Current Affairs - December 23, 2017 Current Affairs

The Union Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has launched Students and MEA Engagement Programme (SAMEEP) to bring Indian foreign policy to students across the country. Under this, MEA officials will talk to students to help them better understand foreign policy. The main purpose of SAMEEP is to take Indian foreign policy and its global engagements to students across the country. Under this programme, all the ministry officers - under-secretary and above - will be asked to go to their hometowns, particularly their alma maters. They will be expected to interact with the students about the way the MEA works, basic elements of its policies, how diplomacy is conducted, and generally give students an idea of what a career in the MEA would look like. The officials will be provided a basic standardised presentation by the ministry, but will be free to add their own improvisations and experiences.

Actor Salman Khan has been ranked number one on the sixth Forbes India Celebrity 100 List. Salman Khan was followed by Shah Rukh Khan and Virat Kohli in the 2nd and 3rd positions respectively. Actor Priyanka Chopra is the only female celebrity to make the top 10 list. The 2017 Forbes India Celebrity 100 List takes into account entertainment-related earnings of celebrities. The period considered was October 1, 2016 to September 30, 2017.

The 7th India International Coffee Festival (IICF) will be hosted by Bengaluru from 16 to 19 January, 2018, at Hotel Lalit Ashok. The India International Coffee Festival (IICF) is organised by India Coffee Trust and Coffee Board of India. This festival will promote coffee tourism in Karnataka. It will conduct an expo, in which latest coffee-related technologies will be exhibited by more than 60 companies. Also, a startup pavilion and golf championship will be arranged as part of this festival.

Indian Government has signed an agreement with Switzerland to allow automatic sharing of tax- related information. This agreement was signed on December 21, 2017 and will be effective from January 1, 2018. Under this agreement, from 2018, India and Switzerland would start collecting data in line with global standards and will exchange it from 2019 onwards.

The 2017 NASSCOM-DSCI excellence award has been awarded to the cyber section of Kolkata Police. The cyber section of Kolkata Police was awarded the NASSCOM-DSCI excellence award at an All India Security Seminar held recently in Gurgaon. Cyber units from various state police forces all over India participated in the All India Security Seminar.

Indian information technology firm, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has been awarded a USD 2.25-billion outsourcing contract from UK-based Nielsen Holdings PLC. Nielsen is a multinational information & measurement company which provides market research, trends and insights about what people watch, listen and buy. Under this contract, Nielsen will purchase services relating to IT, Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), client service knowledge process outsourcing (KPO), management sciences, analytics and financial planning from TCS.

Made-In-India' Surface-to-Air Missile QRSAM was successfully test fired by the Defence Research and Development Organisation from a defense base off Odisha coast. The homegrown canister-based high-speed weapon system can deceive enemy radars making it difficult to be detected, is capable of destroying aerial targets, tanks, bunkers and short-range missiles. The short-range weapon system was fired from a canister mounted on a rotatable truck-based launch platform at the Launching Complex-I (LC-I) of the Integrated Test Range (ITR) at Chandipur-on-sea. It is a highly mobile air defence system which can destroy multiple targets at a distance of 25 km in less than one minute. Considered to be a unique system in its class, the missile is expected to supplement medium-range surface-to-air missile Akash.

Brand Trust Report, India Study 2017 has ranked Patanjali as India's most trusted Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) brand. Patanjali has also been named the most attractive brand. The study was conducted on 11,000 brands in 16 cities of India. Patanjali Ayurved Limited was started in 2006. Its founders are Ramdev and Acharya Balkrishna.

India has announced that, it would set up a Centre of Excellence in Information Technology (CEIT) at Al Azhar University, Egypt. India's Ambassador to Egypt, Sanjay Bhattacharyya, said that, the equipment and course material for CEIT have reached Egypt. Also, the premises are under construction.

Kisan Diwas (Farmer's Day) is observed every year on 23 December to celebrate the birth anniversary of the fifth prime minister. He was the PM of India for a very short tenure starting from 28th of July 1979 until 14th January 1980. A Kisan leader, Late Chaudhary Charan Singh belonged to a peasant family. This was the reason he could relate himself to the issues of the farmers and therefore, he did the best to support them. When he became the Prime Minister of India in July 1979 he made many changes to improve the lives of the farmers. This is also an interesting fact that as the Prime Minister of India, Chaudhary Charan Singh never visited the Lok Sabha. He also served as the Deputy Prime Minister during the reign of Morarji Desai. He introduced Budget 1979 which was designed to accomplish the needs of the farmers in all respects.

World Bank Board of Directors approved a loan worth USD 40 million for a tourism project in Uttar Pradesh (UP). The loan will be granted by International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, IBRD (member institution of World Bank Group). The loan will have a maturity term of 19 years. This project of UP tourism will be executed in a way that optimizes state's existing assets in a sustainable and inclusive manner which will benefit poor residents and local entrepreneurs.

he UN Security Council approved tough new sanctions against North Korea in response to its latest launch of a ballistic missile that Pyongyang says is capable of reaching anywhere on the US mainland.The resolution adopted by the council includes sharply lower limits on North Korea's refined oil imports, the return home of all North Koreans working overseas within 24 months and a crackdown on ships smuggling banned items including coal and oil to and from the country. The resolution, adopted in response to North Korea's sixth and strongest nuclear test explosion on Sept. 3, banned North Korea from importing all natural gas liquids and condensates.

Ramesh Kuntal Megh has been conferred with the 2017 Sahitya Akademi Award for Hindi literature for his book of literary criticism "Vishw Mithak Sarit Sagar". The award in the form of a casket containing an engraved copper-plaque, a shawl and a cheque of Rs 1 lakh will be presented to the author at a special function on February12, 2018.

Housing Development Financial Corporation (HDFC) has sold its realty brokerage business 'HDFC Realty' and its digital real estate business 'HDFC Red' (owned by HDFC Developers) to online advertisements platform Quikr. Combined value of both these businesses of HDFC is being estimated to be about Rs 357 crore. In return, HDFC will get 3.5% stake in Quikr. In past couple of years, Quikr has been on an acquisition spree in the real estate business. In 2015, it bought real estate platform CommonFloor for about $120 million.

The Union cabinet approved an auction of 683 private FM radio frequencies in 236 cities across the country under Phase III of FM radio privatization. The sale of these channels in Phase III is likely to generate direct and indirect employment to more than 10,000 persons on a pan-India basis. The third batch of FM auctions will cover cities with no private FM radio presence, including cities in border areas of Jammu and Kashmir and north-east states where the population is less than 100,000. With the completion of FM Phase III auctions, the government is planning to cover all the 29 states.