Current Affairs Update – 20th January, 2016

Hello and welcome to ExamPundit. Here are the Important Current Affairs of 20th January, 2016. These are important for the upcoming LIC AAO 2016 and Syndicate Manipal PO Exam.

• India has emerged as one of the
  five most promising markets for businesses globally as it offers one of the
  best opportunities for both domestic as well as global companies, says a
  survey.
• According to the annual global
  CEO survey of consultancy giant PwC released here at the WEF Annual Meeting,
  the top five markets considered as most important for overall growth prospects
  by the respondents are USA, China, Germany, the UK and India.
• As per the findings, CEOs are
  less optimistic about prospects this year and those who think global growth
  would improve over the next 12 months have declined to 27 per cent from 37 per
  cent seen in 2015.
• Further, those who think the
  situation would worsen have increased to 23 per cent from 17 per cent.

• The Cabinet today cleared ex-post
  facto the stand taken by India on food security at the last meeting of the
  World Trade Organisation held in Nairobi.
• The Tenth WTO Ministerial
  Conference concluded in Nairobi in December.
• India wants a permanent solution
  on the issue of public stock holding for its food security programme.
• It had proposed either amending
  the formula to calculate the food subsidy cap of 10 per cent, which is based on
  the reference price of 1986-88, or allowing such schemes outside the purview of
  subsidy caps.
• The food security issue is
  related to several developing nations which provide subsidised foodgrains to
  the poor.

• Union Government on 19 January
  2016 sanctioned 33000 crore rupees for the development of infrastructure
  projects in Tamilnadu.
• Union Road Transport, Highways
  and Shipping Minister Nitin Gadkari announced the sanctioned amount and at his
  discretion, he announced additional 17000 crore rupees. With this, the total
  amount sanctioned was raised to 50000 crore rupees.
• The infrastructure projects
  include construction of Rail-Over-Bridges, upgradation of state highways into
  National Highways and major bridges in the state.
• Four-laning of 3 National
  Highways (NH) accounting a length of 105 kilometers and two flyovers in
  Marthandam and Parvathipuram, at an estimated cost of 2766 crore rupees.
• 39 NH projects for a length of
  1974 kilometers at an estimated cost of 12000 crore rupees, which already are
  under progress.

• The Union Ministry of Shipping on
  19 January 2016 started Project Green Ports, which will help in making the
  Major Ports across India cleaner and greener.

1. Green Ports Initiatives
2. Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan

• It includes twelve initiatives
  which will be implemented under strict time bound fashion in order to achieve
  the targets.

• The Ministry has identified 20
  activities with certain time-line to promote cleanliness at the port premises.

• The Indian Space Research
  Organisation (ISRO) on 20 January 2016 successfully launched the Indian
  Regional Navigational Satellite System (IRNSS) 1-E satellite. The satellite
  will provide navigation, tracking and mapping services to the Indian sub
  continent.
• The satellite is the fifth of the
  IRNSS constellation. It was launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre
  (SHAR), Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh on-board the PSLV-C31.
• The Polar Satellite Launch
  Vehicle (PSLV)-C31 was the 32nd consecutively successful mission of the PSLV.
  The ‘XL’ configuration of PSLV was used for this mission.
• This is the eleventh time ‘XL’
  configuration was flown, earlier ten being PSLV-C11/Chandrayaan-1,
  PSLV-C17/GSAT-12, PSLV-C19/RISAT-1, PSLV-C22/IRNSS-1A, PSLV-C25/Mars Orbiter
  Spacecraft, PSLV-C24/IRNSS-1B, PSLV-C26/IRNSS-1C, PSLV-C27/IRNSS-1D,
  PSLV-C28/DMC-3 and PSLV-C30/ASTROSAT  missions.

• Union Minister Nitin Gadkari will
  inaugurate the 19th National Conference on e-Governance to be held here from
  tomorrow.
• The two-day conference is being
  jointly organised by the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public
  Grievances (DARPG), Department of Electronics and Information Technology and
  Maharashtra government, an official release said.
• While Union Shipping and Road
  Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari will inaugurate the conference, Union MoS for
  Personnel and Public Grievances Jitendra Singh will be the guest of honour and
  DAPRG Secretary Devendra Chaudhry will address the inaugural session.
• The conference will have six
  plenary sessions on topics like Governance with Accountability Transparency and
  Innovation (GATI) for citizen-centric services, financial inclusion – Jan Dhan,
  Aadhaar and Mobile (JAM) and Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT), urban governance in
  smart cities, the release stated.
• The other sessions are on ‘Decade
  of e-Governance – Way Ahead’ and technology enabled education and cyber
  security framework for citizen centric services, it added.

• Country’s own fighter aircraft
  light combat aircraft (LCA), Tejas, will take part in the three-day Bahrain
  International Airshow starting from Thursday (January 21 to 23).
• Tejas is a single engine, light
  weight, highly agile, multi-role supersonic fighter. The Tejas light combat
  aircraft is a 4.5 generation aircraft with supersonic capability at all
  altitudes.
• It has the fly by wire, state of
  the art open architecture computer for avionics and better weapon and combat
  capability. With the advanced avionics, the pilot load is also reduced.

• The Maharashtra Government and
  Tata Trust on 19 January 2016 signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for a
  skill training programme for the youth in the state.
• The programme has been undertaken
  under the Maharashtra Government’s Kushal Maharashtra, Rojgaryukt Maharashtra
  initiative.

• Under the skill training
  programme for the youth, skill development and vocational training centres will
  be set up in 10 districts in Maharashtra.
• Virtual classrooms will also be
  set up in 100 Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) in Maharashtra.

• The Bihar Cabinet on 19 January
  2016 formally approved 35 percent reservation for women in all government jobs
  in the state.
• The decision was taken in the
  cabinet meeting presided by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.
• The 35 percent reservation for
  women will be applicable to in all government jobs including reserved and
  unreserved category.
• The Bihar Government is already
  providing 35 percent reservation for women in recruitment as police constables
  and sub-inspectors and 50 percent reservation as primary school teachers and in
  the Panchayati Raj system.
• In 2015, during campaigning for
  the Bihar assembly polls, Nitish Kumar, as chief ministerial candidate of the
  Grand Alliance of Janata Dal-United, Rashtriya Janata Dal and Congress, had
  promised 35 percent reservation for women in all government jobs if he formed a
  government again.

• Mamta Binani has been elected
  President of the Institute of Company Secretaries of India (ICSI) for 2016. She
  took charge on January 19.
• A commerce and law graduate and a
  fellow member of the Institute of Company Secretaries of India, Binani was the
  all-India topper in the Intermediate examinations of The Institute of Company
  Secretaries of India, amongst all the lady candidates in India and had ranked
  14th on an all-India basis.
• In the final examinations, she
  stood all-India first in the subject ‘Company Law’. She has been practising as
  a Company Secretary for over 19 years now.

• Sahara Force India Academy racer
  Jehan Daruvala on 16 January 2016 won one of New Zealand’s most prestigious
  events, the Lady Wigram Trophy.
• It was Daruvala’s maiden victory
  in Formula cars since making the switch from karting in 2015.
• In August 2015, Daruvala won
  Rookie of the Year at the Formula Renault 2.0 NEC series championships in the
  Netherlands.

• Senior journalist and scholar
  Aroon Tikekar passed away on 19 January 2016 in Mumbai. He was 72.
• Tikekar, who has written over 20
  books, passed away due to breathing-related complications.

Regards

Team ExamPundit

Sponsored

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

Books For 2015 Banking/Insurance Exams