Amazon become the first foreign e-commerce firm to start its own food retailventure in India called Amazon Retail,piloting its services in Pune.

RBI launched Ombudsman Scheme fornon-banking financial companies(NBFCs) for redressal of complaintsagainst them. The offices of NBFCombudsmen will function at four metrocentres – New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata& Chennai.

RBI constituted an expert committeeunder the chairmanship of YH Malegamto look into a range of issues relating toclassification of bad loans, risingincidents of frauds & effectiveness ofaudits.

Employees Provident Fund Organisation(EPFO) has made it mandatory to fileonline claims for provident fund

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withdrawals above Rs 10 lakh, takinganother step towards becoming apaperless organisation.

CriSidEx, India’s first sentiment index formicro & small enterprises (MSEs) waslaunched and it is developed jointly byCRISIL & SIDBI. CriSidEx is acomposite index based on a diffusionindex of 8 parameters & measures MSEbusiness sentiment on a scale of 0(extremely negative ) to 200 ( extremelypositive).

Alphabet has appointed John L. Hennessyas the new board chairman of thecompany. He has replaced Eric Schmidt.

John L Hennessy

India increased “substantially” its scorein International Intellectual Property (IP)Index, ranking 44th among 50 nations, asper US Chambers of Commerce report.

Sports:

Indian women’s cricket team pacer JhulanGoswami has become the first woman inthe world to take 200 wickets in ODI.

Jhulan Goswami

Sharmila Nicollet become the first Indiangolfer to qualify for the China Ladies PGATour.

Sharmilla Nicollet

Pune-based swimmer, Rohan Morebecame the first Asian as well as the firstIndian to swim across the Ocean Seven.He is the youngest to complete it. Heswam across the Cook Strait betweenNorth and South Islands of New Zealandin 8 hours and 37 minutes.

Rohan More

Roger Federer (Switzerland) celebratedhis return to the top of the world rankingsby winning the Rotterdam Open, in theNetherlands. It was his 97th career title.

Roger Federer

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In an effort to put India firmly among thetop nations in the world theatre map, Indiawill play host to the 8th Theatre Olympics,the greatest carnival of Thespianism. Itwill be inaugurated at Red Fort.

The first Khelo India School Gamesconcluded in New Delhi with sportspowerhouse Haryana topped the overallmedal tally. The state won 102 medals.Maharashtra with 110 medals (36 of themgold) finished second while Delhi with 94medals came third.

Aruna Budda Reddy has created historyby becoming the first Indian to win anindividual medal at the Gymnastics WorldCup in Melbourne, Australia. Sheclinched a Bronze medal in the Women’sVault.

Aruna Budda Reddy

Indian stars Seema Poonia & MC MaryKom have settled for Silver medals afterlosing in the final of 69th StrandjaMemorial Boxing tournament at Sofia inBulgaria.

MC Mary Kom Seema Poonia

Reigning Commonwealth Gameschampion Parupalli Kashyap overcameMalaysia’s June Wei Cheam in straightgames in the men’s singles final to clinchthe Austrian Open International Challenge.

Parupalli Kashyap

23rd Olympic Winter Games officiallykicked off with a colourful ceremony atPyeongchang in South Korea. Ninety-twocountries are participating in the event.

India has defeated Australia to lift theUnder 19 World cup for the fourth time.The Men in Blue defeated the three-timechampions Australia at Bay Oval, NewZealand.

Indian Under-19 Cricket Team

Kerala:

Kerala govt. made vaccinationcompulsory for school admissions to firststandard from next academic yearonwards. Parents will have to show details

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of shots given to children at the time ofenrolment in schools.

NITI Aayog released the ‘Healthy States,Progressive India Report’. Kerala, Punjaband Tamil Nadu have ranked top amongthe larger states in terms of overallperformance.

Kathakali maestro Madavoor VasudevanNair collapsed on stage and died whileperforming at Agasthyacodu MahadevaTemple, Kerala.

Madavoor Vasudevan Nair

Kerala govt has decided to geotag thehouses and farms of over 10lakh livetocksand poultry farmers in the state, so as tocreate digital repository of the informationof animal husbandry and dairying inKerala.National Banana Festival 2018 was heldVellayani Devi Temple Ground atKalliyoor, in Thiruvananthapuram.Kerala Govt will use Robots to cleansewer holes, instead of involving humans.The robot is developed by a startup namedGenrobotics.

