- Apurvi Chandela set world record in 10m air rifle at Swedish Cup Grand Prix
Indian ace shooter Apurvi Chandela has set a new world record in the women’s 10 metre air rifle event at the 2015 Swedish Cup Grand Prix.
She set the new record after winning gold medal in the women’s 10 metre air rifle event shooting score of211.2. Her winning score has surpassed previous world record of 211 score set by Chinese Olympic gold medallist Yi Siling.
In the Swedish Cup Grand Prix, silver and bronze went to Swedish shooters Astrid Steffensen and Stine Nielsen respectively.
Chandela has already qualified for the 2016 Rio Olympics. She won an Olympic quota place for India after winning a bronze in the ISSF World Cup in Changwon, Korea in April 2015. Earlier in December 2015 Chandela had won the gold in the National Championships representing Rajasthan.
- Union Cabinet gives nod to Civil Aviation MoU between India and Singapore
The Union Cabinet has given its ex-post facto approval for signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between India and Singapore on cooperation in the field of civil aviation.
The MoU was signed in November 2015 between Airports Authority of India (AAI) on behalf of Union Government and Singapore Cooperation Enterprise (SCE) on behalf of Government of Singapore) during Prime Minister’s visit to Singapore.
Key facts
- Objective of MoU is to establish mutual cooperation in the field of civil aviation between both countries.
- It will cover airports of Jaipur and Ahmedabad to begin with cooperation and later will be extended to other airports with mutual consent.
- The include collaboration in Civil Aviation Sector between both countries will be in the areas of (i) Master-planning and design (ii) Commercial development (iii) Traffic development Training and development (iv) Service quality improvement (v) Maintenance, repair and overhaul (vi) Cargo handling and Management (vii) Operation and management.
- Union Government decides to directly shift from BS-IV to BS-VI Emission norms in 2020
Union Ministry of Road Transport & Highways has decided to implement the stricter emission norms ofBharat Stage (BS) VI from 1st April 2020 in a bid to curb vehicular pollution.
Government will directly switch over to BS-VI emission norms from the present BS-IV emission norms and completely skip BS-V emission norms altogether.
Decision in this regard was taken at an inter-ministerial meeting chaired by Unon Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari and was attended by Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, Heavy Industries Minister Anant Geete and Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar.
Supreme Court Order
- Earlier Supreme Court has asked the Union Government to implement BS-VI emission norms earlier than April 2021 deadline amid concerns on rising air pollution in the country.
Earlier Deadlines
- The Auto Fuel Policy 2003 had recommended implementation of BS-VI norms by 2024. Earlier in the draft notification issued by the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways had advanced dates for implementation of BS-V norms to 2019 and BS-VI norms to 2021.
Present scenario
- Presently BS-IV auto fuels are being supplied in whole of northern India covering states like Punjab, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Delhi, parts of Rajasthan and western Uttar Pradesh. While rest of the country is being supplied has BS-III grade fuel. The deadline implementation for BS-IV auto fuels is 2017 across the country.
- Kate Atkinson wins 2015 Costa Novel Award
The British writer, Kate Atkinson has won the 2015 Costa novel award for her novel “A God in Ruins”, the companion her previous novel to ‘Life After Life’.
With this, she became the first British author to receive a Costa prize three times. Earlier she had won it for Life After Life (2013) and Behind the Scenes at the Museum (1995).
Other winners of 2015 Costa Book Awards
- Costa biography award: Andrea Wulf for ‘The Invention of Nature: The Adventures of Alexander Von Humboldt, The Lost Hero of Science’.
- Costa children’s book award: Frances Hardinge for ‘The Lie Tree’.
- Costa Poetry Award: Don Paterson for ‘40 Sonnets’.
- Costa First Novel Award: Andrew Michael Hurley for ‘The Loney’.
About Costa Book Awards
- The Costa Book Awards are a set of annual literary awards recognising English-language books by writers based in Britain and Ireland.
- It was established in 1971 as the Whitbread Book Awards. Later in 2006 it was renamed as Costa Book Awards.
- The awards are given both for high literary merit but also for works that are enjoyable reading in five book award categories viz. (i) Novel (ii) First novel (iii) Children’s book (iv) Poetry (v) Biography.
- Andhra Bank launches IMPS for money transfer
Andhra Bank has launched Immediate Payment Service (IMPS) at all its branches across the country to provide inter-bank electronic fund transfer service.
The customer-friendly service was launched by Andhra Bank in association with the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI).
It also supports real time instant fund transfer system for inter-bank remittances. However the maximum caps of transaction of remittances will 2 lakh rupees and the charges will be at the rate of Rs.5 per transaction.
Immediate Payment Service (IMPS)
- IMPS is a multi-channel, multi-dimensional inter-bank electronic fund transfer platform that allows customers to transfer money electronically within fraction of seconds with all the standards and integrity maintained for security.
- It is round-the-clock real time instant fund transfer system which is not possible in National Electronic Funds Transfer (NEFT) system. It also safest and most economical electronic fund transfer service
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