Daily Current Affairs on 19th March 2015

Daily Current Affairs on 19th March 2015

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Littering railway tracks and platform will cost you a fine of Rs 5000 from now onwards
·         The ruling has been given by National Green Tribunal to help the cleanliness drive in the country.
·         The bench, headed by NGT Chairperson Justice Swatanter Kumar, also passed a slew of instructions to Railways and other authorities on how to keep the premises clean.
Department of Consumer Affairs launches a web portal "GAMA"
·         GAMA (Grievances Against Misleading Advertisements) was launched  for redressal of grievances against misleading advertisements. 
·         It also introduced "Grahak Suvidha Kendras" - one stop consumer service centers, in six cities of Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Jaipur, Kolkata, Patna and Delhi.
·         These new initiatives aims to enhance consumer awareness and strengthen support services to them across the country.
For every convict, there are more than 2 undertrials in Indian jails
As per the data compiled by the National Crime Records Bureau at the end of 2013, there were 4,11,992 inmates in the jails of the country, out of which the number of convict prisoners was 1,29,608 and the number of undertrials was 2,78,503.
'Prisons' is a state subject under Entry 4 of List II of the 7th schedule to the Constitution and prison administration is primarily the responsibility of the state governments.
IOC & NOC will setup a petroleum product pipeline
·         Indian Oil Corporation is in talks with Nepal Oil Corporation for setting up a petroleum product pipeline from Raxaul in India to Amlekhganj in Nepal. 
·         The proposed pipeline, measuring some 38 Km, would come up at estimated cost of around Rs 200 crore.
GOI gives its approval for establishment of All India Institute of Ayurveda
·         The Government has approved for establishment of All India Institute of Ayurveda at Sarita Vihar, New Delhi. 
·         It has been conceived as an Apex Institute of Ayurveda with 200 bedded referral hospital for imparting education in the field of Ayurveda at MD and Ph.D level.
India will host the first Asian Ministerial Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction
·         India will host the first Asian Ministerial Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction of the post-2015 era. 
·         The Conference is set to endorse a Regional Implementation Plan of the new post-2015 framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR).
Snapdeal plans to acquire logistics firm GoJavas to boost its delivery operations
·         The deal, estimated to be in the range of 150-200 crore, is the 6th acquisition by the Snapdeal till date.
·         The 2nd biggest e-commerce platform of India, is also going to acquire mobile recharge platform, Freecharge, for about Rs 2,800 crore.
·         GoJavas - which works with eCommerce companies like HealthKart, Jabong, Yepme and Lenskart - covers over 2500 pincodes in the country for its delivery operation.

EVMs to carry photos of candidates from May 1, 2015 - Election Commission
·         Election Commission has announced that Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) and ballot papers will carry photographs of candidates from 1 May 2015.
·         This move of EC seeks to avoid voters being misled by several namesakes in the election fray. In this regard EC has issued an order to all political parties and State Chief Electoral Officers for implementation.
·         EC also has modified the relevant provisions of law under the Conduct of Election Rules giving effect to the photo ballot papers and EVMs.
·         Henceforth, the photo of candidate will appear between the name and election symbol on the ballot sheet and EVM.  While for designing the new photo ballot papers, the EC has specified election candidates to supply stamp size recent photograph with specification of 2.5 cm width and 2 cm height.

Astra - Indigenously developed air-to-air missile successfully test fired
·         The all-weather 'Beyond Visual Range (BVR)' missile can destroy enemy aircraft at supersonic speed.
·         This 3.8 metre long missile is the smallest of the DRDO-developed missiles. 
·         The missile can reach up to 110 km when fired from an altitude of 15 km and 44 km when launched from an altitude of 8 km and 21 km when fired from sea level.
·         India’s ingenuously developed Beyond Visual Range (BVR) air-to-air missile Astra was successfully tested on 18 March 2015 from a Sukhoi-30 fighter aircraft.  The test was undertaken at the Integrated Test Range located at Chandipur in Odisha.