Shankara Competitive World : Daily GK : 23 Dec 2016

Honours & Awards

The All India Football Federation (AIFF) President Parafuk Patel has nominated "Jeje Lalpekhlua" as the 2016 AIFF Player of the Year.
Jeje will be presented a prize of Rs. 2.5 lakh along with a trophy.
SamitaMalik has been chosen for the 2016 AIFF Awad for Special Recognition awards.
AIFF selected Gurpreet Singh and Uvena Fernandes for the 2016 AIFF Award for special recognition awards.
Pranjal Banerjee has won the 2016 AIFF award for the best Referee.
The 2016 AIFF Award for long-time contribution to Indian Football was given to NIKE.

The Chairman and Managing Director of Air India Ashwani Lohani has announced cash awards of Rs 25,000 and Rs 10,000 for two of its employees Harendra Singh (coach) and Armaan Qureshi (striker).
They are part of the historic Indian hockey team that won the Junior World Cup last week after a gap of 15 years.
Air India also felicitated all-rounder Jayant Yadav (debut cricket Test series against England).

The Additional Chief Secretary and Commissioner of Land Administration of Tamil Nadu Ms. Girija Vaidyanathan (1981-batch IAS officer) has been appointed as the Chief Secretary of the state.
She has replaced P. Rama Mohana Rao.
She will also hold full additional charge of Vigilance Commissioner and Commissioner for Administrative Reforms.

The Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) is planning to start 1900 access points of WiFi hot spots in Assam and 300 new mobile exchanges in the State.
The BSNL will also increase the number of towers from 100 to 200 in Guwahati and 50 to 100 in Silchar.

The Uttar Pradesh cabinet chaired by CM Akhilesh Yadav has passed a resolution to transfer 17 sub-castes in Other Backward Castes (OBCs) into Scheduled Castes (SC) category .
The government has to move another resolution to send this proposal to the Centre for further consideration as the final power for the category change.
The 17 sub-castes which the government wants to be included in the SC category include Kahar, Kashyap, Kewat, Nishad, Bind, Bhar, Prajapati, Rajbhar, Batham, Gaur, Tura, Majhi, Mallah, Kumhar, Dheemar and Machua.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has expressed confidence that a prototype vaccine for Ebola may be 100% effective in protecting against Ebola.
The vaccine could become available in 2018 under a fast-track approval process.
Nearly 6,000 people in Guinea were given the test vaccine last year, and not one of the 6,000 contracted the disease.
According to AFP, these results strongly suggests that the vaccine could be up to 100% effective.
The Ebola virus erupted periodically mainly across west and east Africa in early 2014 (Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone).

Note:

Ebola virus disease (EVD) is a viral hemorrhagic fever of humans and other primates caused by ebolaviruses.
It causes violent and painful symptoms, including vomiting, diarrhoea, organ failure and internal bleeding.

Indian tennis legend Mahesh Shrinivas Bhupathi has been named the new non-playing captain of the Davis Cup tennis team.
He will replace Anand Amritraj as non-playing captain.
He will take charge after the Asia/Oceania zone Group One home tie against New Zealand(3rd - 5th February).
Bhupathi is also the founder of International Premier Tennis League.

The Maharashtra has won the 'team title' in the women's 50-meter rifle prone event at the 60th National Shooting Championships in Pune.
Maharashtra team comprised of former world champion Tejaswini Sawant, Dipali Deshpande and Shweta Dvivedi.
Railways team of Tejasvini Mule, Ruchira Lawand and Jayashri Das have got the Silver.

Indian Women's Under-18 team have clinched the bronze medal in the 4th Women's Under-18 Asia Cup hockey tournament in Bangkok.
Hockey India announced cash rewards of 1 lakh rupees for each player and Rs. 50,000 for each of the support staff.