Current Affairs Updates - 30 December 2017

Current Affairs Updates - 30 December 2017

Today we have brought to you some of the most important headlines of 30th December 2017. All the important news of national affairs, awards and honors along with conference and defence news have been pointed out in bullets. These are very important for the upcoming exams of IBPS and SSC. We request all the aspirants to go through our updates daily and practice the quizzes. If you like our articles then please click on the bell icon at the right corner of the page and follow our Exam360 app.

New Appointments: International

Prince Harry has been named the president of African Parks, a conservation group that manages a dozen wildlife areas across the continent.

• The environmentalist organisation said that the "influential role" played by Prince Harry will contribute to its effort to protect Africa's natural heritage and support both wildlife and communities, who live in and around conservation areas, reported Sputnik.

Banking/Economic Affairs

The country's largest lender SBI has approved raising Rs 8,000 crore through various sources, including masala bonds, to meet Basel III capital norms. 

• The Central Board at its meeting held today accorded approval to raise additional tier 1 (AT 1) capital by way of issuance of Basel III compliant debt instruments in USD and/or INR to the tune of Rs 8,000 crore from domestic/international market including masala bonds," the bank said in a regulatory filing. 

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) approved norms to improve governance in mutual funds and credit rating agencies and deepen the securities markets.

• Sebi also did its bit to help tackle India’s Rs10 trillion stressed asset problem at a meeting of its board in Mumbai.
• For both mutual funds and credit raters, the markets regulator proposed to restrict cross-holding. 

Rankings

According to a report by CARE Ratings, India ranked fifth on a list of countries with the highest levels of NPAs. It has the highest level of non-performing assets (NPA) among BRICS countries

• The only countries ranked higher than India on the list are Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Ireland.
• In its report, CARE Ratings said that ‘the seriousness of the NPA problem can be gauged by the absolute level of impaired assets in the system.

National Affairs

Incredible India Nation Earns 1,60,865 Crores From its Foreign 'Atithis' this year.

• Foreign Tourist Arrivals during the period January-November 2017 were 90.01 lakh with a growth of 15.6% while Foreign Exchange Earnings during the period January-November 2017 were Rs.1,60,865 Crore with a growth of 16.9% over same period of previous year. 
• India’s rank in the Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index, 2017 has also shown 25 places jump from 2013.

Parliament gave its nod to National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi Laws (Special Provisions) Second (Amendment) Bill, 2017

• The Bill seeks to amend the National Capital Territory of Delhi Laws (Special Provisions) Second Act, 2011. 
• The 2011 Act provides for relocating slum dwellers and Jhuggi-Jhompri clusters in accordance with the provisions of the Delhi Shelter Improvement Board Act, 2010 and the Master Plan for Delhi, 2021.

India provided medical assistance worth about 1 million dollar to Yemen in response to a request from the Yemeni government.

• According to a statement issued by the External Affairs Ministry, Minister of State for External Affairs M.J. Akbar presented a box of anti-cholera medicines to Yemeni Ambassador Abdulmalik Abdullah Al-Eryani at a token handing over ceremony held here. 

NITI Aayog has selected an additional 1,500 schools for setting up Atal Tinkering Labs (ATLs) under the government's flagship programme Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) taking the total number of such labs to 2,441.

• ATLs are innovation play workspaces for students between grade VI to XII, stimulating innovations combining science and technology. Their aim is to promote innovation and entrepreneurship in schools, universities, and industry with a vision to "cultivate one million children in India as the innovators of tomorrow", it said.

Parliament passed a bill to protect slums and unauthorised colonies in the national capital region from punitive action till a framework for orderly arrangements are in place.

• The National Capital Territory of Delhi Laws (Special Provisions) Second (Amendment) Bill, passed by Lok Sabha on Wednesday, gives immunity to slums and some unauthorised constructions till December 31, 2020. The immunity under the existing Bill ends on December 31.

International Affairs

The Russian space agency says it lost contact with an Angolan telecommunications satellite launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome.

