64th National Film Awards

64th National Film Awards were announced

Best Feature Film: Kasaav (Marathi)
Best Direction: Rajesh Mapuskar for Ventilator(Marathi)
Best Actor: Akshay Kumar for Rustom (Hindi)
Best Actress: Surabhi C.M for Minnaminungu – the Firefly (Malayalam)
Best Supporting Actor: Manoj Joshi for Dashakriya (Marathi)
Best Supporting Actress: Zaira Wasim for Dangal (Hindi)
Best Child Artist: Adish Praveen for Kunju Daivam (Malayalam), Nur Islam and Samiul Alam for Sahaj Pather Gappo (Bengali), Manohara. K for Railway Children (Kannada)
Best Male Playback Singer: Sundharayyar for song Jasmie E from film Joker (Tamil)
Best Female Playback Singer: Iman Chakraborty for song Tumi Jaake Bhalo Basho from film Praktan (Bengali)
Best Cinematography: S. Thirunavukarasu for 24 (Tamil)

BEST SCREENPLAY
Screenplay writer (original): Syam Pushkaran for Maheshinte Prathikooram (Malayalam)
Screenplay Writer (Adapted): Sanjay Krishnaji Patil for Dashakriya (Marathi)
Dialogues: Tarun Bhascker for Peli Chuplu (Telugu)

BEST AUDIOGRAPHY
Sound Designer: Jayadevan Chakka Dath for Kaadu Pookkunna Neram (Malayalam)
Re-recordist of the final mixed track: Alok De for Ventilator (Marathi)
Best Editing: Rameshwar for Ventilator (Marathi)
Best Production Design: Subrata Chakraborthy, Shreyas Khedekar and Amit Ray for 24 (Tamil)
Best Costume Designer: Sachin Lovalekar for Cycle (Marathi)
Best Make-up Artist: NK Ramakrishna for Allama (Kannada)
Best Music Direction (Songs /Background Score): Bapu Padmanabha for Allama (Kannada)
Best Lyrics: Vairamuthu for song Entha Pakkam from film Dharma Durai (Tamil), Anupam Roy for Tumi Jaake Bhalo Basho from Praktan(Bengali)
Special Jury Award: Mohan Lal
Best Choreography: Raju Sundaram for Janatha Garrage(Telugu)
Best Special Effect: Naveen Paul for Shivaay (Hindi)

SPECIAL MENTION
Sonam Kapoor for Neerja (Hindi)
Adil Hussain for Mukti Bhawan (Hindi) and Maj Rati Keteki (Assamese) Producer Red Carper Moving Pictures and director Shubhashish
Bhutiani for Mukti Bhawan (Hindi) Producer Eleeanora Images Private Ltd and director Nila
Madhab Panda for Kadvi Hawa (Hindi)

Best Feature Film in each of the language specified in the Schedule VIII of the Constitution
Best Assamese Film: Maj Rati Keteki
Best Bengali Film: Bisorjon
Best Hindi Film: Neerja
Best Kannada Film: Reservation
Best Konkani Film: K Sera Sera –Ghodpachen Ghoddtelem
Best Malayalam Film: Maheshinte Prathikaaram
Best Marathi Film: Dashakriya
Best Telegu Film: Peli Chuplu
Best Gujarati Film: Wrong Side Raju
Best Tamil Film: Joker
Best Feature Film in each of the languages other than those specified in Schedule VIII of the Constitution
Best Moran Film: Haanduk
Best Tulu Film: Madipu

NON-FEATURE FILMS
Best Non Feature Film: Fireflies In The Abyss
Best Debut Film of a Director: Soz…A Ballad of Maladies by Tushar Madhav
Best Biographical/ Historical Reconstruction: Zikr Us
Parivashka: Begum Akhtar
Best Arts/Cultural Film: In The Shadow of Time and The Lord of The Universe
Best Environment Film including Agriculture: The Tiger Who Crossed The Line
Best Film on Social Issues: I Am Jeeja and Sanath
Best Educational Film: The Waterfall
Best Exploration/Adventure Film: Matitle Kusti
Best Investigative Film: Placebo
Best Animation Film: Hum Chitra Banate Hain
Special Jury Award: The Cinema Travellers
Best Short Fiction Film: Aaba
Best Film on Family Values: Little Magician
Best Direction: Aaba Aiktaay Naa?
Best Cinematography: Kalpvriksha” and Adnyat
Best Audiography: In Return Just A Book
Best Editing: Gudh
Best Music: Leeches
Best Narration/Voice Over: Makino

