Current Affairs - December 28, 2018 Current Affairs

Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services Ltd appointed retired Indian Administrative Service official Bijay Kumar as its deputy managing director.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) launched a 'Survey on Retail Payment Habits of Individuals (SRPHi)' in 6 cities including four metropolitan cities. The survey will cover a sample of 6,000 individuals from various socio-economic backgrounds across six cities of: Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru and Guwahati. The fieldwork for the survey was carried out by Sigma Research & Consulting Pvt Ltd. The survey would capture payment habits of individuals and this will provide some idea about awareness and usage habits of digital payment products.

The 14 year old, Indian junior golfer Arjun Bhati bagged the first position against America's Aksel Moe during the three-level final match in the U.S. Kids Junior Golf World Championship held in Malaysia. To claim 1st position in the championship, Arjun Bhati scored a total of 222 points followed by America and Vietnam at 2nd and 3rd position with 225 and 226 points respectively. Indian Junior Golfers bagged 11 medals, including 4 Gold, scripting history by hallmarking India's name at the US Kids Golf World Championship. The gold medallists of India include Arjun Bhati (boys' 13-14 group), Aarnav Nath (boys' 12 group), Gurnavjeet Singh Bhatia (boys'11group) and Kartik Singh (boys' 8 group). The winners list also included Harjai Milkha Singh, son of India's most famous golfer Jeev Milkha Singh. Harjai won bronze in the category for Boys-8 years. The competitions started from Under-7 and went right up to the age group of 15-16 for both boys and girls.

Air Marshal Rajeev Sachdeva has taken over as the Deputy Chief of Integrated Defence Staff (Operations) on 26 December 2018. Prior to this, he was the Senior Air Staff Officer at Southern Air Command headquarters in Thiruvananthapuram. He was an Air Force examiner and also commanded a frontline transport squadron, a transport base, and the College of Defence Management.

Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik inaugurated 26th edition of National Children's Science Congress in Bhubaneswar in which as many as 800 students from ten Asian and seven Gulf countries are participating. This year's theme is 'Science, Technology and Innovations: For clean, green and healthy nation'. It is for the second time that the National Children's Science Congress is being organized in Odisha. Earlier, the mega event was held in 2015.

The West Bengal cabinet chaired by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee announced approval of an online system for mutation of property. Its objective is to ease the process of property mutation and check illegal practices.

The mechanical branch of Central Railway's Nagpur division developed a new AI-powered robot named USTAAD (Undergear Surveillance through Artificial Intelligence Assisted Droid) which examines parts of the coach in real time with an HD camera and transmits them over WiFi. The new Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered robot will click photos and record videos of the train, under the gears and then transmits them over WiFi to engineers for maintenance and repair. Since USTAAD can watch and examine areas which cannot be seen and approached by humans usually, due to the narrow spaces between under-gear parts, it will reduce chances of human error while examining undergear equipment on Indian Railways trains. The special features of the robot include HD (high-definition) camera that can be rotated in any direction as per commands are given by the engineer and can capture video as well as still photographs with zoom in or out facility.

Larsen & Toubro (L&T) said that its construction arm has bagged orders worth Rs.2,357 crore from APCRDA and MPJNM. L&T's water and effluent treatment and transportation infrastructure business had secured an order worth Rs.1,281 crore from Andhra Pradesh Capital Region Development Authority (APCRDA). The order is for activities including investigation, design and construction of roads, bridges, storm water drains, culverts, water supply systems, sewerage systems for the villages of Kurugalla, Nidamarru in Zone 12A area at Amravati Capital City, Andhra Pradesh. The firm's water and effluent treatment business had also secured orders worth Rs.1,076 crore from the Madhya Pradesh Jal Nigam Maryadit (MPJNM). The order is for the execution of multi village rural water supply schemes in Jabalpur, Narsinghpur, Seoni and Damoh districts of Madhya Pradesh.

Captain Amarinder Singh, Chief Minister of Punjab, released the book 'Prince, Patron and Patriarch Maharaja Jagatjit Singh of Kapurthala', co-authored by the Maharaja's grandson, Brigadier (Retd) Jagjit Singh, and Cynthia Frederick in Chandigarh. Punjab Governor VP Singh Badnore was also present on the occasion of the launch of the book. The book which is published by Roli Books is a candid tribute by a grandson to the erstwhile exceptional royal king of Kapurthala. Maharaja Jagatjit Singh is considered as one of the scripters of modernization of Kapurthala who brought Patiala and Kapurthala on the world map through modernization.

The Union Ministry for Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) announced draft rules of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines) Rules 2018. Its objective is to end the complete encryption system to trace 'unlawful' activities for better national security. These would amend and replace the Information Technology Act, 2000 and would include the inter-ministerial consultations, followed by discussions with major social media platforms like Facebook, Google, Twitter, Yahoo and WhatsApp, and associations representing intermediaries. According to the amended rules under Section 79 of the IT Act, It will be mandatory for online platforms to deploy technology to enable access to content seen as "unlawful". Information about "unlawful acts" can be sought from the intermediaries by "court order". The parameter to judge unlawful acts would be Article 19(2) of the Constitution, which places restriction on freedom of speech and expression. The measures proposed include breaking end-to-end encryption so that the origin of messages can be traced. Online platforms will keep a record of "unlawful activity" for a period of "180 days", double the 90 days in the older version.

