Notes:
The Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education (ICFRE) has signed MOU with Technology Information, Forecasting & Assessment Council (TIFAC) to provide livelihood opportunities and augment income of the forest based communities. Through this collaboration, TIFAC will help ICFRE to refine and up-scale the technologies developed, take technologies to the end users including farmers, State Forest Departments, forest based industries and forest dependent communities in a more effective manner. The MoU will be valid for a period of 5 years. The headquarters of ICFRE is located in Dehradun, Uttarakhand.

Notes:
The 17th Annual Conference of International Competition Network 2018 (ICN2018) has started in New Delhi from 21st March 2018. This is the first time India is hosting the ICN Annual Conference since it joined International Competition Network (ICN) in 2009. The 3-day conference will provide an opportunity to exchange ideas and strategies for effective enforcement of competition law and for strengthening cooperation amongst the competition authorities as they strive to promote and sustain competition in rapidly changing markets. ICN is an international body comprising 132 members from 120 competition jurisdictions exclusively devoted to international competition enforcement. It’s main purpose is to improve and advocate for sound competition policy and its enforcement across the global antitrust community.

Notes:
The World Poetry Day (WPD) is celebrated every year on March 21 across the world to honour poets, tradition of poetry recital and promotes reading poetry. Apart from celebrating the poetic expression and the linguistic diversity, one of the main objectives of the day is to offer endangered languages an opportunity to be heard and read within communities. The day was adopted in 1999 during UNESCO’s 30th session held in Paris. The day also seeks to reprise the age-old tradition of poetry recitals, mark a confluence between poetry and other creative fields like theatre, music and dance and also promote teaching poetry. The day is also designated to find newer ways to make poetry accessible and not make it seem outdated.

Notes:
The Estimates Committee headed by Dr Murli Manohar Joshi has recommended effective measures to modernise and upgrade the country’s security systems at par with the developed countries. It suggested states to develop their own systems and augment their own police forces by providing adequate training and equipping them with the latest weapons to effectively deal with the militancy and insurgency besides handling the law and order problems. Regarding to this issue, the committee chairman has presented the report on the Central Armed Police Forces and Internal Security Challenges- Evaluation and Response Mechanism to the Lok Sabha on March 19, 2018. The Committee also recommended that in order to meet the challenges of the cyber threat by external or internal forces, there is an imperative need to develop a system to counter the future threats of biological, chemical and mini-nuclear weapons capable of causing limited damage.

Notes:
The State Bank of India (SBI) has recently signed a pact with India Mortgage Guarantee Corporation (IMGC) to offer mortgage guarantee scheme for prospective non-salaried and self-employed home loan customers. The offering will help increase home loan eligibility up to 15% within the regulatory norms. The MoU between SBI and IMGC is a strategic initiative which will enable to improve housing loan volumes in the non-salaried segment. Under this product, applicant can avail higher finance based on risk grade of the borrower, by opting for IMGC default guarantee cover. IMGC is a joint venture between National Housing Bank, Genworth Inc International Finance Corporation and Asian Development Bank. It is providing mortgage default guarantee to the lending Institutions in India.

Notes:
The International Day of Happiness is observed every year on March 20 to recognise the importance of happiness in the lives of people around the world. The day is to inspire individuals to share happiness with others and create a happier world for all. The 2018 theme “Share Happiness” focuses on the importance of relationships, kindness and helping each other. The World Happiness Report 2018, which was published recently, ranked 156 countries by happiness levels, based on factors such as life expectancy, social support and corruption. Finland was ranked as the happiest country to live, while Burundi in East Africa is the unhappiest place in the world. India was ranked 133rd in the report.

Notes:
The Government of India (GoI) has approved the setting up of a Plastic Park in Deoghar District, Jharkhand on March 20, 2018. The project would be set up at a cost of Rs. 120 crores in an area of 150 acres and a range of polymer products including woven sacks, moulded furniture, water tanks, bottles, pipes mosquito nets, etc would be manufactured. It has great potential for attracting investment for setting up an ecosystem for plastic industry and generates employment opportunities for the local populace.

Notes:
The National Cultural Audiovisual Archives (NCAA) project of the Ministry of Culture has become the world’s first Trusted Digital Repository as per ISO 16363:2012 standard, which is granted by Primary Trustworthy Digital Repository Authorisation Body Ltd. (PTAB), United Kingdom (UK). The NCAA is implemented by Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA). The primary objective of the NCAA is to identify and preserve the cultural heritage of India available in audiovisual form through a process of digitization and making it accessible to the people. By March 2018, a corpus of 30,000 hours of unpublished, non-commercial audio & video recordings will be made online at http://ncaa.gov.in/repository, out of which approximately 15,000 hours are already hosted online along with contextual metadata, representing the cultural diversity of India in the broadest sense.

Notes:
Atul M. Gotsurve, the Indian Foreign Service (IFS) officer of 2004 batch, has been appointed as the next Ambassador of India to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. He is expected to take up his assignment shortly. Currently, he is director in the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA).

Notes:
The 106th edition of the Indian Science Congress (ISC) will be held at the Barkatullah University in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh from 3rd to 7th January, 2019. Prof. Manoj Kumar Chakrabarti, the General President-elect of the Science Congress Association, announced that the theme of the meet will be ‘Future India: Science & Technology’. As part of the valedictory function of the 105th ISC 2018 held at the Manipur University in Imphal, awards especially for encouragement of young scientist ‘Young Scientist Awards 2017-18’ to 14 awardees, ‘Best Poster Award’ to 20 awardees, ‘Best Science Model’ to five awardees and ‘Pride of Indian Exhibition Awards’ were distributed to the awardees from across the country.