18 December 2019 - Daily Current Affairs

18 December 2019 - Daily Current Affairs

1. Veteran actor Shriram Lagoo passes away

• Veteran actor & ENT Surgeon Dr Shriram Lagoo (92-years) passed away at his Pune residence.
• Mr. Lagoo acted in more than 100 Hindi and Marathi films in his career and directed twenty plays in Marathi.
• His roles in Marathi plays such as “Natsamrat” and “Himalayachi Saoli”, and films such as “Pinjra” made him popular.
• In Hindi, he essayed memorable roles in films such as “Ek Din Achanak”, “Gharonda” and “Lawaris”, to name a few.
• Dr Lagoo also wrote a book, an autobiography titled ‘Lamaan’ (means ‘the carrier of goods’).
• He won the 1978 Filmfare Best Supporting Actor Award for the Hindi film Gharaonda.

Source: The Hindu

2. Former Union Minister I D Swami passes away

• Former Union Minister & Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader I D Swami (90 years) passed away in Faridabad.
• He served as the Union Minister of State for Home Affairs in 1999 in former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s government.
• He was also two times Lok Sabha member from Karnal (Haryana) in 1966 and 1999.

Source: The Times of India

Important Days

3. 18th December: International Migrants Day

• The UN’s (United Nation) International Migration Day (IMD) is being observed every year on 18th December to protect the rights of migrant workers and members of their families.
• The International Organization for Migration salutes migrants and the communities they join, the communities they remake through their mutual effort.
• In Dec 2000, the UN General Assembly proclaimed 18 Dec as International Migrants Day after considering the large and increasing number of migrants in the world.

National Affairs

4. GoI flagship scheme, AMRUT extended by 2 years

• The Union Government has extended the deadline of its flagship scheme AMRUT (Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation) by two more years.
• In 2015, PM Modi has launched AMRUT mission, promising 139 lakh water connections and 145 lakh sewer connections by March 2020.
• In the last five years, 2,316 projects have been completed so far at an expense of Rs 7,195 crore.
• The expenditure of the mission was estimated as Rs 77,640 crores.
• According to the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affair, 46% of water connection & 28.3% of sewer connections have been achieved between June 2015 and December 2019.

Note:

• With the help of the AMRUT scheme, the centre formulates city level estimation of budget required to avail water supply, draining system, sewerages, digital and internet facilities, industrial and transport facilities, etc.

Honour & Award

5. B P Raju wins India Cyber Cop of the Year 2019 award

• B P Raju (CBI - officer) has been awarded the ‘India Cyber Cop of the Year 2019’ during the Annual Information Security Summit held at Gurgaon, Haryana.
• He won the award for investigating and cracking a fraud case in an online entrance exam conducted by an engineering college in Rajasthan.
• Raju arrested nine accused persons and collected incriminating evidence from digital devices, which revealed the modus operandi adopted by the accuse.
• The award was conferred by NASSCOM-DSCI (Data Security Council of India).

Source: PTI

6. Gujarat Police honoured with President's Colours

• Vice President of India Muppavarapu Venkaiah Naidu presented the ‘Gujarat Police’ with ‘President’s colours’ for their outstanding services.
• It is the highest honour given to the police force in India.
• The previously awarded states were Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Jammu and Kashmir, Tripura and Assam.
• The president’s colours are also known as ‘Nishaan’ which is an emblem that will be worn by all police officers on the left-hand sleeve of their uniform.

Source: The Times Of India

7. State-level ‘orange festival’ begins in Tamenglong, Manipur

• Chief Minister N. Biren Singh inaugurated the three days State-level Orange festival at district headquarters Tamenglong in Manipur.
• The state government under the sponsorship of North Eastern Council organise the festival annually to promote the fruit and encourage its growers.
• As part of the festival, cultural show, traditional games, orange queen completion, a seminar for growers will be held.
• Tamenglong district is the largest producer of orange fruit in Manipur.

Source: North-East Today

8. Sridhar Patra appointed CMD of NALCO

• Sridhar Patra has been appointed as the chairman-cum-managing director (CMD) of NALCO  till 31^st October 2024.
• Currently, Mr Patra is posted as Director (Finance) in the National Aluminium Company Limited (NALCO).

