FEBRUARY 2016 CURRENT AFFAIRS (PART-5)

• President Pranab Mukherjee inaugurated the first phase of Kerala Tourism’s Muziris Heritage Project (MHP) at Trissur in Kerala to reinstate the historical and cultural significance of Muziris. The project is Kerala Government’s first green Project and India’s largest heritage conservation project. President also launched the website of the MHP. MHP is supported by the Union Government and seeks to conserve ancient seaport of Muziris and showcase its culture of 3000 years. The project will also play important role in the Spice Route initiative launched by Kerala Tourism with the help of UNESCO to revive state’s historic trade ties with 41 countries of the world.
• In India February 28 is celebrated as the National Science Day i.e. Rashtriya Vigyan Diwas every year. The theme for year 2016 is “Scientific Issues for Development of the Nation” that aims at raising public appreciation. This day marks the epoch-making discovery of Raman Effect by Indian physicist Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman (CV Raman) on February 28, 1928.
• The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) has launched the country’s first antidiabetic ayurvedic drug named BGR-34 for type two Diabetes mellitus. BGR-34 stands for Blood Glucost Regulator and offers effective, safe, patient-friendly solution for managing type two Diabetes. The drug has been jointly developed by National Botanical Research Institute (NBRI) and Central Institute for Medicinal and Aromatic Plants (CIMAP) and CSIR institutes based in Lucknow.
• Haryana is set become the first state in the country to complete Aquifer Mapping for its groundwater resources by May 2016. Aquifer is an underground layer of water-bearing rock from which groundwater can be extracted. Central Ground Water Board has set target to complete the aquifer mapping of the entire country by 2022. In the first phase, to be completed by 2017, 8 states have been selected for this kind of scientific mapping where groundwater situation has already reached a critical level. These states are Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
• The Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) has declared Wild Pig (sus scrofa) as vermin in Uttarakhand for a year. In this regard, MoEFCC has used its powers enshrined to it by section 62 of the Wildlife Protection Act (WPA), 1972. For this purpose, ministry has shifted protected wild pig (listed in schedule III to the Act) in the vermin category to Schedule V of the Act for period of 1 year. This decision will allow state forest authorities and people to carry out extermination (hunting/poaching) of wild pigs outside the reserve forest on a large scale. To do so, they will no longer require permission from the forest or wildlife officials and thus their actions cannot attract penal provisions of the WPA. It will seek to balance local population of the wild pigs to mitigate the damage to human life, crops and other properties in the state for ensuring conservation of wildlife in forests. Earlier, Uttarakhand forest department had forwarded proposal to the MoEFCC to declare both wild pig and Neel Gai (blue bull) vermin. In its proposal, authorities had mentioned that due to overpopulation of these animals in the areas outside the forest, they have created havoc by harming life and property including large scale destruction of agriculture produce. MoEFCC has rejected forest department’s proposal to declare Neel Gai (blue bull) vermin.
• The Union Government has issued detailed guidelines to tackle the outbreak of Zika Virus Disease in the wake of reported cases in Americas. Delhi based National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) would be the nodal agency for investigation of outbreak of Zika Virus in any part of the country.
• The first long distance cargo train connecting Iran and China has arrived in the Iranian capital city Tehran after starting its journey from China. The train had started its journey from China’s eastern Zhejiang province and it took 14 days to reach final destination. It had covered around 9,500-kilometre distance and passed through two Central Asian countries Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. It marks the revival of the ancient Silk Road and gives impetus to China’s ambitious One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative.
• Karnataka’s flagship mobile-one governance application has won gold medal at the fourth World Government Summit in Dubai, UAE in the m-governance awards category. This model is world’s largest multimode mobile governance platform launched in December 2014 by President Pranab Mukherjee. It offers 4,500 services including G2C, B2C and G2B services onto single integrated platform that can be accessed on smartphones, a web portal or through SMS and IVRS.
• An international team of biologists have discovered a new species of hydroid polyps emitting green fluorescence in the Red Sea. These species were found during the investigations of the biodiversity of coral reefs of the archipelago Farasan south of the Red Sea near Saudi Arabia.
• President Pranab Mukherjee dedicated India’s first co-operative society in Information Technology sector UL CyberPark in Kozhikode, Kerala.