TAMIL NADU - appolosupport.com...The second prize went to WAY2SCORE, a free web portal for competitive examinations (like NEET, TNPSC, JEE etc.,) aspirants – under the category of

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TAMIL NADU Chief Minister, Edappadi K Palaniswami – to launch Pradhan Mantri Kisan

Samman Nidhi, an income support scheme for farmers, at Kalaivanar Arangam in Chennai on February 24, 2019

The Union Ministers, Piyush Goyal and Pon Radhakrishnan will also be present during the occasion

Small and marginal farmers with landholdings of up to 2 acres will receive the first installment of Rs 2000 on the occasion

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will launch the scheme in Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh and the Chennai event will take place immediately after the PM’s launch

More than 13 lakh beneficiaries will be benefitted in the state during the first phase

The remaining 60 lakh eligible farmers would be given the assistance shortly, before March 31

EVERYDAY CURRENT AFFAIRS – FEBRUARY 24, 2019

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Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami – launched a virtual learning portal ‘www.tamilnaducareerservices.gov.in’ on February 22, 2019– to help rural students preparing for competitive examinations in the state

In addition, the Chief Minister inaugurated a State Career Guidance Centre at Guindy, which has been established at a cost of Rs 1.31 crore, with an aim to offer proper guidance to job seekers

Tamil Nadu – becomes the first and only state in the entire country to have 2 coast guards

Tamil Nadu Governor, Banwarilal Purohit inaugurated the second Coast Guard district headquarters at Thoothukudi, Tamil Nadu on February 22

It been set up to deal with frequent issues faced by fishermen and provide anti-poaching operations, search and rescue missions and coastal security measures.

It covers about 680 km of the coastline along districts of Pudukottai, Thanjavur, Ramanathapuram, Thoothukudi, Tirunelveli and Kanyakumari.

It will function under Commander Coast Guard Region (East) Coast Guard DIG Arvind Sharma has been appointed as the first district

Commander of the district headquarters (Tuticorin) The first district headquarters is in Chennai

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The State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) and

District Institutes for Education and Training (DIET) – won the first place at the EMCFA 18, organized by Commonwealth educational Media for Asia, Canada

SCERT and DIET won the award for the mega initiative ‘TN SCHOOLS LIVE’ (IRAT), developed by them

The second prize went to WAY2SCORE, a free web portal for competitive examinations (like NEET, TNPSC, JEE etc.,) aspirants – under the category of educational apps platform

SCHEMES Odisha government - approved Khushi scheme for the next 5 year period

The scheme, with a budget of Rs 466.08 crore, aims at improving menstrual

hygiene among adolescent girl students in the state As part of the scheme, free sanitary napkins will be provided to 17.25 lakh

adolescent girl students of Class 6 to 9 studying in government, non-government aided schools, apart from covering Kendriya Vidyalayas and Jawaharlal Navodaya Vidyalayas

Each girl student will be provided with 18 beltless sanitary napkins per month The cabinet also approved Kalia Scholarship for the education of farmers’ children KALIA - Krushak Assistance for Livelihood and Income Augmentation

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STATES Telangana government – announces an Unemployment allowance of Rs

3,016 per month to the eligible youth in the state

This was announced by its Chief Minister in the Interim budget An outlay of Rs 1810 crore was allocated for the scheme by the state

NATIONAL Prime Minister, Narendra Modi – to inaugurate the ‘National War Memorial’,

adjoining India Gate, on February 25

The memorial, constructed 60 years after it was first mooted, honours around 26,000 soldiers who have martyred since Independence

It has been built at a cost of Rs 176 crores and has 4 landscaped concentric circles around a 15-metre high ‘central obelisk’ with an external flame, bronze and stone murals, graphic panels and busts of 21 Param Vir chakra awardees

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Government – announces the draft ‘E-commerce policy’ on February 23

The draft policy focuses mainly on Consumer protection, Data protection and

leveraging the foreign online retailers to help native startups It aims to strengthen consumer rights regarding counterfeit products and the

overall grievance mechanism, apart from restricting the flow of goods through illegal means into the country

Highlights All e-commerce websites and applications available for downloading in India must

have a registered business entity in India as the importer on record or the entity through which all sales in India are transacted

Consumer/business payments from Indian banks and payment gateways to unauthorised and unregistered (GST non-compliant) sites/apps shall be barred

The Government seeks to ban all the cross-border gifts sent to India, except the life-saving drugs, to prevent their misuse, as it now exempts gifts of up to Rs 5,000 to enable NRIs to send low-priced products to their families or friends in India

The Government has sought the public feedback by march 9 on the draft bill The Government had recently updated the FDI policy for online marketplace in

December, which put restrictions on how large foreign e-tailers operate in India

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Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh - inaugurated ‘Waste to Wonder Park’ at Sarai Kale Khan, Delhi

It was built by the South Delhi Municipal Corporation It houses the replicas of 7 wonders of the world, including the Taj Mahal, the

Great Pyramid of Giza, Eiffel Tower, Leaning Tower of Pisa, Christ the Redeemer statue of Rio de Janeiro, Rome’s Colosseum, and the Statute of Liberty.

INTERNATIONAL Financial Action Task Force (FATF) - decided to keep Pakistan in the ‘grey’

list owing to continued funding of terrorist groups such as Jaish-e-Mohammad, Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jamat-ud-Dawa

FATF is the global watchdog, which keeps the countries serving as a conduit for global terror financing and money-laundering under ‘grey’ list

Pakistan has escaped being blacklisted for now but it has bought time only until May this year to clean up its act or risk getting downgraded further

Pakistan was ‘grey listed’ in June last year and after two subsequent reviews, the FATF has decided that Islamabad has failed to satisfactorily implement the 27-point action plan.