SPECIAL MENTION
Director Amitabh Parashar for The Eyes of Darkness
Director Ramen Borah and Sibanu Borah for Sikar Aru Sitkar
Director Soumya Sadanandan for Chembai-Descoperire A Mea Unei Legend

BEST WRITING ON CINEMA
Best Book on Cinema: Lata : Sur Gatha by Yatindra Mishra
Best Film Critic: G. Dhananjayan

Most Film Friendly State Award: State of Uttar Pradesh

Special Mention: State of Jharkhand

National Mathematics Day

In India, the day 'December 22' has been declared as the National Mathematics Day. The Declaration was made by Dr Manmohan Singh, then Prime Minister of India. To celebrate birth anniversary of great Indian autodidact Mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan. This year, it will be the 130th birth anniversary of Srinivasa Ramanujan. In 2011, Union Government had declared 22nd December as ‘National Mathematics Day’ to celebrate Ramanujan’s 125th birth anniversary. Government also had declared year 2012 as National Mathematics Year.

Agni 5

Surface-to-Surface nuclear capable ballistic missile 'Agni-5' has been successfully launched by India. The state-of-the-art surface-to-surface missile was test fired successfully from the launch complex 4 of the Integrated Test Range from the Abdul Kalam Wheeler Island off Odisha coast. It was the fourth developmental and second canisterised trial of the missile.

 About Agni-5 missile:

Agni 5 is three-stage solid propellant ICBM indigenously developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation(DRDO).

Unlike other missiles of Agni series, Agni-5 is the most advanced having new technologies incorporated with it in terms of navigation and guidance, warhead and engine.

It is about 17 metre long, 2 metre wide and has launch weight of around 50 tonnes. It is capable of striking a target more than 5,000 kilometres with nuclear warhead carrying capacity of more than 1 tonne.

Thus, it can hit most northern parts of China and other parts of Asia, Europe and Africa. It has not yet inducted into the Services.

It carries Multiple Independently Targetable Re-entry Vehicles (MIRV) payloads. A single MIRV equipped missile that can deliver multiple warheads at different targets.

It is also incorporates advanced technologies involving ring laser gyroscope and accelerometer for navigation and guidance.

Payment of wages(Amendment) Act 2017

Industrial units and other establishments have to pay wages either through cheques or by electronically transferring into workers' bank accounts, as per a new law passed by  President Pranab Mukherjee. It will allow industries to pay wages to workers earning up to Rs. 18,000 per month, without taking their explicit consent as required under present Act. The new law has amended the Payment of Wages Act, 1936, which mandated payment of all wages either in coin or currency notes, or both. Before introduction of a bill to amend the 1936 Act on February 3, an Ordinance was promulgated by the President on December 28, 2016. The Bill was passed in Lok Sabha on February 7 and in Rajya Sabha on February 8.

Jnanpith 2016

Eminent modern Bengali poet Shankha Ghosh was chosen for the prestigious Jnanpith Award for the year 2016. He is the 52nd recipient of Jnanpith Award. He is sixth Bengali litterateur to bag this prestigious literary award after Tarasankar Bandyopadhyay (1966), Bishnu Dey (1971), Ashapoorna Devi (1976), Subhash Mukhopadhyay (1991) and Mahasweta Devi (1966).

About Jnanpith Award:

 Jnanpith Award is India’s highest literary honour. Its name has been taken from Sanskrit words Jnana and Pitha which means knowledge-seat.

