Tnpsc Current Affairs In Tamil 21st March 2017 

1] Vodafone, Idea merge to create India’s largest, world’s 2nd largest telecom company

• Kumar Mangalam Birla-led telecommunications major Idea Cellular has agreed to merge with the Vodafone India,  Indian unit of the UK headquartered Vodafone Plc.
• The blockbuster merger will create world’s second largest (after China Mobile) and India’s largest telecom company by overtaking Bharti Airtel Ltd.

2] India ranks 122 in 2017 World Happiness Report

• India ranked at 122 out of 155 countries in the World Happiness Report 2017 published by the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network on the eve of International Day of Happiness (20 March).
• Key Highlights of report 10 Happiest Countries: Norway (1), Denmark (2), Iceland (3), Switzerland (4), Finland (5), Netherlands (6), Canada (7), New Zealand (8), Australia (9) and Sweden (10).
• 5 Saddest Countries: Rwanda (151), Syria (152), Tanzania (153), Burundi (154) and Central African Republic (155).

3] Uttarakhand HC recognise Ganga and Yamuna Rivers as living entity

• The Uttarakhand High Court has recognized the Ganga and Yamuna Rivers as so-called living entities. It is for the first time any court in India has recognized a non-human as a living entity.
• The two rivers are sacred for the Hindus, sustain millions of people in the country but have seen years of damage at the hands of humans.
• The HC Division Bench comprising Justice Alok Singh and Justice Rajiv Sharma gave a landmark judgment while hearing a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) petition filed by one Mohammad Salim in 2014.

4] Union Cabinet approves four GST Bills

These four Bills are :-

• The Central Goods and Services Tax Bill, 2017 (CGST Bill): It makes provisions for levy and collection of tax on intra-state supply of goods or services for both by the Union Government.
• The Integrated Goods and Services Tax Bill, 2017 (IGST Bill): It makes provisions for levy and collection of tax on inter-state supply of goods or services or both by the Union Government.
• The Union Territory Goods and Services Tax Bill, 2017 (UTGST Bill): It makes provisions for levy on collection of tax on intra-UT supply of goods and services in the UTs without legislature.
• The Goods and Services Tax (Compensation to the States) Bill 2017 (The Compensation Bill): It provides for compensation to states for loss of revenue arising on account of implementation of the GST for a period of five years as per section 18 of the Constitution (One Hundred and First Amendment) Act, 2016.

5] India’s first sign language dictionary to come up soon: Government

• The Union Government will soon launch country’s first-of-its-kind Indian Sign Language (ISL) dictionary which aims to bring uniformity in sign languages used by hearing and speech impaired people.
• It is being developed in both print and video format by the Indian Sign Language Research and Training Centre (ISLRTC).  It will give an uniform language to 50 lakh hearing and 20 lakh speech impaired people in the country.

6] Scientists discover five new sub-atomic particles at CERN

• Scientists using Large Hadron Collider accelerator (LHC) at CERN (European Organisation for Nuclear Research) have discovered a new system of five particles all in a single analysis.
• This discovery is unique as observing five new states all at once is very rare. According to the standard convention, these particle states were named Oc(3000)0, Oc(3050)0, Oc(3066)0, Oc(3090)0 b Oc(3119)0.
• The numbers indicate their masses in megaelectronvolts (MeV), measured by LHCb experiment, one of seven particle physics detector experiments collecting data at LHC, world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator.

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