Sewer Cleaning Robot

“Integrated Automatic AviationMeteorological System(IAAMS)” wasinaugurated at INS Garuda, a naval airstation located in Kochi, Kerala.

The Kerala State Youth Welfare Boardwill be organising the second edition ofthe National Folk Festival of Kerala atvarious venues in the city from February15 to 18. The curtains will go up with thestaging of ‘Vellari nadakam’, an old forkart form from the State. These wereperformed in the olden days by youthwho guarded the crop in the nightsbefore the harvest.

Acting Chief Justice of Kerala HighCourt Antony Dominic took charge asChief Justice of Kerala.

Justice Antony Dominic

DGP N C Asthana took over as the newDirector of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau (VACB).

N C Asthana

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Other Important Issues in Detail-

1) India’s State of Forest Report, 2017-

The environment ministry has released theIndia State of Forest Report (ISFR) 2017.The ISFR report is published every twoyears. The India State of Forest Report2017 is the 15th such report in the series.The report, however, for the first timecontains information on decadal changein water bodies in forest during 2005-2015, forest fire, production of timberfrom outside forest, state wise carbonstock in different forest types and densityclasses.

Highlights of the report:

India’s forest cover increased by 6,778sq km over the last two years. Theincrease, based on satellite data andsubsequent ‘ground truthing’, has putthe total forest cover at 7,08,273 sq kmwhich is 21.54% of the country’sgeographical area.

Report shows that three states – AndhraPradesh, followed by Karnataka andKerala – have shown the maximumincrease in forest cover. On the otherhand, forest cover in states likeMizoram, Nagaland, ArunachalPradesh, Tripura and Meghalaya hasdecreased in 2017 as compared to 2015.

While overall green cover, includingtree patches outside recorded forestareas, reported an incremental 1%increase (8,021 sq km) over the lastassessment year in 2015, the quality offorests remain a hotly debated subjecteven as satellite monitoring hasincreased availability of data.

Taking into account the density(canopy covering branches and foliage

formed by the crowns of trees), forestcover is divided into ‘very dense’,‘moderately dense’ and ‘open’ forest.The ‘very dense’ forest cover hasincreased over the last assessment of2015, but the ‘moderately dense’category reported a decline — a signwhich environmentalists consider quiteworrying.

The report also shows the totalmangrove cover stands at 4,921 sq kmand has shown an increase of 181 sqkm. All the 12 mangrove states haveshown a positive change in themangrove cover, as compared to the lastassessment. Mangrove ecosystem isrich in biodiversity and provides anumber of ecological services.

The report notes that there was anincrease of 2,647 sq km in the extentof water bodies over the decade (2005-15) with all states and Union Territories(UTs) showing an increase exceptArunachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh andHaryana.

Maharashtra, Gujarat and MadhyaPradesh figure as the top three statesreporting maximum increase in areasof water bodies including lakes andwetlands.

Madhya Pradesh has the largest forestcover of 77,414 sq km in the countryin terms of area, followed by ArunachalPradesh and Chhattisgarh. In terms ofpercentage of forest cover with respectto the total geographical area,Lakshadweep with (90.33%) has thehighest forest cover, followed byMizoram (86.27%) and Andaman &Nicobar Island (81.73%).

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2) “Healthy States, Progressive India” Report-

NITI Aayog has released a comprehensiveHealth Index report titled, “HealthyStates, Progressive India”.

The report has been developed by NITIAayog, with technical assistance from theWorld Bank, and in consultation with theMinistry of Health and Family Welfare(MoHFW).

The report ranks states and Unionterritories innovatively on their year-on-year incremental change in healthoutcomes, as well as, their overallperformance with respect to each other.It is the first attempt to establish an annualsystematic tool to measure and understandthe heterogeneity and complexity of thenation’s performance in Health.

Background:

States and UTs have been ranked in threecategories namely, Larger States, SmallerStates, and Union Territories (UTs), toensure comparison among similar entities.The Health Index is a weighted compositeIndex, which for the larger States, is basedon indicators in three domains: (a) HealthOutcomes (70%); (b) Governance andInformation (12%); and (c) Key Inputsand Processes (18%), with each domainassigned a weight based on its importance.

