Important Current Affairs 18th May 2016

Han Kang Wins Man Booker Prize

• South Korean author Han Kang won the prestigious Man Booker International Prize on Monday for The Vegetarian.
• The Vegetarian novel is about a woman who gives up eating meat.
• The international edition of Britain’s Man Booker Prize has been awarded every two years since 2005.
• The Prize celebrates non-English language books translated and published in the United Kingdom.

IIT Student Wins Top Materials Award

• Nandini Bhandaru ,a PhD student at IIT-Kharagpur, has bagged the European Materials Research Society’s Young Scientist Award.
• She was given award or her contribution to materials science.
• Her area of research is nano-fabrication, including soft-lithography.
• Nano-fabrication and nano-patterning entail developing methods to manufacture nano-materials.

Driverless Metro Train on Trial Run

• Union Minister Venkaiah Naidu & Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal flagged off the trial run of Delhi Metro’s new driverless trains.
• This train equipped to travel on Unattended Train Operations mode.
• The new trains will undergo rigorous trials to ensure that they are ready for smooth operations.
• Initially,train operators will run them for around a year before completely switching to unmanned operations.

Largest Rooftop Solar Plant inaugurated

• Punjab, CM Parkash Singh Badal inaugurated the World’s largest Single Rooftop Solar Power Plant with at Beas,in Amritsar.
• This is spread over 82 acres of rooftop in single campus on multiple roofs with installed capacity of 19.5 MW.
• The project was installed by the Radha Soami Satsang Beas Educational & Environmental Society with technical collaboration of Punjab Energy Development Agency.

Five Associate Banks to Merge with SBI

• State Bank of India (SBI) has kick-started the process of merging its five associate banks with itself at one go.
• The merger is expected to be completed by the end of the current financial year.
• The merged entity will have one-fourth of the deposit and loan market.
• SBI’s market share will increase from 17% to 22.5-23 %,.
• The total business of the merged entity will be over Rs. 35 lakh crore.

Apple to Set Up Development Accelerator

• Apple announced a new initiative to support engineering talent & accelerate growth in India’s iOS developer community.
• It will establish a Design & Development Accelerator in Bengaluru.
• This initiative will provide additional support for the developers who make applications for Apple’s iOS operating system.
• Apple’s team will work to inspire & instruct developers on best practices.

Govt opens Tatkal Window for Patents

• Startups will now be able to register patents in India faster & at much lower costs under a ‘tatkal (instant)’ option offered under the latest amended patent rules.
• The amended rules seek to cut the time period for grant of patents to two & a half years immediately & one and a half years by March 2018.
• These benefits will also be available to entities that file their first application in India.

Five-Member Panel to Review FRBM Act

• The Centre has constituted a 5 Member Committee to review & give recommendations on the Fiscal Responsibility & Budget Management, FRBM act..
• The Committee will be headed by former Revenue & Expenditure Secretary N.K. Singh.
• It will examine the need for having a fiscal deficit range instead of a fixed target.
• Other members are Sumit Bose, Arvind Subramanian,Urijit Patel & Rathin Roy.

IT Dept Launches ‘e-nivaran’

• The Income Tax department has launched a special electronic grievance redressal system called e-nivaran.
• The new system is called unified grievance management system & is acronymed ‘e-nivaran’.
• It aims to fast track taxpayer grievances & ensure early resolution of their complaints.
• The system keeps tracking the grievance till it reaches its logical conclusion for final resolution.

India Test Fires Prithvi-II Missile

• India successfully test fired its Prithvi-II missile from the Chandipur, off Odisha coast.
• The trial of the surface-to-surface missile was carried out from a launch complex-3 of the Integrated Test Range.
• With a strike range of 350 km,the Prithvi-II is capable of carrying 500 kg to 1,000 kg of warheads.
• It uses advanced inertial guidance system with maneuvering trajectory to hit its target.