Current Affairs 17th March 2017

Current Affairs 17th March 2017 - Important Points

• Sachin Tendulkar appointed as UNICEF Ambassador for - ICC Women’s World Cup 2017
• Karan Avtar Singh appointed as - Chief Secretary of Punjab
• International Buddhist Conference in Bihar inaugurated by - Dalai Lama
• World Bank Group approved USD 210 million for - Strengthening gram panchayats in West Bengal
• G20 meet of finance ministers and central bank governors to begin - in Germany
• World Bank Board approves USD 175 million for - National Hydrology Project of India

Current Affairs 17th March 2017 - Details

Sachin Tendulkar appointed as UNICEF Ambassador for - ICC Women’s World Cup 2017

The International Cricket Council (ICC) cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar as the UNICEF Cricket For Good ambassador for the ICC Women’s World Cup 2017.

The ICC Women’s World Cup 2017 will be hosted from 23rd June 2017 to 23rd July 2017 in the United Kingdom.

Important Highlights

• The ICC Women’s World Cup 2017 will begin on 23rd June 2017 in England and Wales with eight top cricketing countries locking horns to grab the coveted trophy. 
• The 21-day tournament having 28 matches will be played at five different venues with the final at Lord's.
• India will join the World Cup against England at Derby on the opening day itself.

Karan Avtar Singh appointed as - Chief Secretary of Punjab

Senior IAS officer Karan Avtar Singh was appointed as the Chief Secretary of Punjab on 16th March 2017. Avtar Singh is also given the charge of the Principal Secretary of Department of Personnel, General Administration and Vigilance and Investment Promotion.

Do you know?

11 other senior IAS officers of the state were also given the new posting apart from Karan Avtar.

International Buddhist Conference in Bihar inaugurated by - Dalai Lama

The three-day International Buddhist conference began at Nava Nalanda Mahavihara, Rajgir in Nalanda district of Bihar on 17th March 2017. The event was jointly inaugurated by religious leader Dalai Lama and the Union Minister for Tourism and Culture, Mahesh Sharma. 

Key Points

• The inaugural session showed the release of Pali Tripitaka book by Dalai Lama and other dignitaries, who were present at the event. 
• Over 1000 delegates from 35 countries including Indonesia, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Singapore participated in the three-day event. 
• The main topic of the conference was Buddhism in the 21st century.

Do you know?

This conference is an annual event. It held in Kathmandu, Nepal last year.

World Bank Group approved USD 210 million for - Strengthening gram panchayats in West Bengal

he World Bank Group (WBG) approved USD 210 million loan to strengthen gram panchayats (GPs) in West Bengal on 15th March 2017. The loan amount will be utilized for the implementation of the Phase II of the West Bengal Support of Gram Panchayat Program (ISGPP-II).

Key Highlights-

• The program seeks to strengthen local communities’ participation in the planning, budgeting and financial management of projects in rural areas.
• During the first phase of this project (ISGPP-I), performance-based block grants (PBG) were given to 1,000 better performing GPs within nine districts.
• So far, 92,000 activities were carried out by the GPs under the ISGPP. Out of them, 54 per cent of the activities belong to the transport sector, 23 per cent in the areas concerning water and sanitation.
• The ISGPP-II will boost the pace of decentralization to all GPs across West Bengal through a state-wide unified performance-based grant (PBG) allocation system.
• GPs will be assessed on an annual basis through an independent Annual Performance Assessment (APA) in order to access the PBG.
• Some of the other areas that the program will focus on including building human resource capacity to increase transparency and accountability in local government functioning.
• A robust internal audit system will also be developed and implemented in all the GPs to achieve these goals.

 G20 meet of finance ministers and central bank governors to begin - in Germany

The finance ministers and central bank chiefs from the Group of 20 economies (G20) will be meeting in Baden-Baden in Germany from 17-18 March 2017. The meeting is expected to focus on strengthening economic resilience in finance and digitalisation and to promote investment in Africa. 

Interesting Highlights

• All the focus will be on whether they agree to work together to promote free trade between themselves despite the protectionist tendency of the United States. 
• This meeting will be the first such gathering of leaders to discuss global economic challenges since Donald Trump took over as the President of United States in January 2017.
• The results of the meeting will be shared by German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble and Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann in a news conference, which is to be held on 18th March 2017. 
• The G20 finance ministers and central bank chiefs will be convening again at the International Monetary Fund's spring and annual meetings in Washington DC in April and October 2017.

 World Bank Board approves USD 175 million for - National Hydrology Project of India

The World Bank Board approved the USD 175 million National Hydrology Project to strengthen capacity of institutions to assess water situation in their regions on 16th March 2017. This loan from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) of World Bank a maturity of 23 years and will have a 6-year grace period. The project is aimed at assisting the institutions in reducing the vulnerability of recurring flood and droughts.

Highlights of the Project

• The National Hydrology Project will scale up the successes achieved under Hydrology Project-I and Hydrology Project-II to cover the entire country.
• Under HP-I and HP-II, real-time flood forecast systems integrated with weather forecast in Krishna and Satluj-Beas 
• river systems will give reservoir managers an accurate picture of the water situation in their region for the first time.
• Apart from benefitting the states in further upgrading and completing their monitoring networks, it will also help new states to manage water flows from the reservoirs.
• This project will include National Flood Forecasting Systems with an advance warning system and reservoir operation systems as well as water resources accounting in river basins.