With the annual publication of the Indexand its availability on public domain on adynamic basis, it is expected to keep everystakeholder alert to the achievement of

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)Goal number 3.

How did the states perform?

Among the Larger States, Kerala,Punjab, and Tamil Nadu ranked on topin terms of overall performance, whileJharkhand, Jammu & Kashmir, andUttar Pradesh are the top three rankingStates in terms of annual incrementalperformance.

Among Smaller States, Mizoramranked first followed by Manipur onoverall performance, while Manipurfollowed by Goa were the top rankedStates in terms of annual incrementalperformance.

3) Karnataka State Flag Issue-

A committee formed by the Karnatakagovernment has recommended a separateflag for the state, discounting anyconstitutional or legal hurdles for it. Theproposed state flag will be a tricolouryellow, white and red, with the state’semblem at the centre.

The state government will now seek anamendment to enable provisions ofincluding the Karnataka flag as one of thesymbols in the Flag Code. If the Centregives its nod to the said amendment,Karnataka will be the second state in thecountry to have its own flag after Jammuand Kashmir, which is allowed the sameunder Article 370 of the Constitution.

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Proposed State Flag of Karnataka

Are states permitted to have their ownflags?

In S.R. Bommai v/s Union of India(Supreme Court 1994) case, the SupremeCourt has declared that federalism is abasic feature of the Constitution andStates are supreme in their sphere. Thisbeing the Constitutional position, there isno prohibition in the Constitution for theState to have its own flag. However, themanner in which the State flag is hoistedshould not dishonour the national flag. Ithas to be always below the national flag.The national flag code specificallyauthorises use of other flags subject to theregulation by the court. So, State flag isnot unauthorised.

4) Budget 2018 Highlights-

Agriculture Sector-

MSP for all unannounced kharif cropswill be one and half times of theirproduction cost like majority of rabicrops

22,000 rural haats to be developed andupgraded into Gramin Agricultural

Markets to protect the interests of 86%small and marginal farmers.

“Operation Green” launched to addressprice fluctuations in potato, tomato andonion for benefit of farmers andconsumers.

Setting up a Fisheries and Aqua cultureInfrastructure Development Fund(FAIDF) for fisheries sector and anAnimal Husbandry InfrastructureDevelopment Fund (AHIDF) forfinancing infrastructure requirement ofanimal husbandry sector with a totalcorpus of Rs.10,000 crore for the twonew funds.

Terming Bamboo as “Green Gold , aRe-structured National BambooMission with an outlay of Rs.1290crore to promote bamboo sector in aholistic manner was announced.

Social Sector-

Higher targets for Ujjwala, Saubhagyaand Swachh Mission to cater to lowerand middle class in providing free LPGconnections, electricity and toilets.

Tribal students to get EkalavyaResidential School in each tribal blockby 2022. Welfare fund for SCs gets aboost.

World’s largest Health ProtectionScheme National Health ProtectionScheme (NHPS) covering over 10 crorepoor and vulnerable families launched

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with a family limit upto 5 lakh rupeesfor secondary and tertiary treatment.

Rs 1200 crore for the National HealthPolicy, 2017, which with 1.5 lakhHealth and Wellness Centres will bringhealth care system closer to the homesof people.

To step up investments in research andrelated infrastructure in premiereducational institutions, includinghealth institutions, a major initiativenamed “Revitalising Infrastructure andSystems in Education (RISE) by 2022with a total investment of Rs.1,00,000crore in next four years was announced

Other-

Fiscal Deficit pegged at 3.5%,projected at 3.3% for 2018-19.

Ten prominent sites to be developed asIconic tourist destinations.

NITI Aayog to initiate a nationalprogramme on Artificial Intelligence(AI) and centres of excellence will beset up on robotics, AI, Internet of thingsetc.

Proposal to extend reduced rate of 25%currently available for companies withturnover of less than 50 crore (inFinancial Year 2015-16), to companiesreporting turnover up to Rs. 250 crorein Financial Year 2016-17, to benefitmicro, small and medium enterprises.

Standard Deduction of Rs 40,000 in placeof present exemption for transport

allowance and reimbursement ofmiscellaneous medical expenses. 2.5crore salaried employees andpensioners to benefit.