The FATF had also condemned the Pulwama terror attack in Kashmir, which led to death of 40 CRPF jawans

Zimbabwe – announces its new currency ‘RTGS Dollar’ (Real Time Gross

Transfer)

RTGS Dollars is money made up of bond notes, bond coins and RTGS balances

(electronic money) It started to trade at around 2.50 times to the US dollar As per the Central Bank of Zimbabwe, the money consumers have in their bank

accounts or mobile money wallets or pockets will be hereafter called RTGS Dollars

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INDIA AND OTHER COUNTRIES UAE – invites India to participate in the OIC Meet scheduled on March 1 This is the first time India has been invited in the OIC meet Union Minister, Sushma Swaraj will address the inaugural session of Organisation

of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) She has been invited by the UAE as a ‘guest of honour’ Earlier, Bangladesh had proposed the idea of India becoming an observer at the

OIC in 2018

CONFERENCES & SUMMITS NITI Aayog – co-hosted the conference on ‘Future of Indian Banking’ in New

Delhi It was jointly organized by the EGROW Foundation, Foundation for Economic

Growth and Welfare on February 22 The event was inaugurated by Dr. Rajiv Kumar, Vice Chairman, NITI Aayog During the event, Chief Economic Advisor (CEA) Krishnamurthy

Subramanian suggested taking forward the P J Nayak committee’s recommendations on governance reforms in Public Sector Banks

SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY & ENVIRONMENT China – launches World’s first female AI News Anchor

Xin Xiaomeng, created by China’s sate news outlet Xinhua and search engine Sogou, will be the world’s first female Artificial intelligence based news anchor

She will make her debut in March 2019 China has already debuted the world’s first male AI news anchor in November

2018 Xinhua has also created a group of robot reporters, who have written over 3,400

reports since last November

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DEFENCE HAL (Hindustan Aeronautics Limited) - has signed a contract with Thales, a

French aerospace and defence company – for supplying 135 nos. of 2.75-inch (70 mm) rocket launchers - to improve the tactical capabilities of the Indian armed forces

Thales's 2.75-inch (70-mm) rocket launchers are produced using composite

material, making them an average of 50% lighter than metal launchers, and eliminating corrosion issues.

The rocket launchers will be installed on two types of indigenously developed combat helicopter operated by the Indian Air Force and the Army Aviation Corps.

Velayat 97, an annual 3-day navy drill – was announced by Iran

It will take place in the Gulf and the Indian Ocean, including a sensitive global

shipping route It will showcase Iran’s submarines, warships, helicopters and drones and will also

include missile launches from the vessels. It will be held in the waters of Strait of Hormuz, Makran coast, Oman Sea and the

north of the Indian ocean covering an area of 2 million square kilometres

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APPOINTMENTS US President Donald Trump – has nominated Kelly Craft, the current US

ambassador to Canada, to be the next US ambassador to the United Nations

She fills the post vacated by Nikki Haley, a former South Carolina governor, in October 2018

She was appointed as US ambassador to Canada in September 2017, being the first woman to take up the job

Earlier on December 7 2018, Trump had nominated former Fox News anchor and State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert, who withdrew from consideration following criticism that she lacked the experience for one of the top diplomatic posts

Jonathan Cohen, a career diplomat who became Haley’s deputy in June 2018, is

currently serving as the acting UN ambassador.

SPORTS ISSF Shooting World Cup 2019, New Delhi Apurvi Chandela – creates World Record and wins Gold in the Women’s 10m air

rifle This is the first gold for Chandela in the World cup series, with her earlier gold

coming at the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth games With a score of 252.9, she shattered the world record of China’s Ruozhu Zhao

score of 252.4 in the World championships in May 2018 Apurvi had already clinched the quota for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic games in last

year’s world series

Prior to this win, Apurvi had won a bronze in the world cup

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Afghanistan – hits the world record T20 score of 278/3 against Ireland in Dehradur

The score overtakes the earliest high of Australia’s 260/3 scored against Sri Lanka in September 2016

During the innings, Afghanistan’s Hazratullah Zazai smashed unbeaten 162 runs off just 62 balls, with 16 sixes (which was another record) and 11 fours

His score is only the second best to Australian Aaron Finch’s record score of 172

scored against Zimbabwe in Harare in July 2018 The record for most sixes in a T20 march was held so far by Aaron Finch with 14

sixes in a match against England held in Southampton in August 2013 Sri Lanka cricket team – becomes the first cricket team from Asia to win a

test series in South Africa on February 23 They have clinched an historic 2-0 series triumph with a successive 8 wickets win

in the second test held in Port Elizabeth, followed by the one wicket win in the first test in Durban

Incidentally, they are only the third team ever after England and Australia to register a Test series win against South Africa in South Africa

Indian Men’s hockey team defender, Harmanpreet Singh – was adjudged as

2018 Player of the Year by the Asian Hockey Federation

Indian women’s hockey team striker Lalremsiami had bagged the Rising Player of

the Year award Harmanpreet contributed to the team’s silver medal win at the FIH Champions

Trophy in Breda and was also part of the team which won the Asian Champions Trophy in 2018

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Badminton Ace, P V Sindhu – becomes the first woman to fly in a Tejas aircraft

She flew in the indigenous Light Combat Aircraft, Tejas, at the Aero India air show

in Bengaluru The combat jet’s trainer version was piloted by Group Captain Siddharth Singh,

while Sindhu was the co-pilot in the tandem-seater cockpit