Current Affairs Feb 16 - 17, 2014

Current Affairs Feb 16 - 17, 2014

National Affairs

1. Following resignation of Arvind Kejriwal led AAP government, Delhi put under President Rule. However assembly has not been dissolved and the house has been kept under suspended animation.

National Capital Territory of Delhi will now be administered by President through Lt. Governor in accordance with the provision of Article 239 and Article 239AA of the Constitution.

2. Interim Union Budget 2014-15 Tax Proposal: Interim Budget 2014-15 was presented in the Lok Sabha by Union Finance Minister, P Chidambaram on 17 February 2014. This was the 83rd budget of the Union Government and 9thpersonal budget by Chidambaram as Finance Minister. In the union budget 2014-15, the Finance Minister left untouched the direct taxes.

3. Nirbhaya Fund gets additional Rs 1,000 crore in budget: Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Monday allocated an additional Rs 1,000 crore to the Nirbhaya Fund for the safety and empowerment of women.”In order to make it clear that the (Nirbhaya) fund will be a prominent fund, I intend to declare the grant of Rs 1,000 crore as non-lapsable and in order to support more proposals, I propose to contribute to the fund another Rs 1,000 crore next year,” Chidambarams said while presenting the interim budget in Parliament.In January, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs approved a Rs 1,405-crore project to track and monitor public transport and provide alarm buttons for alerting authorities.

4. Rakesh Maria appointed as new Police Commissioner of Mumbai: The Mumbai Police on Saturday got a new police commissioner. Senior IPS officer Rakesh Maria, who was the head of the Maharashtra Anti Terrorism Squad was appointed as Mumbai Police Commissioner on Saturday.The Mumbai Police on Saturday got a new policecommissioner. Senior IPS officer Rakesh Maria, who was the head of the Maharashtra Anti Terrorism Squad was appointed as Mumbai Police Commissioner on Saturday

5. Indian Agricultural Research Institute (Pune) developes a virus-immune transgenic variety of papaya.   The breakthrough has the potential to revolutionize the global papaya industry.

International Affairs

6. China to build world’s longest underwater tunnel: China announced a plan to build the longest underwater tunnel of the World on 14 February 2014. Water tunnel will be constructed beneath the Bohai Sea.China plans to build the world’s longest underwater tunnel beneath the Bohai Sea by 2026, connecting the port cities of Dalian in Liaoning province and Yantai in Shandong province.The blueprint of the ambitious project is expected to be submitted to the State Council of the People’s Republic of China in April, the China Daily reported on Friday.

Appointments

7. M Teresa kho has been appointed the new Director (India) of Asian Development Bank. She replaces Hun Kim.  

8. Dr. Vijaykumar Vinayak Dongre and Prof. Guocheng Zhang bagged International Gandhi Award 2013: The President of India Pranab Mukherjee, on 15 February 2014 presented the International Gandhi Award for the year 2013 to Dr. Vijaykumar Vinayak Dongre (VV Dongre) and Prof. Guocheng Zhang at Rashtrapati Bhawan, New Delhi.They were awarded for making outstanding contributions in the field of leprosy to eradicate the disease through treatment, training and research.

Science and Technology

9. Nasa scientists are on the job to create the coldest spot aboard the International Space Station (ISS) that would help them unravel the secrets behind interesting and novel quantum phenomena.

10. A Russian satellite that could weigh as much as three tonnes is expected to re-enter the Earth's atmosphere representing a "very real danger" to densely populated areas.

11. The notorious pro-Assad hacker group known as the Syrian Electronic Army has reportedly published a database that it says contains login credentials for 1 million users of business publication Forbes.com.

12. Following the removal of the Flappy Bird app from online stores by its creator Dong Nguyen, Apple and Google are having a rough time turning down gamers, mimicking the popular game by adding "Flappy" to their creations.

13. Historical evidence of biological weapons research during Nazi Germany has confirmed that Nazis wanted to use mosquitoes which host malaria in biological warfare.

14. Scientists say that next Nasa rover to Mars or another planet may be quipped with a new "do-it-all" camera that can identify, photograph and even analyse patches of soil or rocks close up and far away.

15. "Solar Impulse"- world’s first day and night-abled solar-powered wide body aircraft, to fly in India next year as part of its "round-the world experimental flight".

Also called 'Signature in the Skies’ it is a initiative of Switzerland based Solar Impulse led by CEO, Andre Borschberg and Bertrand Piccard.

Last year It created history by flying across US, Europe and Mediterranean Sea, night and day without fuel, powered by only solar energy.

It will now attempt "round-the world flight powered only by the sun".

Weighing approx. 2,740 kg, it will be powered by 12,000 solar cells witha speed of 70 km/hr.

Sports

16. The biggest event of card games comes to India as the country will host the next World Bridge Championship for Bermuda Bowl (men) and Venice Cup (women) in October 2015.

17. India completed its return to the Olympic family  when its flag was hoisted at the Sochi Games, five days after the International Olympic Committee lifted its suspension on the Southeast Asian nation.

18. New zealand's captain Brendon McCullum and B J Watling creates world record of highest ever sixth-wicket partnership in Test cricket.

They achieved the feat in 2nd Test against India at Wellington and broke the record of 351 runs partnership of Mahela and Prasanna Jayawardene, also set against India at Ahmedabad in 2009.

19. 14 Sport Committees set up by Sports Authority of India (SAI): The Sports Authority of India (SAI) Set Up 14 Different high level and expert Committees for providing specialized training to athletes or sports person of different sports like shooting, weightlifting, boxing, archery, athletics, judo, badminton and wushu etc.The high level committee has a new responsibility to find newpotential sports man who can win medal and perform better in different games tournament like common wealth games and Asian games which is to be held in the year 2015.

20. Tendulkar, Sehwag nominated for ‘Cricketer of the Generation’ award: Indian batting icon Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag will be amongst the nominees for the ‘ESPNcricinfo@20 Cricketer of the Generation’ award, with the cricket news website on Monday announcing two more categories to its seventh annual awards. Besides Tendulkar and Sehwag, West Indian Brian Lara, Muttiah Muralitharan of Sri Lanka, Australia’s Shane Warne and South AfricanJacques Kallis will also be in fray.

21. U-19 World Cup: India beat Scotland by 5 wickets: India have defeated Scotland by five wickets in the ICC Under 19 cricket World Cup in Dubai.Chasing a victory target of 89 runs against Scotland, India roamped home in 22.4 overs. Sarfaraz Khan with a quickfire 45 of 51 deliveries and Deepak Hooda with 24 of 40 deliveries steered India to the victory.

22. World Bridge Championship to be hosted by India in 2015: World Bridge Championship for Bermuda Bowl (men) and Venice Cup (women) will be hosted by India for the first time in October 2015. This was announced by the World Bridge Federation (WBF) on 17 February 2014.Chennai in Tamil Nadu and Panaji in Goa have been shortlisted to host the World Bridge Championship. About 550 players from 66 countries are expected to be seen in action in this world meet.

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