It was instituted in 1961 by Bharatiya Jnanpith trust founded by the Sahu Shanti Prasad Jain family that owns the Times of India newspaper group.

The award carries cash prize of 11 lakh rupees, a citation plaque and a bronze replica of Saraswati, the Hindu goddess of knowledge and wisdom

Swachh Swasth Sarvatra

To strengthen health centres in open defecation-free (ODF) blocks Union Govenment has launched Swachh Swasth Sarvatra. The objective of this initiative is to strengthen community health centres in 708 ODF blocks across the country to enable them to achieve higher levels of cleanliness and hygiene. It is a part of the Union Government’s flagship Swachh Bharat Mission and is focused on the twin objectives of constructing toilets and enabling behavioral change. It is joint initiative of Ministry of Health and Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation to achieve better health outcomes through improved sanitation and increase awareness on healthy lifestyles. Apart from launching Swachh Swasth Sarvatra initative, J P Nadda,Union Health Minister and Prakash Javadekar,Union Minister of Human Resource Development also releasd the Operational Guidelines of Swachh Swasth Sarvatra along with the Swasth Bacche Swasth Bharat Booklet. The Booklet is prepared by Central Health Education Bureau(CHEB). It aims at educating the children and youth about healthy living habits and activities.

RBI Monetary policy

Urjit Patel- RBI Governor

The Reserve Bank of India today kept the repo rate(rate at which RBI loans short term funds to banks) unchanged at 6.25 percent and hiked the reverse repo rate(rate at which RBI borrows from banks) by 25 basis points to 6 percent. Inflation seen averaging 4.5 percent in the first half of this year and 5 percent in the second half. This is above the 4 percent which the RBI is targeting. Economy estimated to grow 7.4 percent this year, versus an estimated 6.7 percent last year. The RBI will shortly come out with a comprehensive plan to fix the bad loan problem, and also revive credit growth. At higher reverse repo, the central bank would suck cash from the system to control demand and cool prices. It will also encourage banks to park excess funds(they got from the deposit of outlawed old Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes between November 8 and December 30, 2016.) with the RBI that will fetch higher returns.

Current rates:

Policy rates

Repo rate                                         6.25%

Reverse repo rate                             6.00%

Marginal Standing Facility(MSF)   6.50%

Bank Rate                                        6.50%

Reserve ratios

Cash Reserve Ratio(CRR)                    4.00%

Statutory Liquidity  ratio(SLR)           20.50%

B N Srikrishna committee for institutionalisation of arbitration mechanism in India

Union Govenment has costituted a High-Level Committee(HLC) to review institutionalisation of arbitration mechanism in India. The committee will be headed by Justice B N Srikrishna, the retired Judge of Supreme Court.It will also examine specific issues and prepare roadmap required to make “India a robust centre for international and domestic arbitration. The committee will review the resources,facilities,funding and manpower of existing  Alternative Dispute Resolution(ADR) institutions. Review working of the institutions that is funded by the Union Government arbitration purposes. The committee have to submit its report within a period of 90-days. 

BHIM launched

PM Narendra Modi has launched a mobile app Bharat Interface for Mobile (BHIM) which is a Unified Payment Intreface(UPI) application. Launch was held at the Digi Dhan Mela held in Talkatora stadium, New Delhi. It is Aadhaar-based payments app which easily allows transferring money or making a payment from your bank account using only phone number. It can work even on basic phones as it supports USSD payments. It has mobile wallet facility in which money can be loaded. Using it anyone can directly connect their phone to bank account like a debit card.

Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana

The government  met the 1.5 crore target for LPG connections to be added in this financial year under the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) and so has increased LPG coverage across the country to 70 per cent as of December 1. Since the launch of the PMUY, the LPG coverage across the country has increased to 70% as of December 1, 2016 from earlier 61% as of January 1, 2016. Top five States with highest number of LPG connections are: Uttar Pradesh (46 lakh), West Bengal (19 lakh), Bihar (19 lakh), Madhya Pradesh (17 lakh) and Rajasthan (14 lakh). These states constitute nearly 75% of the total connections released.The households belonging to SC/ST constitute the large chunk of beneficiaries of this scheme with 35% of the connections being released to them.