Note:

• National Aluminium Company Limited (NALCO) is a Navratna group ‘A’ CPSE having integrated and diversified operations in mining, metal and power under Ministry of Mines, Government of India.
• Presently, the Government of India holds 52% equity of NALCO.

Banking & Insurance

9. SBI inks $277 million pact with Germany based KfW bank

• State Bank of India (SBI) has signed a loan agreement worth of USD 277 million with Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW) German development bank for establishing an energy-efficient housing programme in India.
• Under the programme, both builders and homebuyers shall be financed for developing/purchasing energy-efficient residential projects that achieve at least 25 per cent energy savings in comparison to standard reference buildings.
• The programme shall be part of the Indo-German Development Co-operation, guided by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
• The arrangement of the loan and the grant facilities was facilitated by SBI’s investment banking subsidiary SBI Capital Markets Ltd.

10. GEM launches national outreach programme 'GeM Samvaad'

• Government e-commerce portal (GeM) has launched a national outreach programme ‘GeM Samvaad’ to bring on-board more local sellers.
• The outreach programme will take place with stakeholders across the country and with local sellers to facilitate on-boarding of local sellers on the marketplace.
• The programme will take place from tomorrow to 17th February next year and will cover all the States and Union Territories of the country.
• GeM has more than 15 lakh products and around 20,000 services, more than 3 lakh registered sellers and service providers and more than 40 thousand government buyer organizations.

International Affairs

11. World's first liquid hydrogen carrier ship launches in Japan

• Japan’s Kawasaki Heavy Industries has launched world’s first marine carrier ‘Suiso Frontier’ (116 meters long), transports liquefied hydrogen, in a bid to establish green energy supply chain.
• By liquefying hydrogen at minus 253 degrees Celsius, the cargo can be compressed to one-800th of its gaseous volume.
• The carrier will transport to Japan hydrogen produced in Australia from cheap coal, with trial shipments due to begin before March 2021.

Source: Japan Times

12. UNESCO removes Belgian Carnival from Heritage List for mocking Jews

• The Aalst Carnival of Belgium has been removed from UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage of humanity.
• Heritage list, after the annual festival, depicted afloat with caricatures of Orthodox Jews with hooked noses and sitting atop bags of money.
• The body has termed the parade as racist and antisemitic representations and mockery towards some communities.
• Thus, for safeguarding the intangible cultural heritage, the UN’s intergovernmental committee has withdrawn the carnival, which takes place each year in the Belgian city of Aalst.

Source: The Guardian

Sports

13. Deepak Punia is UWW’s best junior wrestler of 2019

• World championships silver medallist Deepak Punia has been named United World Wrestling’s (UWW) Junior Freestyle Wrestler of the Year.
• Punia became the first Indian wrestler in 18 years to win a junior world title since 2001.
• Japan’s Yui SUSAKI has been named United World Wrestling’s Junior Women’s Wrestler of the Year.
• Currently, Punia is number-1 in the UWW rankings of 86kg category.

• Indian opener Smriti Mandhana was named in both the International Cricket Council's ODI and T20 teams of the year.
• Mandhana has Jhulan Goswami, Poonam Yadav and Shikha Pandey for the company in the ODI team of the year and all-rounder Deepti Sharma in the T20 side.
• Mandhana has played 51 ODIs and 66 T20Is for India (combined tally of 3476 runs), besides a couple of Test matches.
• Australia's Alyssa Healy was chosen as the T20 cricketer of the year following her record-breaking 148 against Sri Lanka earlier this year.
• The ODI cricketer of the year honour went to Australia's Ellyse Perry, who scored 441 runs and took 21 wickets.

Top ICC Awards 2019

ICC Women’s ODI Cricketer of the Year	Ellyse Perry (Australia)
ICC Women’s T20I Cricketer of the Year	Alyssa Healy (Australia)
ICC Women’s Emerging Player of the Year	Chanida Sutthiruang (Thailand)
Rachael Heyhoe Flint Award for ICC Women’s Cricketer of the Year	Ellyse Perry (Australia)
ICC Captain of Women’s ODI Team of the Year	Meg Lanning (Australia)
ICC Captain of Women’s T20I Team of the Year	Meg Lanning (Australia)