Current Affairs 2016

• Surender Kumar Bhagat, the 1982-batch IPS officer of the Uttarakhand cadre, has been appointed as the new Director General (DG) of Railways Protection Force (RPF). He will succeed Rajiv Ranjan Verma and will serve RPF till the date of his superannuation i.e. on June 30, 2017. Presently, he is working as Special Director General in the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF).
• The book “Param Vir: A War Diary” has been written by Manju Lodha, a well-known Indian social activist. It was recently launched in London by Navtej Sarna, Indian High Commissioner to United Kingdom. The book chronicles the lives of 21 Param Vir Chakra awardees, the highest military honour bestowed by India to those serving in the Indian armed forces.
• The Maharashtra Government has recently launched ‘Adi Praman’’ a web-based application, which will facilitate the tribal populace of the state to get the caste validity certificates online. The validity certificate will be bar-coded with a unique identification number and enable authorities to directly verify the status of validity certificate using the unique barcode number. The portal “etribalvalidity.mahaonline@gov.in” will show the real-time status of the applications through email and text messages. This initiative will make the entire process of securing caste validity certificate transparent, fast and easy and will effectively curb the menace of bogus certificates.
• The mobile app “Indian Customs- Guide to Travellers” has been launched by the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) to inform traders, exporters and importers about Customs Baggage Rules, 2016. The mobile App has been developed by Bengaluru Customs and is available on Android Play store, Apple Store and Windows Store. The app is user friendly and serves as a useful tool for quick and effective dissemination of information about baggage rules and entitlements and hence serves to clarify doubts and concern of International passengers and also ensure better compliance. The CBEC is the nodal national agency responsible for administering customs, central excise, service tax and narcotics in India.
• The Kerala state branch of Indian Medical Association (IMA) has partnered with UNICEF to promote safe and healthy practices for improving maternal and child health in the state. The initiative will help Kerala to achieve world class level in reducing child mortality rate. As part of the partnership, IMA and UNICEF will orient all the 35,000 doctors of the association in the state, on the importance of prescribing good practices to their patients, besides medicine.