Current Affairs - January 10, 2018 Current Affairs

Ola, the taxi hailing app has tied up with ICICI Bank to provide a range of integrated offers, including micro-credit to their customers and digital payment facilities to driver partners respectively. ICICI Bank customers can now book and pay for Ola on the bank's mobile app and wallet itself and they can use the credit for 3-4 rides and then repay later. ICICI Bank customers will get the dual benefit of booking a cab and making payments directly through their 'iMobile' and 'Pockets' application.

Ministry of housing and urban affairs and Allahabad Bank has signed a memorandum of understanding to provide a centralised platform for processing interest subsidy under Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana- National Urban Livelihood Mission. The web-portal will provide an end-to-end solution for processing interest subsidy for NULM schemes. The subsidy will be credited to Aadhaar-linked beneficiary account through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) mode.

The Pravasi Bharatiya Divas (PBD) is celebrated every year on January 9 to mark the contribution of Overseas Indian community in the development of India. The day was chosen to commemorate the return of Mahatma Gandhi from South Africa to India in 1915, which led India's freedom struggle and changed the lives of Indians forever.

Soumitra Chattopadhyay (82), the legendary film and theatre actor, will be conferred with the France's highest order of merit Legion of Honour at the 42nd International Kolkata Book Fair 2018. The honour will be bestowed on the actor who starred in many of Satyajit Ray's iconic films by French culture and communication minister Francoise Nyssen in Kolkata. The book fair will open on January 30 and conclude on February 11. Chattopadhyay acted in several of Ray's films,including Apur Sansar, Abhijan, Charulata, Aranyer Din Ratri and Sonar Kella.

Andhra Pradesh government plans to introduce 'Bhoodhar card' for a digital record of each individual's land holdings with a particular number. There would be a secret number to each card. The status of the land could be found out with ease and at the same time there would be safeguards to ensure data security.

Sunny Verghese, the Singapore-based Indian-origin businessman, has been appointed as the Chairman of the Geneva-based World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD). He succeeded Paul Polman, the CEO of Unilever, on January 1 and will serve a two-year term. The WBCSD is a global network of more than 200 CEOs who are responsible for a combined revenue of more than $8.5 trillion and 19 million employees.

Dr Harsh Vardhan, the Union Minister of Earth Sciences (MoES), has dedicated India's fastest and first multi-peta-flops supercomputer "Pratyush' to the nation in Pune on January 8, 2018. The supercomputer has been established at Pune-based Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) and will be a national facility for improving weather and climate forecasts under the umbrella of the MoES. This facility is part of Ministry's continuous endeavor to provide world class forecast services to the citizens of India through upgrading various operational and research activities and the needed infrastructure. Petaflops is a measure of a computer's processing speed.

World Bank projected India's growth rate at 7.3 percent in 2018 and 7.5 for the next two years. According to the 2018 Global Economics Prospect release, despite initial setbacks from demonetization and Goods and Services Tax (GST), India's economy is estimated to have grown at 6.7 percent in 2017. India's growth potential will be around 7 percent for the next 10 years. In comparison with China, which is slowing, the World Bank is expecting India to gradually accelerate.

Research Designs & Standards Organisation (RDSO), the research arm of Ministry of Railways, launched "New Online Vendor Registration System". This new system provides major improvements and big changes in the registration system over the earlier system. Public access to the information, expeditious process completion with defined timelines, simplification of procedures, round-the-year services, availability of all related information on RDSO Website, constant monitoring at all levels, reduction in cycle timelines, regular updating of online data, user-friendly interface etc. are the hallmarks of the new system.

Intel Corp (INTC.O) Chief Executive Brian Krzanich said on Monday 2 million vehicles from BMW (BMWG.DE), Nissan Motor Co Ltd (7201.T) and Volkswagen AG (VOWG_p.DE) would use its unit Mobileye's autonomous vehicle technology to crowdsource data for building maps that enable autonomous driving. The world's largest chipmaker bought Israeli firm Mobileye last year to compete with peers such as Qualcomm Inc (QCOM.O) and Nvidia Corp (NVDA.O) and tap the fast-growing market of driverless cars. Intel will also tie up with SAIC Motor Corp Ltd (600104.SS), which will use Mobileye technology to develop cars in China, the chipmaker said. Krzanich also said Intel had not received any information of customer data being compromised so far after the company confirmed last week that the security issues reported by researchers in its widely used microprocessors could allow hackers to steal sensitive information from computers, phones and other devices.

Aanchal Thakur made history as she won India's first ever international medal in skiing. The 21-year-old Manali resident clinched bronze in the coveted Alpine Ejder 3200 Cup. The Championship was organized by the Federation Internationale de Ski (skiing's international governing body) in Erzurum, Turkey. She won the medal in the slalom race category.

Music composer A R Rahman became the brand ambassador of Sikkim. The declaration was made by Sikkim CM Pawan Kumar Chamling. Mr Chamling felicitated the legendary music composer during an inauguration of the 11-day Sikkim Red Panda Winter Carnival at Palzor Stadium in Gangtok.