Current Affairs - December 21, 2013

Current Affairs

December 21, 2013

International Affairs

1. Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has cleared the appointment of career diplomat Aizaz Chaudhry as Pakistan’s new Foreign Secretary. He had earlier served as Foreign Office spokesman and Additional Foreign Secretary. He is one of the key officials who handled the fallout of the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

2. US GDP grew at an annualized rate of 4.1% in the third quarter (July and September) compared to previous estimate of 3.6%. Stronger consumer spending, which accounts for two-thirds of the economy, was the main reason for the upward revision. Earlier the US central bank, the Federal Reserve, announced it would start to slow its economic stimulus program because of the improving economy and falling unemployment rate.

3. Spain secured the No 1 rank in the FIFA rankings for the sixth consecutive year. The 2010 World Cup winner is followed by Germany, Argentina and Colombia, Portugal, Uruguay, Italy Switzerland, Netherlands and Brazil in top 10. The United States remains the best-placed CONCACAF team at No. 15.

4. South Sudan's President Salva Kiir has agreed to take part in an "unconditional dialogue" on ending deadly strife in the country.

5. Spain's conservative government approved tight restrictions on abortion, allowing the practice only in the case of rape or when there is a serious health risk to the mother or fetus.

6. US President Barack Obama said on Saturday that the US economy is heading into 2014 strong and “our businesses are positioned for new growth and new jobs.”

7. Thailand's main opposition Democrat Party on Saturday decided to boycott the February 2 snap polls and join anti-government rallies seeking to force Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra out of office.

8. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has visited typhoon-hit villages in the Philippines, promising to rally global support to help survivors rebuild their lives.

9. Bolivia launched country’s first telecommunications Satellite Tupak Katari

i. Bolivia on 20 December 2013 launched the country’s first telecommunication satellite Tupak Katari. The satellite has been named upon an indigenous national hero, who fought the 18th century Spanish colonial rule.

ii. The rocket carrying the satellite blast off from a base in China. Bolivia is one of the last countries in South America to have its own satellite.

National Affairs

10. RBI tightens norms for credit card holders

i. The Reserve Bank of India, RBI, has tightened norms for credit card holders. In a notification on Friday, the RBI advised banks to treat a credit card account as a non-performing asset if the customer fails to pay the minimum due amount within a stipulated 90-day period.

ii. The RBI said it has observed that banks follow different practices with regard to the asset classification status of credit card accounts if the minimum amount is not paid on the due date.

11. Against the backdrop of recent incursions by the Chinese troops, India and China today held a flag meeting in eastern Ladakh where the Indian side is understood to have raised concerns over detention of its nationals by the People's Liberation Army (PLA).

12. Usha Sangwan appointed first woman managing director of LIC

i. Usha Sangwan was appointed as the first woman managing director of the Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) by the Government.

ii. She is the first woman director of LIC in its near six decades of existence.
iii. With this appointment, LIC is set to function at its full strength of four MDs after almost two years. These would be S B Mainak, Sushobhan Sarkar, Sangwan and V K Sharma.

About Usha Sangwan : 
Sangwan joined LIC in 1981 as a direct recruit. She holds a master’s degree in economics and a post-graduate diploma in human resource management.

13. P.H. Parekh elected as the President of Supreme Court Bar Association

i. Senior advocate P.H. Parekh has been appointed as the President of the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) for 2013-14. This is Mr. Parekh’s sixth term as SCBA President.

Other appointments include
• V. Shekar as the Vice-President
• Aishwarya Bhati as secretary
• Sandeep Singh as assistant secretary
• Vikas Bansal as treasurer
• Rajesh Pathak the assistant treasurer of the SCBA

Supreme Court Bar Association 
The Bar Council of India is a statutory body that regulates and represents the Indian bar. It was created by Parliament under the Advocates Act, 1961.
It provides the code of conduct in professional manner , etiquettes and exercises disciplinary jurisdiction over the bar. It also sets standards for legal education and grants recognition to Universities whose degree in law will serve as a qualification for students to enroll themselves as advocates upon graduation.

