Daily GK Update : 3rd April 2017

Sports

1. P.V. Sindhu lifts India Open badminton title 2017

• The Rio Olympic silver-medallist Indian shuttler P.V. Sindhu (21-year) has defeated top seed Carolina Marin (Spain) in straight sets 21-19, 21-16 at the India Open badminton championship 2017 at the Siri Fort Sports Complex in New Delhi.
• Sindhu had last defeated Marin in the BWF Super Series in Dubai last year.
• Earlier, Sindhu entered into the final after beaten Saina Nehwal (India).
• Carolina Marin defeated the Akane Yamaguchi (Japan) in the other semifinals.

Note:

• Pusarla Venkata Sindhu has become the first Indian woman to win an Olympic silver medal at the 2016 Summer Olympics.

2. Roger Federer wins Miami Open 2017

• Swiss professional tennis player Roger Federer has won Miami open 2017, defeating Rafael Nadal (Spain) in the final 6–3, 6–4 at Crandon Park in Key Biscayne, Florida, United States.
• It is Federer's 26th Masters 1000 singles title of his career and the 91 singles title overall.

Note:

• The 2017 Miami Open is a professional men and women's tennis tournament being played on outdoor hard courts.
• It was the 32nd edition of the Miami Open and of the Premier Mandatory category on the 2017 WTA Tour.

3. Paes wins the first title of the season in Challenger tournament

• Indian professional tennis player Leander Paes & Canadian Adil Shamasdin has won the first title of the season Leon Challenger Tour tennis tournament's men's doubles trophy after a straight-set win in Mexico.
• They defeated Luca Margaroli (Switzerland) and Caro Zampieri (Brazil) 6-1, 6-4 in the title clash.
• With this win, Paes clinched his 20th ATP Challenger title.

Note:

• Leander Adrian Paes is considered to be one of the best doubles and mixed doubles players of all time, having achieved a career Grand Slam in each discipline.

Important Dates

4. 2nd April: World Autism Awareness Day

• The ‘World Autism Awareness Day’ has been observed across the world on 2nd April every year to raise awareness about people with autism throughout the world.
• The 2017 theme for the day is "Toward Autonomy and Self-Determination".
• World Autism Day is also one of only four official health-specific UN Days.

Note:

• Autism is a lifelong, developmental disability that affects how a person communicates with and relates to other people, and how they experience the world around them.

International Affairs

5. Myanmar becomes the seventh member of SASEC

• Myanmar has become the 7th member of South Asia sub-regional Economic Cooperation (SASEC) program of the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
• It was officially made member at the SASEC Finance Ministers’ meeting held in New Delhi and chaired by Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.

Banking & Finance 

6. Five State Banks & Bharatiya Mahila Bank merge with SBI

• The five associates banks (State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur, State Bank of Hyderabad, State Bank of Mysore, State Bank of Patiala and State Bank of Travancore) and the Bharatiya Mahila Bank became part of the State Bank of India.
• Now, SBI catapulting the country's largest lender to among the top 50 banks in the world.
• The total customer base of the bank has reached 37 crores with a branch network of around 24,000 and nearly 59,000 ATMs across the country.
• The merged entity will have a deposit base of more than 26 lakh crore rupees and advance levels of 50 lakh crore rupees.

7. Tax evasion over Rs. 5-crore will be non-bailable offense under new GST regime

• A tax evasion of over five crore rupees under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime would be non-bailable offense.
• The union government has set a target date of 1st of July for roll-out of the GST, which will subsume central excise, service tax, VAT, and other local levies.
• Cognizable offense means a serious category of offenses in respect of which a police officer has the authority to make an arrest without a warrant and to start an investigation with or without the permission of a court.
• The Central GST (CGST) and State GST (SGST) Act have empowered the officers from Police, Railways, Customs, village officers, and any other government officers to assist CGST and SGST officers under the GST regime.

Note:

• The Central GST (CGST) Act provides that if the offenses relating to taxable goods and/or services where the amount of tax evaded or the amount of input tax credit wrongly availed or the amount of refund wrongly taken exceeds 5 crore rupees, shall be cognizable and non-bailable.

National & International Appointment

8. Indira Banerjee appointed as new Chief Justice of Madras High Court

• Justice ‘Indira Banerjee’ has been appointed as the new Chief Justice of the Madras High Court.
• She succeeded 'Sanjay Kishan Kaushal'.
• Justice Banerjee was appointed as permanent judge of the Calcutta High Court on 5th February, 2002 and was transferred to Delhi High Court on 8th August, 2016.
• She has become the second woman to head the Madras High Court.

National Affairs

9. PM Narendra Modi opens India’s longest ‘Chenani-Nashri’ tunnel

• The Prime Minister Narendra Modi has inaugurated 9.28 km long India’s longest highway tunnel ‘Chenani-Nashri’ in Jammu & Kashmir.
• This road tunnel will cut the distance between the two state capitals Jammu and Srinagar to around 250 km from the current 350 km and reduce the travel time by approximately two hours.
• He also announced to invest around 7000 crore in highways projects in Jammu and Kashmir in the next two years.
• A ring road will be built around Jammu at a cost of Rs 2100 crore and another one around Srinagar at a cost of Rs 2200 crore.

10. Govt. sanctions Rs. 98 crore for development of tourism sector in Assam

• The Union Tourism minister ‘Mahesh Sarma’ has sanctioned Rs. 98 crore for the development of the tourism sector in Assam.
• The minister has announced another two crore rupees for the festival and take a step for the development of 12 religious places of Assam including the ‘Kamakhya’.

11. Govt. launched two mobile apps ‘echallan’ & ‘mParivahan‘

 

• The union government has launched two mobile apps ‘echallan’ and ‘mParivahan’ to provide access to various services and information to enable citizens to report any traffic violation.
• 'eChallan' is an integrated enforcement solution to manage traffic violations through a mobile app.
• 'mParivahan' is an empowering app for the citizen which provides access to various services, information, and utilities related to the transport sector.

12. 19th commonwealth forestry conference to begin in Uttarakhand

 

• Today, 19th Commonwealth Forestry Conference (CFC) 2017 has been inaugurated by the Uttarakhand Governor, K.K. Paul at Forest Research Institute (FRI) in Dehradun, Uttarakhand.
• The 5-day conference is being organized on the theme ‘Forests for Prosperity and Posterity’.
• The international conference is being organized in association with the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change and Commonwealth Forestry Association of UK.