UP DATED CURRENT AFFAIRS APRIL/15/2015

 UP DATED CURRENT AFFAIRS APRIL/15/2015

• Border Security Force launches tele-medicine network for troops
  Border Security Force (BSF) the primary Border Guarding police force of India launches tele-medicine network for troops to address medical and health-related problems of its troops deployed in far-flung frontier areas and difficult regions
  • The tele-medicine facility will be operated and hosted from the Kadamtala-based composite hospital of the force in Siliguri in West Bengal
  • Full-time team of doctors, would have links through satellite phones and the VSAT platform to the posts of the Border Security Force (BSF) 
  • The project has been launched keeping in mind the challenges faced by force personnel on the medical front .
  • The anti-Naxal operations units of the BSF in Chhattisgarh and Odisha will also be linked with the same facility
  
  

  
  
• US President Barack Obama annonuces key post for Indian- American Shamina Singh
  President Barack Obama named Indian-American Shamina Singh as member of the Board of Directors of the Corporation for National and Community Service for a term expiring in October 2019.
  • Shamina Singh, has been executive director of the MasterCard Centre for Inclusive Growth since December 2013, where she expanded Master card's bussiness capabilities to digitise social subsidy programmes in over 40 countries.
  • Before joining MasterCard, Ms Singh led government and public affairs for Nike and spent five years with Citigroup's Global Community Development Group.
  • She is a Young Global Leader and Member of the Global Agenda Council on India with the World Economic Forum
  Education:-
  Ms Singh has a graduate degree in public policy from the Lyndon B Johnson School for Public Affairs at the University of Texas, Austin
  She has completed executive programmes at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, Yale's Jackson Institute for Diplomacy and the India School of Business.
  
  
• Zomato acquires data firm MaplePOS launches Zomato Base
  Zomato an online restaurant Guide acquired a 4 year old Delhi based MapleGraph that built MaplePOS, a cloud-based point of sale product for restaurants
  • Zomato, which was launched in India in 2008, is now present in 20 countries including the US, UK, Canada, Ireland and Italy, and lists nearly 400,000 restaurants across these markets
  •  After acquiring data firm MaplePOS Zomato has already renamed the MaplePOS product to 'Zomato Base'
  About MaplePOS:-
  Founded in 2011 by Arun Tangri, Varun Tangri, and Abhishek Rohilla, MapleGraph offers software to manage menus, inventory, recipes, electronic receipts MaplePos offers restaurants features such as menu and inventory management, and has a built-in payment solution to accept debit and credit card payments.
  
  
• Ministry of Water Resources Costituted Task Force on Interlinking of Rivers
  Ministry of Water Resources, River Development & Ganga Rejuvenation has constituted a ‘Task Force’ for interlinking of rivers which will constitute senior officials to look in to the issue relating to Interlinking of Rivers (ILR) in the country.The Task Force would be chaired by Shri. BN Navalawala  former Secretary to Govt. of India, in Ministry of water Resources 
  Core objectives of The Task Force:- 
  • The task force would facilitate "interlinking of intra-state and intra-basin rivers also along with that of inter-state and inter-basin links"
  • Task force would device suitable mechanisms to bring a speedy consensus amongst the states
  • The Task Force would also provide guidance in respect of economic viability, socio-economic, environmental impacts and preparation of resettlement plans.
  
  
• MHA renames visa-on-arrival scheme to e-tourist visa
  The “Tourist Visa on Arrival-Electronic Travel Authorization (TvoA-ETA)” which Was launched last year to facilitate short duration international travellers from as many as 44 countries has now been renamed “e-Tourist Visa” to clarify that it is not an visa on-arrival scheme as previously foreign tourists were misled by scheme's name and they were presuming that they would be granted visa on arrival upon landing
  Since the launch of the scheme, one lakh ten thousand (1,10,000) Visas have been issued by Government under this scheme. 
• Turkey launched construction of its first nuclear power plant
  Turkey launched construction of its first nuclear power plant at Akkuyu which is hoped to open new era of greater energy self-sufficiency in Turkey.It is a $20 billion project and has been highly controversial for enviornmental cause.It is built under Russia and Turkey nuclear agreement that was signed in May 2010
  
  
  • Turkey had partnered Russian state corporation Rosatom to build the nuclear power plant, in Akkuyu
  • Akkuyu is located in the province of Mersin along the Mediterranean Sea
  • It is first of the three nuclear power plant proposed to be built
  • The second nuclear power plant is proposed to be built at Sinop in northern Turkeyunder the agreement signed between Turkey and Japan