8th and 9th November 2015 Important current affairs

Nov 11, 2015

E-Pathshala, Saransh, Shaala Siddhi Portals launched by Union Government.

Union Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani on 7 November 2015 launched the e-Pathshala, Saaransh and National Programme on School Standards and Evaluation Framework (Shala Siddhi) web portals/ mobile apps.
These portals were launched during the edNEXT, the National Conference on ICT in School Education that was held at New Delhi.

During the Conference, Shala Darpan, MDM-IVRS and Ekta project from Alwar, Rajasthan were also show-cased.

E-Pathshala : is a web portal which hosts educational resources for Students, Teachers, Parents, researchers and educators. It contains textbooks and other e-books as E-Pub 3.0 and Flipbooks in English, Hindi and Urdu.
Shaala Siddhi web portal is a comprehensive instrument for school evaluation which enables the schools to evaluate their performance in more focused and strategic manner. The web-portal will help all schools to assess themselves and the results can be seen by all enabling them to provide feedback.
Saransh is a tool which allows the schools to identify areas of improvement in students, teachers and curriculum to facilitate and implement change.

Nuclear capable surface to surface Agni-IV missile test fired successfully.

It was test fired from wheeler island off the Odisha coast.
SFC is entrusted with the task of handling strategic weapons of the country.
It is 20 meters in length weighs 17 tonnes and carries a pay load of one tone.
With light weight, the missile has two stages of solid propulsion and a payload with re-entry heat shield.
It was developed by DRDO. It is the fourth missile in the series of Agni missiles. It was earlier known as Agni-II prime

What Happened to Netaji ? authored by former journalist Anuj Dhar released.

Book titled What Happened to Netaji? authored by former journalist Anuj Dhar was released October 2015.
The book talks about Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose in form of an unseen holy man of Faizabad in disguise who lived in several parts of Uttar Pradesh from 1050s to 1980s.
The book provides three prominent theories of Bose’s death zeroing in on what has come to be known as the Faizabad angle of the Bose mystery.
The book talks about the controversy surrounding the fate of Subhas Chandra Bose and lights the factual position with regard to the air crash that reportedly killed Netaji in 1945.

Ashok Misra Committee of Eminent Persons (CEP) on JEE submitted its report.

It was constituted by Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) council under the chairmanship of Prof Ashok Misra to suggest reforms to JEE.
A National Testing Service shall be set up by early 2016, mandated to conduct an Aptitude Test, which should test the scientific aptitude and innovative thinking ability.
The Aptitude test may be offered 2 or more times in a year and would be an online test.
The testing shall test the scientific thinking and cannot be gamed through coaching.
Based on this performance, about 4 lakh candidates shall be short-listed for taking the JEE.
The JEE itself will be on the lines of the current JEE (Advanced) and designed to test the knowledge in Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics; and will be conducted by the IITs.
From this, ranks will be issued to 40,000+ students who can seek admission in IITs and NITs based on a common counselling.

Arundhati Bhattacharya of SBI emerged as most powerful woman in Indian Business : Fortune India.

Arundhati Bhattacharya, Chairperson of country’s largest bank SBI, remains the most powerful woman in the Indian business sector, according to Fortune India.
ICICI Bank’s Chanda Kochhar and Shikha Sharma of Axis Bank follow Bhattacharya at the second and third place, respectively.
Meena Ganesh MD and CEO at Portea and Jyoti Deshpande Group MD and CEO at Eros International have made their debuts at 43rd and 50th positions, respectively.

Santoor maestro Pt. Shiv Kumar honored with Kala Shikhar award.

Santoor maestro Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma on 7 November 2015 was honoured with the Aditya Vikram Birla Kala Shikhar Award for lifetime achievement.
The governor of Maharashtra C Vidyasagar Rao presented the award to the 77-year old Santoor player in Mumbai.
On the other hand, Murad Ali Khan (Sarangi) and Satyajit Talwalkar (Tabla) were awarded with the Kala Kiran Awards.
Special Jury Award was given to Shehnai players Sanjeev and Ashwani Shankar.

Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) cleared four FDI proposals worth ₹384 crore including that of pharma firm Lupin.

The proposal of Lupin pertained to grant of ESoPs to non-resident employees of the company amounting to Rs. 331.64 crore.
BF Elbit Advanced Systems’ Rs. 37.8 crore proposal for increasing foreign shareholding from 26 per cent to 49 per cent was also cleared.
Besides, proposals of Eucare Pharmaceuticals and Hanon Systems were cleared by the meeting of FIPB, which is chaired by Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das.

ICC Srinivasan sacked from the post of ICC chairman.

N Srinivasan was today dethroned as the ICC Chairman after the BCCI decided to recall him and nominate its recently-elected President Shashank Manohar as the chief of the world body.
The decision to remove Srinivasan was taken at the BCCI’s 86th Annual General Meeting here today, virtually signalling the end of his hold on Indian cricket.