About Pradhan Manthri Ujjwala Yojana(PMUY):

The Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana is a welfare program of the government of India, launched by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2016. The stated objective of the program is providing 50,000,000 LPG connections to women from families below the poverty line. As of 3 April 2017, twenty million LPG connections had been completed. It is guided by a strong commitment to bring in changes in lives of poor women. The tagline of scheme is Swachh Indhan, Behtar Jeevan. It seeks to empower women and protect their health by shifting them from traditional cooking based on unclean cooking fuels or fossil fuels to clean cooking gas.

End of cards is near Amitabh Kant

Nowadays,all transactions are done digitally through credit and debit cards. Digital transactions and  ATMs were set to disappear,said by Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant. Digital transaction through cards would disappear around by three to four years and it would move to mobile wallet and biometric modes. “Technology will be a key driver of India’s growth,” Kant said . “India believes in globalisation and it will continue to globalise and shall never talk of protectionism. As a result, it will emerge as an economy that would attract investments and growth and make India a hub of economic engagements par excellence". "Around 1500 companies have located their innovation centres in Hyderabad and Bangalore. India is the centre of frugal engineering"said Amitabh Kant.

‘Kalidas Samman’ 2015-16

Renowned theatre personality and Padma Shri, Prof Raj Bisaria has selected for the prestigious ‘Kalidas Samman’ national award for 2015-16. He will be bestowed with the prestigious award for achievement in theatre in a ceremony to be held in Ujjain.

About Award:

It is an annual award constituted by Madhya Pradesh in 1980. It is bestowed upon personalities in the four fields of classical music, classical dance, theatre and arts. Some of the previous recipients are Pandit Ravi Shankar, MF Husain, Pandit Jasraj, Shambhu Mitra, Habib Tanvir, Ebrahim Alkazi etc.

First on-site huamanoid (robot) in India

First on-site huamanoid (robot) in India, was launched by the Kumbakonam-based City Union Bank (CUB) in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. Humanoid named 'Lakshmi' is India’s first banking robot.Currently, CUB has readied only one version of huamanoid banker and but is planning to deploy 25-30 robots at key branches by end of year if Lakshmi proves a hit with customers.

Features:

Lakshmi is artificial intelligence powered robot. It can speak English, gesture and engage in a life-like manner in conversations.

The robot can interact with customers on more than 125 subjects including account balance and interest rates on loans.

It will not voice the sensitive financial information like account details rather display it discreetly on its screen.

Smart India Hackathon 2017

World’s largest digital national building initiative “Smart India Hackathon 2017” was inaugrated by Union Human Resource Development Minister Shri Prakash Javadekar. Smart India Hackathon 2017, will enable the HRD ministry to reach out to all technology institutions in India and challenge students to work out innovative solutions to some of the difficult problems faced by the nation.

25 different ministries and government departments have come together for supporting this massive initiative. Some of the ministries and departments participating in the Hackathon include Railways, External Affairs, Defence, Civil Aviation, Indian Space Research Organization, Department of Atomic Energy, etc. The HRD minister announced the first set of 250 problem statements that was received from various ministries. The students will be required to solve these problem statements during the Hackathon that will take place in early 2017.

‘Smart India Hackathon 2017’

 The Smart India Hackathon 2017 will focus on finding digital solutions to problems in the areas concerning: power, education, health, water, finance, agriculture, energy, urban & rural development, aviation & shipping, transport, sanitation, sports, law & justice, skill development & entrepreneurship, defence, textiles, tourism, etc. This initiative will help in harnessing the creativity and skills among youth for nation-building.

Pradhan Mantri Yuva Yojana

To boost up an ecosystem of entrepreneurship for youngsters,Union Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship has launched of Pradhan Mantri Yuva Yojana (PMYY).

Highlights:

The scheme was launched for the time period of 5 years(2016-17 to 2020-21) with a project cost of 499.94 crore rupees.

