Current Affairs : 17th January 2014 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 1.Congress president Sonia Gandhi said today that the CWC decision on Rahul Gandhi not being named as party’s prime ministerial candidate is final. Sonia Gandhi announced the same before she began her formal speech at the start of the day-long AICC session in New Delhi even if most of the delegates demanded Rahul Gandhi as PM candidate for the upcoming Lok Sabha poll this year. 2.Titanic II, a replica of the 1912 ill-fated ocean liner expected to set sail in 2017, will have almost the same design as the original including a third-class with shared bathrooms and even a symbolic “delousing”. Australian millionaire Clive Palmer, who is building a replica of Titanic II, is trying hard to convince up to 1000 cruise ship passengers to board the ship. 3.Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) headed by Union Minister of Finance P Chidambram approved the sale of 10% government stake in Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) to Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) and Oil India Limited (OIL) yesterday. ONGC and OIL will buy a part of the government’s stake in Indian Oil Corp for a total of Rs 4700 crore to Rs 5000 crore. It will help the government to meet part of its disinvestment target of 40000 crore rupees set for the financial year 2013-14. Earlier Coal India has announced hefty dividend from which Indian government is expected to earn more than Rs 16,000 crore as well. 4.The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) included Hong Kong and Macau in the sensitive list of countries along with Pakistan and China on 15 January 2014. Macau and Hong Kong are two Special Administrative Regions controlled by China. This means that establishments from Hong Kong and Macau will require prior approval of RBI for setting up business or related activities in India. The activities include establishment of liaison, branch, project offices or any other place of business. Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Iran and China are already included in the sensitive list. 5.Bharatiya Mahila Bank (BMB) and SBI Cards have joined hands for roll-out of credit cards to customers of India’s first women-focused commercial bank. This will be the first instance of a public sector bank promoting a white-label credit card issued by SBI Cards. Under this arrangement, SBI Cards will issue and process the credit cards as white-label cards, allowing BMB to brand the cards as their own without having to invest in infrastructure. A white-label card does not carry the brand of the issuer (SBI Cards) on its face. It will only in this case carry the brand of BMB. 6.Taiwanese poet Yushi was awarded with the Thiruvalluvar award by the Tamil Nadu government in Chennai on the occasion of Thiruvalluvar Day of 15th January. With this, He is the first foreign scholar to receive Thiruvalluvar award. The award was given to him in recognition of his contribution to the Tamil language. Yushi has translated Tirukkural (one of the collection of sangam literature), the poems of poet Subramanya Bharathi and poet Bharathidasan in Mandarin, Chinese language. 7.Jaipur Literature Festival begins today. The seventh edition of the popular Jaipur Literature Festival, beginning at Diggi Palace on Friday, will feature as many as 240 speakers, including two Nobel laureates — Amartya Sen and Harold Varmus — who will engage in conversations on a wide range of subjects. 8.Legendary Bengali actor Suchitra Sen who was undergoing treatment at a private health facility in the city died in Kolkata on Friday morning. She was 82 and is survived by daughter Moon Moon Sen and grand daughters Raima and Riya Sen. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee who was in regular touch with doctors visited the hospital after hearing about her death. Prominent cinema personalities expressed grief over her death. Renowned actor and director Aparna Sen described her as a “legendary actress” and said, with her death an era has come to end in Bengali cinema. 9.The spiritual leader of the Dawoodi Bohra community Dr Syedna Mohammed Burhanuddin passed away in Mumbai today. The leader was the eldest son of Syedna Taher Saifuddin, 51st Dai ul Mutlaq. He succeeded his father upon his death in 1965. 10.Jamila Bayaz was appointed as the police chief of District One of Kabul province. She is the first woman in Afghanistan to be appointed as police chief of an entire district. The appointment of Jamila Bayaz is significant in more than one sense. Firstly, the appointment will pave the way for more Afghani women to rise through the ranks. Secondly, her appointment as police chief to one of the core districts of Kabul testifies that women position in Afghan society is improving since the Taliban were driven out from power in 2001. 11.Former world champion cyclist Alessandro Ballan was banned for two years on Friday for blood doping. The Italian Olympic Committee’s anti-doping court announced the decision after Ballan was indicted on doping charges by a general court in Mantova for alleged team-wide drug use by the Lampre team. Ballan won the road race at the 2008 worlds in Varese. thegatecoach
Posted on: Tue, 21 Jan 2014 06:11:07 +0000
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