29 December 2017 - Daily Current Affairs

29 December 2017 - Daily Current Affairs

Triple Talaq Bill Passed in Lok Sabha

• The Lok Sabha has passed the contentious bill making instant triple illegal with up to three years in jail for the husband.
• Under the law, instant triple talaq in any form (spoken, in writing or by electronic means such as email, SMS, and WhatsApp) would be illegal and void.
• The bill will now be sent to the Rajya Sabha for passage before it is forwarded to the President for signing it into law.
• It gives power to the victim to approach a magistrate seeking "subsistence allowance" for herself and minor children.

Note:

• The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill would only be applicable to instant triple talaq or 'talaq-e- biddat'.
• A victim can also seek the custody of her minor children from the magistrate.

Viswanathan Anand wins World Rapid Chess Championship in Riyadh

• Indian Grandmaster Viswanathan Anand (48-year) has won the World Rapid Chess Championship in Riyadh.
• He remained unbeaten through the tournament and bag the top position on a tie-break after a three-way tie with Russians Vladimir Fedoseev & Ian Nepomniachtchi at 10.5 points from a possible 15.
• He claimed his first rapid world title since 2003.

Note:

• The World Rapid Chess Championship is a tournament to determine the World Champion in chess played under rapid time controls.
• Since 2012, the World Chess Federation has held an annual joint rapid & blitz chess tournament and billed it as the World Rapid & Blitz Chess Championships.

India successfully test-fires supersonic interceptor missile

• India successfully test-fired its indigenously developed Advanced Air Defence (AAD) supersonic interceptor missile from a test range in Odisha.
• This was the third supersonic interceptor test (earlier on 1^st March and 11^th February) carried out this year in which an incoming ballistic missile target was successfully intercepted.
• The interceptor is a 7.5-meter long single stage solid rocket propelled guided missile equipped with a navigation system.
• The missile is capable of destroying any incoming ballistic missile at low altitude (30-km) of the earth’s atmosphere by an interceptor.

Ex-football superstar George Weah to become Liberia's president

• According to the National Election Commission (NEC), Former football star, ‘George Weah’ (51-year) has won Liberia’s presidential election, defeating Joseph Boakai (vice-president) in a runoff with 61.5% of the vote based on 98.1% of ballots cast.
• Weah will succeed ‘Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’ as Liberia’s president next month, after an election fraught with accusations of fraud and irregularities.
• It will be the country’s first democratic transition since 1944 and follows two devastating civil wars.

Note: Weah is the only African to be Fifa’s world player of the year or to have won the Ballon d’Or for Europe’s best player.

Vaikunta Ekadasi festival celebrated with religious fervor in Tamil Nadu

• The ‘Vaikunta Ekadasi’ festival has been celebrated with religious fervour Vaishnavite temples across Tamil Nadu and other parts of the country
• Thousands of people visited the temples early in the morning and witnessed the opening of the “Sorkka Vaasal,” the inner sanctum sanctorum, with piety.

Note: The Srirangam Sri Renganathaswamy temple in Tiruchirapalli, Sri Parthasarathy temple at Triplicane in Chennai and all Vaishnavite shrines were specially illuminated and people in large numbers offered special pujas.

Environment Ministry approves regional project to tackle Stubble Burning

• The union environment Ministry has approved a regional project on Climate Resilience Building among Farmers through Crop Residue Management to tackle Stubble Burning.
• The project has been approved at the meeting of the National Steering Committee on Climate Change held in New Delhi.
• The first phase of the project at a cost of around 100 Crore rupees has been approved for the States of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan.
• The objective of the project to mitigate climate change impacts and enhance adaptive capacity, but will also counter the adverse environmental impacts that arise from burning.

Mobile app for Delhi school management committees

• The Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has launched a mobile app to connect about 16,000 members of School Management Committees (SMCs).
• The app is aimed at helping the schools, parents, and students in better coordination and result-oriented performance.
• The SMCs' decisions should be made binding upon the schools and they should be provided with some funds to carry out essential and need-based works in the schools.

78th session of Indian History Congress begins at Jadavpur University

• The 78th session of the Indian History Congress has begun at the Jadavpur University campus in Kolkata.
• The objective of three-day long Indian History Congress is for promotion and encouragement of the scientific study of Indian History, holding Congresses & publishing of the proceedings, bulletins, memoirs, journals and other works.
• The Congress will have six sections this time Ancient India, Medieval India, Modern India, Countries Other than India, Archaeology and Contemporary India.

Telangana govt. presents Rs. 1 cr & house site of 600 sq-feet to Mithali Raj

• The Telangana State Sports Minister ‘T Padmarao’ has presented one crore rupees and a house site of 600 square-feet to Indian women cricket team skipper Mithali Raj in Hyderabad.
• The minister also presented 25 lakh rupees to Mithali Raj's coach RSR Murthy.
• Mithali Raj had led the Indian team to the Women's World Cup final earlier this year.
• Earlier, India lost to England in a nail-biting summit clash by nine runs.

Bank of Baroda enters into a MoU with PORTI Agri Services Pvt Ltd.

• The Bank of Baroda has signed a MoU with POORTI Agri Services Pvt. Ltd to enable the farmers to purchase agricultural inputs like fertilizers, pesticides, seeds etc.
• This is a Platform for Online Ordering & Rural Transformation of India known as “POORTI”.
• POORTI is a platform provides a multi-party mobile commerce platform in vernacular for easy ordering of fertilizers, pesticides, seeds (beyond a given value) by farmers with loans given by various banks.

Govt. decides to make additional borrowing of 50K cr rupees from market during this fiscal

• The union govt. has decided to make additional borrowing of 50 thousand crores through dated securities this fiscal.
• According to the Finance Ministry, there will be no change in the net borrowing as envisaged in the Budget for the current financial year.
• The union government will trim down the T-Bills from present collections of 86,203 crore rupees to 25,006 crore rupees by March 2018.

Note: T-Bills are securities with short-term duration of less than one year while dated securities have maturity of over five years.

Small savings schemes’ interest rates cut by 20 bps

• The union government has slashed the interest rates on small savings schemes, including NSC and PPF (by 0.2 % point) for the January-March period from the rates applicable in the previous quarter.
• PPF and NSC will fetch a lower annual rate of 7.6% & KVP 7.3%.
• Investments in the five-year Senior Citizens Savings Scheme has been retained at 8.3% and paid quarterly.
• However, interest on savings deposits has been retained at 4% annually.
• The girl child savings scheme Sukanya Samriddhi Account will offer 8.1% (existing 8.3%) annually.
• The term deposits of 1-5 years will fetch a lower interest rate of 6.6 -7.4% (paid quarterly), while the five-year recurring deposit is pegged at 6.9%.