Current Affairs Updates -23 December 2017

Current Affairs Updates -23 December 2017

Important Days

'December 22' has been declared as the National Mathematics Day. 

• The Declaration was made by Dr Manmohan Singh, Former Prime Minister of India, during the inaugural ceremony of the celebrations to mark the 125th birth anniversary of Srinivasa Ramanujan held at the Madras University Centenary Auditorium on 26 February 2012. Dr Manmohan Singh also announced that the year 2012 would be celebrated as the National Mathematics Year.

Rankings

Superstar Salman Khan has topped the 2017 Forbes India Celebrity 100 List rankings.

• The ‘Badshah’ of Bollywood Shah Rukh Khan and India’s cricket captain Virat Kohli took the second and third spot respectively with actor Priyanka Chopra named as only female celebrity in top 10 list.

National Affairs

India's first and only design university, World University of Design opened it campus at Sonipat, Haryana. 

• The university has international collaborations with foreign universities like UWS, University of West Scotland, VFS, the Vancouver Film School, and IAAD, the Italian University of Design. 
• Many other collaborations are in the pipeline including that with Huddersfield University, UK; Oxford Brookes University, UK; Emily Carr University, Canada. 

Shooting has been excluded from the events list, for the 2022 edition of Commonwealth games.

• After Durban's pull-out as hosts for the event, Birmingham was declared as the venue for the 2022 edition. Also, shooting features only as an optional sport, and the host nation can pick upto seven such sports. Birmingham has picked judo, table tennis, wrestling, gymnastics, diving, cycling and  basketball.

Chief justice of Delhi high court, justice G. Rohini has been assigned a new role—to head the commission set up to examine the sub-categorization of Other Backward Classes (OBCs).

• Her appointment by President Ram Nath Kovind on Monday to chair the five-member commission is reflective of her years of practice at the bar and later the bench. Having been sworn in as the first woman chief justice of the Delhi high court in April 2014, she brought a judicial balance to her rulings, and an open mind as well as a firm yet gentle approach to dealing with litigants.

As per National Family Health Survey, the percentage of women (in the age group 20-24 years), who were married before legal age, has reduced from 47.4% in 2005-06 to 26.8% in 2014-15.

• Further, as per analysis of Census 2011 data by NCPCR, nil marriages were reported in the age group of 0-9 years for both boys and girls. Marriage at a young age is detrimental to both girls and boys, and the Ministry is taking steps to end this practice. 

The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has created a National Highways Investment Promotion Cell (NHIPC) for attracting domestic and foreign investment for highways projects. 

• The cell will focus on engaging with global institution investors, construction companies, developers and fund managers for building investor participation in road infrastructure projects. 

International Affairs

UN resolution rejects Trump's declaration of jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

• The UN General Assembly has decisively backed a resolution effectively calling on the US to withdraw its recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. The text says that any decisions regarding the status of the city are "null and void" and must be cancelled.

Defence & Railway

The 11th edition of the exercise, 'Naseem Al Bahr' or 'Sea Breeze', was held on December 17 off the coast of Oman. 

• The Indian Navy deployed a submarine and the P8I long-range maritime aircraft for the first time for a bilateral naval exercise with the Omani navy. 
• The exercise is a biennial feature since 1993. 
• The Indian Navy also deployed two naval ships - INS Trikand and INS Teg - for the exercise. 

Indian Coast Guard Ship “Sujay”, the sixth in the series of six 105m Offshore Patrol Vessel (OPV) was commissioned by Director General Indian Coast Guard Shri Rajendra Singh at Goa.

• 'Sujay’ meaning ‘Great Victory’ is projection of Indian Coast Guard’s will and commitment “To serve and Protect” the maritime interest of the nation. The ship is based at Paradip, Odisha under the operational and administrative control of Commander Coast Guard Region (North-East).

Agreements (MoU)

A Loan agreement and a Guarantee agreement for providing additional funding of Euro 20 million was signed for the project ‘Pare Hydroelectric Plant’ under Indo-German Bilateral Development Cooperation. 

• The Loan agreement for the project was signed by Sh. A.G. West Kharkongor, Chairman and Managing Director, North Eastern Electric Power Corporation Limited (NEEPCO) and Mr. Christoph Kessler, Director, KFW while the Guarantee Agreement was signed by Sh. S. Selvakumar, Joint Secretary, DEA and Mr. Christoph Kessler, Director, KFW in the presence of H.E. Dr. Martin Ney, Ambassador of Federal Republic of Germany to India,.

To combat black money stashed abroad, India signed an agreement with Switzerland today that would allow automatic sharing of tax- related information from January 1 next year 

• A joint declaration for the implementation of Automatic Exchange of Information (AEOI) was signed last month between the two sides here and it provided that both countries would start collecting data in accordance with the global standards in 2018 and exchange it from 2019 onwards. 

The Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister has given its ex-post-facto approval for a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between India and Cuba on cooperation in the field of Health and Medicine. 

• The MoU was signed on 06th December, 2017 in New Delhi and covers the areas of cooperation in areas like Exchange & training of medical doctors, officials, other health professionals and experts; Assistance in development of human resources, health services and setting up of health care facilities; Short term training of human resources in health;

India and Germany on Monday signed several agreements, including a 200 million euro funding pact for climate-friendly urban mobility project.

• "An amount up to 200 million euro for the financial cooperation in form of loan for project ‘Climate Friendly Urban Mobility III’ and 11 million euro accompanying measures in form of grant for four projects,” was signed, said an official statement.

Summit /Conference / Events / Host

Krishnapatnam Port in Nellore, Andhra Pradesh, is hosting the 9th edition of International Youth Sailing Competition of India from December 27th to December 31st 2017.

• The event is the largest sailing competition in the country and is organised by the Navayuga Sailing Academy, Tamil Nadu Sailing Association (TNSA) and Yachting Association of Andhra Pradesh (YAAP) under the aegis of the Yachting Association of India (YAI) and the Asian Sailing Federation (ASAF).

A Regional Conference on 'Good Governance and Replication of Best Practices' begins in Guwahati.

• The two-day conference is being organized by the Department of Administrative Reforms & Public Grievances (DARPG), Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions, Government of India in collaboration with the Government of Assam. Chief Minister of Assam, Shri Sarhanand Sonowal will inaugurate the Conference tomorrow and address the delegates.

Awards & Honours

Authors Ramesh Kuntal  and Mamang Dai among 24 winners of 2017 Sahitya Akademi awards.

• Twenty-four other books won the Sahitya Akademi Translation Prize. Some of the well-known books whose translation received the honour include: Kalidasa’s Meghdoot (Sanskrit to Urdu, by Mahmood Ahmad Sahar), Harivanshrai Bachchan’s Meghshala (Hindi to Santhali, by Surya Singh Besra) and Mulk Raj Anand’s Two Leaves and a Bud (English to Assamese, by Babul Tamuly).
• The Other Winners of Sahitya Akademi Award 2017:
• Baig Ehsas (Urdu)
• Shrikant Deshmukh (Marathi)
• Gajanan Jog (Konkani)
• Inqulab (Tamil)
• Bhujanga Tudu (Santali)
• Gayatri Saraf (Odia)
• Devipriya (Telugu)
• Shiv Mehta (Dogri)
• Autar Krishen Rahbar (Kashmir)
• Udaya Narayana Singh (Maithili)