IMPORTANT CURRENT AFFAIRS OF DECEMBER 12th, 2018
IMPORTANT
CURRENT AFFAIRS OF DECEMBER 12th, 2018
1.
The 7th Hand-in-Hand Military exercise between India and China is
being held at Chengdu (China).
a. Aim of this
Exercise : To improve capabilities of the two armies in fighting
terrorism and promote mutual understanding.
b. Note : The
exercise was held after gap of one year as both the sides were locked in 73-day
standoff in Doklam in Sikkim sector of the border in 2017.
2.
Myanmar is going to provide visa-on-arrival to Indian
tourists entering the country through the international airports
of Nay Pyi Taw, Yangon and Mandalay.
3.
The European Union (EU) has established India’s
1st Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence (CoE) at Department of
European Studies (DES) at Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE) in New
Delhi.
a. It comes with
grant of €1,00,000 to pursue India-EU interdisciplinary studies in culture,
literature, education and society.
4.
Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration
(GCM) was adopted by 164 nations including India at Intergovermental
Conference to adopt this compact held under auspices of United Nations General
Assembly (UNGA) at Marrakesh, Morocco.
a. It is 1st
intergovernmental agreement to cover wide-ranging dimensions of international
migration in holistic and comprehensive manner and agreed upon by all the UN
member states minus United States.
b. This compat
covers "all dimensions of international migration in a holistic and
comprehensive manner".
5.
Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh Shivraj Singh Chouhan tendered his
resignation today.
6.
Rajasthan Chief Minister and BJP
leader Vasundhara Raje has tendered her resignation to
state's Governor Kalyan Singh after conceding defeat in the state Assembly
elections. "
7.
Bharatiya Janata Party's longest-serving Chief Minister (15
years), Chhattisgarh's Raman Singh has submitted his
resignation letter to the state's Governor Anandiben Patel.
8.
TIME magazine has named 'The Guardians' (a group of journalists
and a news paper) as its 'Person of the Year 2018'. They
are :
a. Jamal
Khashoggi : Washington Post columnist murdered for his criticism of the
Saudi crown prince.
b. Maria
Ressa : Editor of a Philippine news website renowned for its critical
coverage of its president’s controversially violent policies.
c. Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe
Oo : Two Reuters journalists who were arrested in Myanmar while
investigating a massacre of Rohingya Muslims.
d. The Capital
Gazette : The news paper targeted by a gunman who opened fire into the
newsroom, killing four journalists and a sales assistant.
9.
Bollywood Actors Anushka Sharma and Kartik
Aaryan have been named India's Hottest Vegetarians of
2018 by the animal rights organisation PETA (People for the
Ethical Treatment of Animals).
a. Rajkummar
Rao and Alia Bhatt were named India's Hottest
Vegetarians by PETA last year.
10.The Reserve Bank
of India (RBI) has imposed a fine of ₹1 crore on
state-owned Indian Bank for violating cyber security
norms.
a. The bank was
penalised for failing to adhere to the guidelines and directions issued by
RBI.
11.Former Kerala Minister
and senior Congress leader C N Balakrishnan passed
away.
a. He served as
the Cooperation and Khadi Minister in the Oommen Chandy government.
b. He was also
the Thrissur District Congress Committee president for 17 years and a
long-standing aide of former Kerala CM K Karunakaran.
12.Government policy
think-tank NITI Aayog is developing a virtual
assistant device like Amazon’s Alexa for Vernacular users.
a. This device
would be capable of handling queries in 18 languages.
b. The device
will offer services such as voice interaction, music playback, to-do lists,
streaming podcasts, playing audiobooks and providing real-time information such
as news, weather, traffic, and sports reports.
c. Vernacular- the
language spoken by a particular group or in a particular area
13.To spread awareness
about cybercrimes and normal precautions to be taken, the
Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has launched Twitter account titled @CyberDost.
a. It is aimed
at enhancing people’s basic knowledge about cybercrimes and precautions to be
taken for prevention.
14.Indigenously
developed Light Utility Helicopter (LUH) by Hindustan
Aeronautics Limited (HAL) has achieved important milestone of flying
at 6 km altitude in Bengaluru (Karnataka).
a. With the
completion of this milestone, LUH can now undertake high
altitude cold weather trials planned in January 2019.
15.1980 batch IAS Officer
from Tamil Nadu cadre, Shaktikanta Das has assumed
charge as the 25th
Governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), effective December 12,
2018.
a. Das, who
served as the Economic Affairs Secretary when demonetisation was announced,
will be succeeding Dr Urjit R Patel who resigned on Monday citing personal
reasons.
16.Walmart-owned online
retailer Flipkart's Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Sriram
Venkataraman has been given additional charge as the
company's Chief Operating Officer (COO).
a. The position
remained vacant since previous COO Nitin Seth resigned in
mid-2017.
17.Facebook Inc’s
photo-sharing app Instagram today promoted its director of
product management Vishal Shah as the head of product,
effective immediately.
a. Shah assumed
the position previously held by Adam Mosseri, who was appointed as Instagram’s
head in October.
18.SWIFT India, the local
unit of SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication),
has appointed former SBI chief Arundhati Bhattacharya as
its Chairperson.
a. She will
replace M V Nair who retires after about 5 years of heading
SWIFT India.
b. Note : SWIFT is a
messaging network used by financial institutions to securely transmit
information and instructions using a system of codes.
19.Comptroller and Auditor
General (CAG) Rajiv Mehrishi was elected as Vice-Chair of United
Nations (UN) Panel of Auditors at its annual meeting held in New
York.
a. In this
meeting CAG of UK was also appointed as Chair of Panel for another term (2019).
No comments:
Post a Comment