14. The Public Enterprise Selection Board has shorlisted Anupam Shrivastava for the post of Chairman and Managing Director of state-run telecom firm BSNL. Shrivastava is a 1981 batch ITS officer and he has been BSNL’s Director for Consumer Mobility division since May this year.  Shrivastava will have challenge to turn BSNL profitable by 2018 under the planned chalked out under present CMD R.K Upadhyay.

15. Environment Minister Jayanthi Natarajan today resigned apparently for being drafted into party work ahead of the Lok Sabha polls. Oil Minister M Veerappa Moily given additional charge of Environment Ministry.

16. Ruling National Conference MLA Sajjad Ahmed Kitchloo will be re-inducted as a Minister in the Omar Abdullah government tomorrow, as a judicial commission probing the communal riots in Kishtwar today gave him a clean chit.

17. Sushma Singh takes oath as New Chief Information Commissioner of India.  She is the second woman to become CIC after Deepak Sandhu, whose term comes to an end later this month. A panel comprising Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj, and Law Minister Kapil Sibal appointed Ms. Singh. The CIC is mandated to resolve appeals and complaints filed by information seekers, under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, against government departments or public authorities.

18. A two-day Inter-Governmental Committee meeting of India and Nepal began in Kathmandu today.

19. Winter session of Himachal Pradesh Assembly ends today.

20. 2nd edition of Delhi International Film Festival began, actor Shatrughan Sinha will be honoured with Lifetime Achievement Award.

21. The 40-day period of harshest winter in Kashmir Valley, known as 'Chillai-Kalan', began today with a cold morning, even as the weather office predicted snowfall later in the afternoon.

22. The Election Commission has recommended to the Law Ministry to treat all paid news as an electoral offence since it had been causing “maximum damage” to the electoral process.

23. UN appreciates restoration and rehabilitation work in Odisha after CyclonePhailin.

24.  Jayanthi Natrajan resigns from Union Cabinet

i. Ms Jayanthi Natrajan has resigned from the Union Cabinet as Environment and Forests Minister. She is reportedly to play a bigger role in the Congress party ahead of general elections-2014.
ii. A Rashtrapati Bhawan press communiqué issued in New Delhi today said, President Pranab Mukherjee has accepted Natrajan’s resignation as advised by the Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh.
iii. The President has also directed that Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas M. Veerappa Moily has been given additional charge of the Ministry of Environment and Forests.

Awards and Honors

25. IRCON won the India Pride Award for Excellence in Central PSUs in India Image Enhancement

i. IRCON International Limited on 20 December 2013 has been awarded the prestigious India Pride Awards for Excellence in Central PSUs in India Image Enhancement. The award was received by Mohan Tiwari, the CMD of IRCON from M.M. Pallam Raju, the Union Minister for Human Resources Development.

About IRCON
i. IRCON International Limited is a government company that was incorporated by the Central Government (Ministry of Railways) under the Companies Act, 1956 on 28 April 1976 originally under the name Indian Railway Construction Company Limited.

ii. It is a leading turnkey construction company in the public sector known for its quality, commitment and consistency in terms of Performance. IRCON has widespread operations in several States in India and in other countries like Malaysia, Nepal, Bangladesh, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, U.K. Algeria, Sri Lanka and others.

26. The Petroleum Ministry has been awarded the National E-governance Award by Computer Society of India for implementing project ‘Lakshya’ which is aimed at improving LPG distribution. The prestigious CSI Nihilent National e-Governance Award 2012-13 was awarded to the Project Lakshya — Empowering Consumers: Transparent Supply Chain and Efficient Subsidy Administration at Vishakhapatnam as part of 48th Annual Convention of Computer Society of India (CSI-2013. The award was received by Neeraj Mittal, Joint Secretary, Marketing, Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, at the ceremony along with a team of officers from oil marketing companies.

