17-18 February 2019 - Daily Current Affairs

Shri Pramod Chandra Mody (Indian Revenue Service (Income Tax cadre)- 1982-batch) has been appointed as the new chairman of the Central Board of Direct Taxes.
Mr Mody succeeds Sushil Chandra, who was named as Election Commissioner of India.
Mody has been working as the Member (Administration) in the CBDT.
The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) is the policy-making body of the Income Tax Department.

Note:

The CBDT Chairperson is ex-officio special secretary and is under the direct charge of the revenue secretary of India.

National Affairs

Today, Prime Minister Narendra Modi holds talks with Argentinian President Mauricio Macri in New Delhi.
Earlier, Mr Macri arrived in India on a three-day visit.
Mr Macri's visit comes at a time when India and Argentina are celebrating the 70th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations.

Vice President Shri M. Venkaiah Naidu has inaugurated the World Sustainable Development Summit (WSDS) 2019 at Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi.
The World Sustainable Development Summit (WSDS) is The Energy and Resources Institute's (TERI) annual flagship event.
The theme of the 2019 edition of the Summit is 'Attaining the 2030 Agenda: Delivering on Our Promise'.
Frank Bainimarama (Prime Minister of Fiji) has been honoured with the Sustainable Development Leadership Award 2019 for his outstanding contributions towards sustainable development in Fiji.

Former President Pranab Mukherjee has released the book containing selected speeches (92 speeches) of Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu at a function in New Delhi.
The book titled “Selected Speeches: Volume-1”.
The book is categorised into six broad sections - ‘Functioning of Legislatures’, ‘Nation and Nationalism’, ‘Polity and Governance’, ‘Economic Development’, ‘Media’ and ‘India and the World’.
The Publications Division of the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting has brought out the compilation.

According to the latest data available with depositories, Foreign investors have put in over 5300 Crore rupees into the Indian equity market in the first half of this month.
The infusion into the equity market comes following a pull-out of 5,264 crore rupees by foreign portfolio investors (FPI) in January.
However, FPIs pulled out a net amount of 248 rupees crore from the bond market during the period.
This has translated into a net investment of 5,074 crore rupees in the country's capital markets (equity and debt together).

Note:

A foreign portfolio investment is a grouping of assets such as stocks, bonds, and cash equivalents.
Portfolio investments are held directly by an investor or managed by financial professionals.

According to the Finance minister Arun Jaitley, India has raised the basic customs duty to 200% on all goods imported from Pakistan with immediate effect.
Earlier, India withdraws the Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status in the aftermath of the Pulwama terror attack.
The main items which Pakistan exports to India include fresh fruits, cement, petroleum products, bulk minerals and ores and finished leather.

Note:

Customs duty is a tariff or tax on the importation (usually) or exportation (unusually) of goods.
All authorized ports are recognized customs areas.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has imposed Rs 3.5 crore penalties on three public sector banks for violation of various banking norms.
A penalty of Rs 1.5 crore has been imposed on Oriental Bank of Commerce (OBC) and Rs 1 crore each on Punjab National Bank (PNB) and Bank of India.
The monetary penalty on the banks has been imposed for non-compliance with various directions issued by the RBI on monitoring of end-use of funds, exchange of information with other banks, and on a restructuring of accounts.

Indian professional footballer Sunil Chhetri (34-year) has been conferred the first ever Football Ratna honour at Jawahar Lal Nehru Stadium in New Delhi.
He is popularly known as ‘Captain Fantastic’.
He has scored the 2nd highest number of goals in international matches among active players after Cristiano Ronaldo.
Chhetri has also been named AIFF Player of the Year five times in 2007, 2011, 2013, 2014 and 2017.

Saina Nehwal won her fourth title at the Yonex-Sunrise 83rd Senior Nationals.
She defended PV Sindhu in the finals in Guwahati by 21-18, 21-15.
Sourabh Verma claiming the men’s singles crown after defeating young Lakshya Sen in straight games of 21-18, 21-13.
Pair of Pranaav Jerry Chopra and Chirag Shetty defeated Arjun M.R and Shlok Ramachandran in straight games to clinch the Men’s Doubles title.

West Indian left-hander batsman Chris Gayle (39-year) has announced that he will retire from One-day Internationals after the forthcoming World Cup.
Gayle has scored 9,727 ODI runs, second only to the legendary Brian Lara among West Indians in 284 matches.
Gayle has scored a Windies record of 23 ODI hundreds, including the first-ever World Cup double century against Zimbabwe.
The World Cup will be held in England and Wales from 30th May till 14th July 2019.

Vidarbha (Ranji Trophy champions) successfully defended their title and defeated Rest of India on the first-innings basis to win the tournament in Nagpur.
Now, Vidarbha has become the third team after Mumbai and Karnataka to clinch two Irani Cup titles in a row.
According to Vidarbha captain Faiz Fazal, the entire prize money will be donated to the families of the CRPF personnel martyred in Pulwama terror attack.
Hanuma Vihari became the first player to score 3 consecutive centuries in Irani Cup.

Final Score:

Belgium’s Elise Mertens (23-years) beat top seed Simona Halep (Romania) 3-6, 6-4, 6-3 to win the Qatar Open 2019.
This is world number 21 Mertens' first-ever WTA Premier-level crown, and the fifth title of her career overall.
The Qatar Open is a professional Tennis tournament played on outdoor hard courts.
Currently, it is a part of the ATP World Tour 250 series of the Association of Tennis Professionals World Tour.

S. No.	Champion	Runner-up	Score
1.Men’s Singles	Roberto Bautista Agut (Spain)	Tomas Berdych (Czech Republic)	6–4, 3–6, 6–3
2.Women’s Singles	Elise Mertens (Belgium)	Simona Halep (Romania)	3-6, 6-4, 6-3
3. Men’s Doubles	David Goffin(Belgium) & Pierre-Hugues Herbert (France)	Robin Haase (Netherlands) & Matwe Middelkoop(Netherlands)	5–7, 6–4, [10–4]