• Roskosmos said that the launch on December 27 was successful but that ground control stopped receiving telemetric data from the satellite shortly after it entered orbit.

Science & Technologies

A newly discovered spider has received a memorable, scientific name: Desis bobmarleyi. It has been named after Bob Marley- the international renowned musical icon.

• In a published paper, Australian scientists explain that they gave the new intertidal species this name became of Marley’s song “High Tide or Low Tide,” which matches the high tide-low tide habitat in which the species thrives.  

Defence & Railway

The two-week long eighth edition of the Indo-Maldives joint military exercise, 'Ekuverin', came to an end at Belagavi.

• The bilateral annual exercise was a 14-day joint military training between the Indian Army and the Maldives National Defence Force (MNDF), held alternatively in India and Maldives since 2009.
• India successfully test-fired its indigenously developed Advanced Air Defence (AAD) supersonic interceptor missile, capable of destroying any incoming ballistic missile in low altitude, from a test range in Odisha.

Application / Portal 

Pluto Exchange launches India’s first bitcoin trading app.

• "The Pluto Exchange mobile app offers a solution to the coordination problem between payment processors, financial gateways and banks,” Verma said. “All other apps already in the market do transactions using bitcoin addresses, which are long and prone to error while copying. Pluto Exchange will change this scenario by enabling transactions using mobile numbers only, which are just 10 digits,” he said.

Schemes / Programme

The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change approved a regional project on 'climate resilience building among farmers through crop residue management,' to effectively combat the climate change. 

• The project, under the National Adaptation Fund for Climate Change (NAFCC), aims to mitigate climate change impacts, enhance adaptive capacity and counter the adverse environmental impacts caused from burning, an official statement said here. 

Agreements (MoU)

Bank of Baroda, is entering into MOU with POORTI Agri Services Pvt. Ltd to enable the farmers to purchase agricultural inputs such as fertilizers, pesticides, seeds etc. provided by POORTI.

• This is a Platform for Online Ordering and Rural Transformation of India known as “POORTI”, which is a well-established company providing multi-party mobile commerce platform for easy ordering of fertilizers, pesticides, seeds by farmers with loans given by banks.

India signed a loan agreement worth 40 million dollar with the World Bank for “UP Pro-Poor Tourism Development Project” aimed at increasing tourism-related benefits for local communities in Uttar Pradesh.

• The programme duration is five years. “The project objective is to increase tourism-related benefits for local communities in targeted destinations.”

Summit /Conference / Events / Host

The 2018 edition of the historic Indian Science Congress will be held at Manipur University, Imphal.

• The event was scheduled at the Osmania University (OU), Hyderabad, in the first week of January but had to be moved out due to “security problems.” This was the first time the 106-year-old ISC — the largest congregation of scientists in India — had to be postponed at the last minute.

Awards & Honours

Kuppali Venkatappa Puttappa honoured with a Google doodle on his birth anniversary

• The renaissance of Kannada literature on the national stage was heralded by the publication of Kuvempu’s Sri Ramayana Darshanam, which was awarded the Jnanpith Award, half a century ago. Google is honouring the contribution of one of Karnataka’s foremost man of letters by dedicating a doodle to the winner of the first Kannada Jnanpith on the occasion of his 113th birth anniversary. Incidentally, it is also the golden jubilee of the author’s novel Malegalalli Madumagalu.

Noted writer Ramendra Kumar, whose stories feature in Sri Lankan textbooks, has been felicitated in the neighbouring country for his contribution to children's literature.

• Kumar is an award-winning writer with 32 books to his credit. His writings have been translated into 14 Indian and 13 foreign languages and have found a place in school text books and anthology also in India and abroad.

Sports: Awards & Honours

Viswanathan Anand wins World rapid championship in Riyadh .The women’s title was won by China’s Ju Wenjun.

• The genial genius from Chennai, who defeated Magnus Carlsen of Norway earlier in the tournament, went on to finish on top with 10.5 points at the end of the 15th and final round.

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