27. Poetry writers dominated the Sahitya Akademi awards for 2013 announced this week. Subodh Sarkar (Bengali), Anil Boro (Bodo), Sitaram Sapolia (Dogri), Ambika Dutt (Rajasthani), Radhakant Thakur (Sanskrit), Arjun Charan Hembram (Santali), Namdev Tarachandani (Sindhi) and Javed Akhtar (Urdu) are the winners of the award. The novelists who won awards are Mridula Garg for Miljul Man in Hindi, Manmohan for Nirvaan in Punjabi and R.N. Joe D’ Cruz for Korkai in Tamil. The only playwright who has won the award is Bijoy Misra for Banaprastha in Odia.

The award for autobiography has been won by Malayalam writer M N Paloor for Kathayillathavante Katha. Sureshwar Jha has bagged an award for his memoirs Sangharsh Aa Sehanta in Maithili. In the category of short stories, the award has gone to Mohi-ud-din Reshi for Aina Aatash in Kashmiri and Temsula Ao for “Laburnum for My Head” in English.

28. Gyan Correa’s Gujarati film ‘The Good Road’ is out of the best foreign film Oscar race after it failed to qualify in the Academy’s latest shortlist. Nine films will advance to the next round of voting in the category for the 86th Academy Awards out of 76 films that had qualified in the category. The movie’s selection to represent India at the Oscars had created a lot of controversy as it was chosen over popular titles like ‘The Lunchbox’, ‘Ship of Theseus’ and ‘Bhaag Milkha Bhaag’.

29. Overseas Indian Affairs minister Vayalar Ravi presentd 6th KPS Menon Memorial Award to MT Vasudevan Nair in Kerala today.

30. The Kannada University at Hampi confered ‘Nadoja’, a honorary degree equivalent to D.Litt, to three eminent persons — writer Ko. Chennabasappa, popularly known as ‘koche’, the former Lokayukta Santosh Hegde and ISRO scientist S.K. Shivakumar — in recognition of their contributions to the fields of literature, judiciary and research.

Science and Technology

31. Bolivia's first communications satellite TK-SAT 1 (Tupac Katari Satellite), named for an indigenous fighter who opposed Spanish colonial rule, launched on a Long March rocket from China.

32. Two US astronauts today stepped outside the International Space Station for the first of three spacewalks to fix a broken equipment cooling system, NASA said.

33. India’s indigeneously-designed Light Combat Aircraft, Tejas has got initial operation clearance (IOC-II) yesterday. Defence minister AK Antony handed over release to service document (RTS) to Indian Air Force chief NAK Browne. This clearance will help for the induction of Tejas into the Indian Air Force which is expected to replace its old Mig-21 models.

Business and Economy

34. State-run NHPCBSE 1.36 % has bought back equity worth Rs 2,368 crore under an offer that ended earlier this month after attracting more shares than targeted.

Deaths

35. SERGIO LORO PIANA, one of Loro Piana's vice presidents, has died, aged 65.

36. The head of military intelligence in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi Colonel Fethallah al-Gaziri was today shot dead during a visit to his family in nearby Derna, a security official said.

Appointments

37. S.B. Nayar was appointed as chairman and managing director (CMD) of India Infrastructure Finance Co. Ltd (IIFCL). IIFCL is a state-owned firm that funds infrastructure projects. He presently works as head of Industrial Finance Corporation of India Limited (IFCIL), another state-owned financier. India Infrastructure Finance Corporation Ltd (IIFCL) was incorporated in 2006 as a wholly-owned Government of India company.

38. Attorney Nandita Berry appointed as Secretary of State(Texas), making her the 1st Indian-American to occupy this top position in state.

39. US President Obama said he would nominate Democratic Senator Max Baucus as his new ambassador to China.

40. Air India appoints as its head of operations SPS Suri, a pilot with a long record of endangering passengers, turning up late (or not at all) and even falling asleep on flights. Pilots furious.

Sports

41. Indian Tennis Players Association to organise a 2-day 'fund-raising' tournament hosted by Khar Gymkhana in Mumbai on 21st and 22nd December 2013. Leander Paes, Mahesh Bhupathi, Somdev Devvarman, Rohan Bopanna, Yuki Bhambri, Divij Sharan will be part of this 'fun' event.

42. Uruguayan striker Luis Suarez signs contract extension with Liverpool that is reportedly worth $75-million over 4.5-years.