1st March to 15 th March AWAR DS & HONOURS Kerala Tourism bagged a silver prize in the world’s leading travel and trade event, Golden Gate awards at the Internationale Tourismus-Börse Berlin (ITB-Berlin) – 2015 for ” The great Backwaters” Campaign. The Das Golden Stadttor (Golden Gate) awards recognised Kerala tourism as the silver prize winner in the multimedia campaign category. The Golden Gate award is considered the most prestigious award in tourism communication and is being presented in the ITB-Berlin for the last 14 years. The campaign had also won the Golden Gate Gold Prize in print category in ITB -Berlin, the last year. This year its extensive aerial coverage of the backwaters as a single destination was highly acclaimed. The campaign was conceptualised by Kerala Tourism’s creative and marketing agency Stark Communications. Three South Asian women were selected for the 2015 prestigious International Women of Courage Award by the US Secretary of State. Niloofar Rahmani (Afghanistan) is a Captain from Afghan Air Force, Nadia Sharmeen (Bangladesh) is a Journalist and women’s rights activist and Tabassum Adnan (Pakistan) is the founder of Khwendo Jirga was selected for the award. They were awarded for demonstrating exceptional courage and leadership in advocating for peace, justice, human rights and gender equality. The outgoing Namibian President Hifikepunye Pohamba won the world's most valuable individual award, the Mo Ibrahim prize for African leadership. The $5m (£3.2m) award is given each year to an elected leader who governed well, raised living standards and then left office. Mr. Pohamba, a former rebel who fought for his country's independence, has served two terms as Namibian president. He was first elected in 2004, and again in 2009. Pancreatic cancer researcher Professor Minoti Apte OAM has been named the 2015 NSW (New South Wales) Woman of the Year for her contributions to medical research, tertiary education and the Indian community. Based at the Ingham Institute for Applied Medical Research, Professor Apte is director of the Pancreatic Research Group and is an acknowledged world-leader in alcohol-induced pancreatic injury and pancreatic cancer. She was the first in the world to develop a method to isolate pancreatic stellate cells, a technique which provided a much needed research tool for studying the path that pancreatic fibrosis (scarring of the pancreas) takes. Former Union Minister and senior Congress leader M. Veerappa Moily has been selected for the prestigious Saraswati Samman for 2014 for his Kannada work. Divided into five volumes, the poem ‘Ramayana Mahanveshanam’ was first published in 2007 in Kannada and has been translated into English, Hindi, Telugu and Tamil. Instituted by the K.K. Birla Foundation in 1991, the award is given annually for outstanding literary work in any Indian language. The award carries a purse of Rs. 10 lakh, citation and a plaque. In the poem, Moily tried to explore the ‘Ramarajya’ or the true principle of the ‘ideal State’ from a secular and modern point of view. President of India Mr. Pranab Mukherjee, awarded Stree Shakti Puraskar 2014 to six illustrious women on International Women’s Day for their distinguished services for the upliftment of women. The award was given in six categories named after eminent women personalities in the Indian history. Awardees of Stree Shakti Puraskar 2014 are:- Rani Gaidinliu Zeliang Award: Sister Mariola (Rajasthan). Rani Lakshmibai Award: Seema Prakash (Madhya Pradesh). Rani Rudramma Devi Award: Astha Sansthan- NGO (Rajasthan). Mata Jijabai Award: Chandraprabha Bokey (Maharashtra). Kannagi Award: P. Bhanumati (Kerala). Devi Ahilyabai Holkar Award: Anay Rahit Zindagi- NGO (Goa). BUSINESS & CORPORATE Aditya Birla Retail, part of the $40-billion Aditya Birla Group, announced to take over Total hypermarkets owned by Jubilant Retail in a tuck-in acquisition deal. The deal would see the diversified Jubilant Bhartia Group making a quiet exit from hypermarket retailing, which it entered a decade ago. Total is likely to be merged with Aditya Birla Retail's hypermarket and supermarket brand More. Social networking giant Facebook embraced e-commerce after it acquired shopping search engine “TheFind”, signalling its aspirations in two of the Internet's biggest moneymakers: search and e-commerce. Both Facebook and TheFind cast the acquisition as a way to lift the digital advertising business of Facebook, which with $12.6 billion in annual ad sales last year, is unquestionably a dominant player in the industry. Indian e-commerce major Flipkart acquired Bangalore-based global mobile network AdIQuity for an undisclosed amount. It’s a mobile ad network enabling app developers and mobile publishers earn revenue from their mobile inventory. AdIQuity also facilitates ad agencies, ad networks, DSPs and other media buyers to acquire global quality mobile traffic and to leverage the opportunities presented in the rapidly growing mobile ads space. Chinese telecom equipment maker Huawei launched