It will offer entrepreneurship and training to  7 lakhs students in 5 years through 3050 institutes.

It will also offer easy access to information and mentor network,credit and advocacy to built a     way-out for the youngsters

Institutes will carry out the training through Massive Open Online Courses(MOOCs).

New CERSAI chief

The Union Government has appointed Praveen Kumar Sharma as the Central Registrar (CR), Managing Director (MD) and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Central Registry of Securitisation Asset Reconstruction and Security Interest of India (CERSAI). The Appointments Committeee of Cabinet has approved his appointment for 3 years. Prior to this appointment sharma was General Manager,State Bank of India.

About CERSAI:

CERSAI is a central online security interest registry of India. It is a Government company licensed under section 25 of the Companies Act, 1956. Its headquarters is in New Delhi.

It was primarily created to check frauds in lending against equitable mortgages, in which people would take multiple loans on the same asset from different banks.

CERSAI provides the platform for filing registrations of transactions of securitization, asset reconstruction and security interest by the banks and financial institutions.

Any person can also search and inspect the records maintained by the registry on payment of prescribed fees.

BTP Amendment Act

Benami Transactions (Prohibition) Amendment Act, 2016 (BTP Amendment Act), will come into force from 1st November 2016, notified by Income Tax Department. This Act is designed to curb black money. The new law amended the Benami Transactions Act, 1988 and renamed as the Prohibition of Benami Property Transactions (PBPT) Act, 1988. The Act defines benami transactions and also provides imprisonment upto seven years and fine for violation of the Act. The official notification says,‘The PBPT Act prohibits recovery of the property held benami from benamidar by the real owner. Properties held benami are liable for confiscation by the government without payment of compensation'.

National Data Registry (NDR)

The Union Government is developing a National Data Registry (NDR) to compile and serve metadata of different agencies and re-engineer the feature data sets for improving their use. The registry will also serve as a source of authenticated information. The Department of Science and Technology (DST) will be the nodal coordinating agency of the NDR. NDR will require all agencies state, private and academic, collecting and storing geospatial data to provide details of data they store.

 Purpose:

The registry aims to create a catalogue that will prevent duplication of data sets and to help users locate the right agencies to source information.

It will be a ‘meta-data’ repository to only inform about the nature of the data a service provider has. It is not actually be a source of geospatial data.

It can operate across a wide range of formats and can source information automatically.

Thus, Survey of India can vet it for accuracy and see whether it contains information that contravenes national security.

Brand Ambassador for Swachh Rail Mission of Indian Railway

Founder of Sulabh International Dr. Bindeshwar Pathak,appointed as a Brand Ambassador for Swachh Rail Mission of Indian Railway. Indian Railways had tied up with Sulabh International to clean some important railway stations across the country as part of the mission with an aim to promote cleanliness at rail premises. As a pilot project, Sulabh International had started cleaning and maintenance of five important railway stations Gorakhpur, Old Delhi, Jaipur, Ahmedabad and Gwalior from September 2016.

Sulabh International: It is a social service organization which works to promote environmental sanitation, human rights, non-conventional sources of energy, waste management and social reforms through education.

SAMPRITI 2016

As part of the ongoing India Bangladesh defence cooperation, a joint military training exercise SAMPRITI 2016 is being conducted at Tangail, Dhaka, Bangladesh from 05 to 18 November 2016. Exercise SAMPRITI is an important bilateral defence cooperation endeavour between India and Bangladesh and will be the sixth edition of the exercise which is hosted alternately by both countries.

The joint exercise SAMPRITI 2016 will simulate a scenario where both nations are working together in a Counter Insurgency and Counter Terrorism environment under the UN Charter. The exercise curriculum is progressively planned where the participants will initially get familiar with each other’s organizational structure and tactical drills. Subsequently, the training will advance to joint tactical exercises wherein the battle drills of both the armies will be practiced. The training will culminate with a final validation exercise in which troops of both armies will jointly practice a Counter Terrorist Operation in a controlled and simulated environment.