DAILY UPDATES 21ST FEB 2015

1. PDP, BJP finalise deal on J&K government formation

i. BJP and PDP agreed on forming the government in Jammu and Kashmir, both the parties confirmed that the two have finalized the deal.

ii. Sources said the status quo is likely to continue on Article 370 and there will be no re-looking on the controverial Armed Forces Special Powers Act as of now.

iii. PDP will have chief minister's post for full term and BJP deputy chief minister's post which is expected to be given to state BJP leader Nirmal Singh.

iv. PDP, has 28 MLAs and BJP has 25 MLAs after results for the state Assembly were declared on December 23.  

2. Tributes paid to senior CPI leader Govind Pansare 

i. Tributes poured in for veteran Communist leader Govind Pansare who succumbed to bullet injuries.

ii. All the leaders from around the country condemned this cowardly act and shown condolences to the social worker.

3. In a first, women join Sarang team

i. For the first time, two women are part of the Sarang team of the Indian Air Force, a show-stopping helicopter-formation team that is performing at the Aero India show.

ii. In a major policy shift in 2010, the IAF allowed women pilots to fly twin-engine medium to heavy-lift helicopters.

iii. Deepika Misra is the Squadron Leader and Sandeep Singh an engineering officer, is the Flight Lieutenant.

4. State Bank of India to finance small tea growers in NE

i. State Bank of India(SBI) will provide finance totaling Rs 100 crore benefiting 3,000 small tea growers in the North East.

ii. Finance will be provided to tea growers who have proper basic documents of their existing garden as per Tea Board of India norms.

iii. The benefit is not only for Assam, but also for new tea garden growing states such as Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Meghalaya which will also be covered under a similar scheme .

5. Tapan Misra appointed as Chief of ISRO’s Space Application Centre

i. Eminent scientist Tapan Misra has been appointed the Chief of ISRO’s Space Applications Centre (SAC), Ahmedabad Gujarat.

ii. He will succeed A S Kiran Kumar, who was appointed as the Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) in January 2015.

iii. He was awarded Hari Om Ashram Prerit Vikram Sarabhai research Award (2004), ISRO Merit award (2008), Sir JC Bose National Talent Search (JBNSTS) Scholarship (1981).

iv. He has 2 granted patents, 6 pending patents, 5 copyrights and many research papers to his credit.

6. India signs loan agreement with ADB to boost power generation capacity in Assam

i. India has signed loan agreement with Asian Development Bank (ADB) for 50 Million dollars to boost power generation capacity in Assam.

ii.  The loan agreement was signed for the second Assam power sector investment programme.

iii. This programme aims to build up the capacity of power generation and distribution systems in state to meet the growing energy demand.

iv. This programme is expected to be completed by 31 December 2018.