its first smartwatch, a round-faced device that works with Android phones, joining a crowded market weeks before the introduction of the highly anticipated Apple Watch. Taxi service aggregator Ola Cabs acquired its rival TaxiForSure in a cash and equity deal worth $200 million. With this deal, Ola has further deepened its footprint with TaxiForSure's operator-led model. Reliance Infrastructure, one of the several companies owned by India’s leading industrialist Anil Ambani, has acquired 44 per cent stake in Pipavav Defence and Offshore Engineering Company Ltd. to manufacture warships, submarines and even aircraft carriers in India along with civil application structures like oil rigs and platforms. Quick service restaurant chain Subway opened an all-women operated outlet to mark International Women’s day on March 8. With the new outlet opening in suburban Andheri, the Connecticut-based company’s store count has now reached 500 in India. Subway, which entered India in 2001, operates in 70 cities across the country and has plans to take its total number of stores to 1,000 by 2018. It is targeting tier II, tier III cities to fuel its growth plans. Sun Pharmaceutical, the country’s largest drugmaker by sales, announced to buy GlaxoSmithKline’s opiate business in Australia to strengthen its pain management portfolio. The business consists of analgesics made from raw materials found in opium poppy plants and includes two manufacturing sites in Tasmania and Victoria. The company did not disclose the financial details of the deal. The transaction, subject to requisite regulatory and other approvals, is expected to close by August 2015. Union Ministry of Shipping signed an agreement with Toyota for export of automobile units. The export of automobile units will be done through Kamarajar Port Limited (KPL). The Agreement is for a period of 10 years. Walmart India has appointed Ashwin Mittal as chief operating officer and Javier Rojo as real estate and business development head. COMMITTEES / SCHEMES / POLICIES Maharashtra Government launched ‘Bhagyashree’ scheme in place of the Sukanya scheme which caters to girls from Below Poverty Line (BPL) families. Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Bollywood actress Bhagyashree, the brand ambassador of the scheme, were present at the launch. As per the Sukanya scheme, the state government was supposed to deposit an amount of Rs 21,200 in bank for a girl child born in a BPL family. The scheme was aimed at providing Rs 1 lakh on maturity after the girl completes 18 years of age. The then Congress—NCP government had launched the ambitious welfare scheme in 2013 to encourage education among girls from economically—weak backgrounds. The ‘Bhagyashree’ scheme would be linked to the Centre’s ‘Beti Bachao Beti Padhao’ scheme. Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar launched a scheme for girl child - Aapki Beti Humari Beti. The scheme was launched with an aim to combat the problem of declining child sex ratio in the state. Under the scheme, the first girl child born on or after 22 January 2015 in Schedule Caste (SC) and Below Poverty Line (BPL) families will be eligible to receive 21000 rupees. The second girl child born on or after 22 January 2015 of all families will also receive the same amount. Families where twin girls or multiple girls are born will also get 21000 rupees per girl child. The Scheme will be implemented in both rural and urban areas of the state covering first-born girl child of SC and BPL families all second girl child born on or after 22 January 2015 of all families. Parliament gave nod to a Bill seeking to pave the way for plying of e-rickshaws on the roads of the National Capital Region, with the government considering a proposal to provide credit to buy these battery-operated vehicles. The Rajya Sabha passed the Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Bill, 2015 to amend the 1988 Act by a voice vote. E-rickshaws or battery-operated three-wheeler vehicles had gone off roads after Delhi high court had banned their plying in July last year on safety concerns. On January 7, President Pranab Mukherjee had promulgated an Ordinance as the bill to regularise e-rickshaws, passed by the Lok Sabha on 18 December, had got stuck in Rajya Sabha. The government in October last had notified the rules for plying of e-rickshaws, making driver’s licence mandatory for operating them and limiting their maximum speed to 25 kmph. Parliament passed a bill to amend the Citizenship Act to remove disparity between Persons of Indian Origin (PIO) and Overseas Citizens of India (OCI) cardholders. The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill 2015 was one of the six bills on which ordinances had been promulgated by the ruling NDA government. The Bill merges Person of Indian Origin (PIO) and Overseas Citizenship of India (OCI) schemes. It also adds that the Union government may notify that Persons of Indian Origin (PIO) cardholders shall be considered to be Overseas Citizen of India card holder.