Current Affairs - 5th March 2014

New General Secretary of SAARC

Arjun Bahadur Thapa took the charge of new general secretary of South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation. He was earlier the foreign secretary of Nepal and took charge from Ahmed Saleem of Maldives as the 12th Secretary General. The members of the SAARC are: Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan.

New Governor of Kerala

Sheila Dixit was appointed as the new Governor of Kerala after the current governor Nikhil Kumar resigned from his post. Sheila Dixit was earlier the chief minister of Delhi consecutively for 3 times but in the assembly elections not only her party lost the govt. but also she was defeated on her own seat by Arvind Kejriwal.

International Boxing Association (AIBA) bans IBF

The international body that takes decision on Boxing banned the Indian Boxing Federation (IBF) on the charges that the officials of INF are least concerned about the development of the sports in the country and also because pof the corruption charges leveled against them. After this, the Indian boxers can participate in the international events but they will perform under the flag of AIBA.

European space agency’s Mission “PLATO”

The European Space Agency (ESA) is launching a space-based observatory by 2024 to search for planets outside our solar system that could be suitable to life. The mission is called PLATO, which stands for “PLAanetary Transits and Oscillations of stars.” PLATO will discover Earth-like planets with the essentials that create life like situation like the one in Mars. Equipped with 34 small telescopes and cameras, PLATO will operate about 1.5 million km from Earth, monitoring as many as a million nearby stars.

Hockey India gets NSF status

The union ministry on Youth Affairs and Sports provided the status of National Sports Federation (NSF) to Hockey India which means that Hockey India is the sole body authorized for the promotion and development of the game in this country. To have the NSF status one needs to be recognized by an international body and Hockey India is recognized by International Hockey Federation and Indian Olympic Association.

New chief of IREDA

K S Poli has become the new CMD of Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency (IREDA), which is a govt. owned agency and it is authorized to promote, develop and extend financial help for renewable energy sources and energy efficiency in the country.