MARCH

   MISCELLANEOUS

Ø  India ranks 109th globally in mobile download speeds: Report

Ø  According to Ookla’s Speedtest index, India, the largest consumer of mobile data in the world, ranks 109th when it comes to mobile Internet download speeds. Norway is positioned at the top with an average download speed of 62.07 mbps.

Ø  Belarus beauty wins Miss Supermodel Worldwide 2018 title

Ø  Aleksandra Liashkova from Belarus was crowned Miss Supermodel Worldwide 2018 at a grand finale in Gurugram, Haryana. India’s Shweta Parmar was awarded Miss Congeniality.

Ø  Anushka Sharma & PV Sindhu debut in Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia 2018 list

Ø  Bollywood actress-producer Anushka Sharma and Badminton Ace P V Sindhu had featured in the Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia 2018 list. Anushka, one of Indian film industry’s highest paid actresses, is all of 29. Pakistani singer Momina Mustehsan too found a mention.

Ø  World’s Largest Cruise ship sets sail

Ø  The world’s biggest cruise-liner, “Symphony of the Seas”, has left the shipyard of Saint-Nazaire in France to embark on its maiden voyage in the Mediterranean. It will head to Malaga in Spain and spend its first season in the Mediterranean.

Ø  Vienna named the world’s most liveable city

Ø  The Austrian capital Vienna has been named the world’s best city to live in for the ninth consecutive year. Mercer’s 20th annual Quality of Living survey compared 231 major metropolises, examining factors such as crime, healthcare, education, public services, recreation, housing and personal freedom. Baghdad remained the worst city to live according to the same survey.

Ø  Canadian mathematician wins Abel Prize

Ø  Canadian mathematician Robert Langlands won the prestigious Abel Prize for developing a programme connecting representation theory to number theory. The prize was established by the Norwegian government in 2002 to honour outstanding scientific work in the field of mathematics.

Ø  Singapore, Paris are world’s costliest cities

Ø  Singapore is the world’s most expensive city for the fifth straight year. According to the latest Worldwide Cost of Living report 2018 by the Economist Intelligence Unit Syrian capital Damascus was ranked as the world’s cheapest city. Paris and Zurich were tied at the second position, followed by Hong Kong and Norway’s capital Oslo. The Indian cities of Bangalore, Chennai and New Delhi and Pakistan’s Karachi featured among the ten cheapest locations surveyed.

Ø  Vietnam’s Nguyen Huong Giang crowned “Miss International Transgender Beauty Queen 2018″

Ø  Vietnam’s Nguyen Huong Giang was crowned “Miss International Queen” in Thailand at one of the world’s top beauty pageants for transgender women. The winner fended off 26 competitors, from countries spanning Mongolia to Mexico, to clinch the coveted crown in the seaside town of Pattaya, where the popular contest has been running since 2004.

Ø  Prakriti to be 1st ITBP Woman Combat Officer

Ø  In another first for women, 25-year-old Prakriti has been inducted as the first direct-entry combat officer in the Indo-Tibetan Border Police. The ITBP is the last of the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) to induct women officers in combat roles after the government first allowed it to enrol them in 2016.

Ø  TCS ranked as the fastest growing IT services brand in 2018

Ø  Leading global IT services organisation, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) was named as the fastest growing IT services brand in the world in an assessment done by leading brand valuation firm, Brand Finance. This puts TCS in a unique group of businesses with a brand valuation over USD 10 billion mark.

Ø  Mumbai ranks 47th on global ‘city wealth index’: Report

Ø  According to the independent global property consultancy Knight Frank’s Wealth Report 2018, Mumbai ranked 47th on the “city wealth index” among 314 cities in the world. The “city wealth index” is drawn from four major indicators — wealth, investments, lifestyle and future. Guangzhou, a city in China, tops the list with property prices appreciating by 27.4% in the last one year.

Ø  Paytm’s CEO is the Youngest Billionaire

Ø  Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma (39) is the youngest Indian billionaire. Mr Sharma founded fast-rising mobile wallet Paytm in 2011. He has also created Paytm Mall, an e-commerce business and Paytm Payments Bank. Mr Sharma ranked 1,394th on the list with a fortune of $1.7 billion, is the only Indian billionaire in the under-40 league.

Ø  Mumbai Airport named world’s best for quality service

Ø  Airports Council International (ACI), a trade association of 1,953 airports in 176 countries, announced its annual airport service quality (ASQ) awards and Mumbai (Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport) tied with Delhi (Indira Gandhi International Airport) for the top position among airports handling over 40 million passengers annually. Beijing and Shanghai Pudong have been ranked second.

Ø  Forbes Billionaires List 2018: Amazon’s Bezos Richest, Mukesh Ambani ranked 19

Ø  With a fortune worth $110 billion, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is the world’s richest man and tops a 2018 Forbes Magazine list of billionaires. According to the Forbes, Bezos is the first person to top $100 billion as number one on the Forbes list of the World’s Billionaires. Microsoft founder Bill Gates is second ($90 billion), investment guru Warren Buffet third ($84 billion), Bernard Arnault and family fourth ($72 billion), and Facebook founder-CEO Mark Zuckerberg fifth ($71 billion). Indian industry titan Mukesh Ambani, the chairman of Reliance Industries Limited, is 19th on the list. He’s valued at $40.1 billion.

Ø  99 year-old swims 50m in 56.12 sec

Ø  A 99-year-old Australian swimmer broke the world record for the 100-104 age category in the 50m freestyle. George Corones, who turns 100 in April, completed the 50m freestyle in 56.12 seconds, surpassing the previous record of 1:16.92 set by the late Canadian swimmer Jaring Timmerman in 2009. Corones took up swimming “seriously” when he turned 80.

Ø  India has the third highest number of billionaires in the world: Report

According to Hurun’s Global Rich List 2018, with 31 new Indians on the list and with a total of 131 names, India comes third after China and USA. China with 819 names and USA with 571 are way ahead in terms of number of billionaires. Industrialist Mukesh Ambani remains India’s richest person with a sharp surge of 30 per cent in his net worth to $26 billion, pushing his global rank to 21st on a worldwide rich list topped by Bill Gates. The list ranked 2,694 billionaires from 68 countries and from 2,157 companies in another record-breaking year for the world’s billionaires.