K J Alphons, Minister of State (I/C) for Tourism, handed over a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) under the 'Adopt a Heritage' scheme to Resbird Technologies for development of a mobile Audio Guide App for five iconic sites. The five iconic sites for which the mobile Audio Guide App is to be developed are Amer Fort (Rajasthan), Kaziranga (Assam), Colva Beach (Goa), Kumarakom (Kerala) and Mahabodhi Temple (Bihar).

The Mrs. India My Identity Beauty Pageant 2018 finale was held in Delhi and Divya Patidar Joshi was crowned with the prestigious honor. Hailing from Madhya Pradesh's Ratlam, Divya won the crown of Mrs India this year from among 24 promising contestants. She won all the rounds of Beauty with Brain contest along with Best Cat Walk title.

SPJIMR hosted the 12th Annual Indian Subcontinent Decision Sciences Institute (ISDSI) Conference at SPJIMR, Mumbai. The theme of this international conference is "Data-Driven Decision Making in the Digital Age". The main objective of this conference is to provide a platform for academicians, researchers and practitioners to disseminate research, providing insights into the challenges, opportunities, emerging strategies and analytical tools in the domain of decision making.

Nepal imposed a monthly limit on the amount of Indian currency its citizen can spend in India. A spokesperson of the Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) stated that a Nepali citizen would be unable to spend more than INR 1 lakh per month while paying for goods and services in India. The decision was taken to address the country's current account deficit. The policy applicable to prepaid, credit and debit cards of Nepali banks came into effect.

Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh conferred the 'Champions of Change' award by Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu in Delhi. He was recognized for his leadership role in transforming the governance in the north-eastern state. At a programme to identify the progress made in 115 'aspirational' districts, Manipur was chosen for its all-round development on various parameters in all its 'aspirational' districts. Other such awardees are: 1. Union Minister of State for Food Processing Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, 2.Union Minister for Tribal Affairs Sudarshan and 3.Member of Parliament Nishikant Dubey. The award selection jury was led by former Chief Justice of India K G Balakrishna and former Supreme Court judge Sudha Mishra.

FedEx Express, a U.S. multinational courier delivery giant, has named Rajesh Subramaniam, an Indian-American, as the President and Chief Executive Officer of the firm. He will assume his new role on January 1, 2019. He replaces David L Cunningham. Mr. Subramaniam currently holds the executive vice- president, chief marketing and communications officer position of FedEx Corporation. He is an IIT-Bombay graduate from Thiruvananthapuram and has been with FedEx for more than 27 years. He has held various executive-level positions in the company. He began his career in Memphis and subsequently moved to Hong Kong where he oversaw marketing and customer service for the Asia Pacific region.

Russia has conducted a final test of a nuclear-capable glider that flies at 20 times the speed of sound. The missile was launched from the Dombarovskiy missile base in the southern Ural Mountains and hit its target on a test site in Kamchatka, about 6,000km away. Avangard is designed using new composite materials to withstand temperatures of up to 2,000 degrees Celsius that come from a flight through the atmosphere at hypersonic speeds.

The 41st meeting of the Central Sanctioning and Monitoring Committee was held in New Delhi. In the meeting, the Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs has approved the construction of another 3,10,597 more affordable houses for the benefit of urban poor under Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Urban). A total of 864 projects with a project cost of Rs 14,662 crore with central assistance of Rs 4,658 crore has been approved in the meeting held under the Chairmanship of Durga Shankar Mishra, Secretary, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs. The cumulative number of houses sanctioned under PMAY(U) now is 68,54,126. Uttar Pradesh has been sanctioned 1,08,135 houses while the sanction for Karnataka is 1,05,502 affordable houses.

The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) has been awarded Best Capital City in the Solid Waste Management in the Swachh Survekshan 2018 rankings. Swachh Survekshan was launched by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) under Swachh Bharat Mission (Urban). The Swachh Survekashan survey ranks cities on various sanitation parameters. The GHMC was also at the 27th place among 4,041 cities. The GHMC said that as a part of the Swachh Survekshan 2019, maintaining the timing of toilets, i.e., from 4 a.m. to 10 p.m. and proper signage will be an important parameter. As a part of this, the GHMC has requested the Hyderabad Metro Rail to ensure that public toilets in all metro corridors are open from 4 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Indian Oil Corporation, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) and NTPC emerged as the top three most profitable Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) in 2017-18. Coal India and Power Grid Corporation occupied the fourth and fifth spot in the list of top 10 profit making CPSEs (Central Public Sector Enterprises) in the 2017-18 fiscal. BSNL, Air India and MTNL incurred the highest losses for the second consecutive year.