Current Affairs Update – 28 and 29 December, 2016

Hello and welcome to exampundit. Here are the important Current Affairs of 28 and 29 December, 2016. These are important for the upcoming IPPB PO Mains, NIACL AO Mains and RBI Assistant Mains 2016-17.

• The Ministry of Electronics and
  Information Technology (MeitY) has decided to team-up with Confederation of All
  India Traders (CAIT) to further promote digital payments among the retail
  community.
• As many as 1 crore shopkeepers in
  about 1,000 towns of the country will be trained on digital payments under a
  memorandum of understanding (MoU) between MeitY and CAIT, Ravi Shankar Prasad,
  Union Electronics and IT Minister, said at a press conference here on
  Wednesday.
• Prasad said that there was no
  timeline for completing the training (raise awareness level and increase adoption)
  of 1 crore shopkeepers.
• Meanwhile, Prasad also announced
  that MeitY rural Common Service Centre (CSC) through its outreach campaign
  ‘Digidhan Abhiyan’ has enrolled over 1 crore rural citizens for digital
  payments since its launch earlier this month.
• Over 3 lakh merchants have
  started offering digital payment options to rural customers across various
  districts and blocks in rural India, Prasad added.

• The Odisha Government in third
  week of December 2016 named the Rs 7600 crore Mega Lift Irrigation Scheme after
  freedom fighter Parbati Giri.
• The State Cabinet took the
  decision to mark respect for Giri’s contribution to the freedom movement and
  service to the poor and needy.
• The government approved tender
  for 13 Mega Lift Irrigation Schemes with a total command area of 19400 hectares
  in Mayurbhanj and Keonjhar districts of the state.

• The Union Ministry of Water
  Resources on 29 December 2016 announced a roadmap for early completion of Prime
  Minister Krishi Sinchayee Yojana (PMKSY) and Accelerated Irrigation Benefits
  Programme (AIBP).

• The roadmap is aimed at early
  completion of 99 identified projects under PMKSY and AIBP.
• Out of these 99 projects, 23
  projects were categorised as Priority-I projects which will be completed by
  April 2017.
• Another 31 projects were
  identified as Priority-II projects which will be completed by April 2018.
• The remaining 45 projects were
  classified as Priority-III projects which will be completed by December 2019.
• Out of the 99 AIBP projects,
  Maharashtra has 26 projects. While Andhra Pradesh has eight projects, Gujarat
  has only one project.
• Seven projects of Maharashtra are
  – Waghur, Bawanthadi (IS), Lower Dudhna, Tillari, Lower Wardha, Lower Panzara
  and Nandur Madhmeshwar. They are in priority-I category. The remaining 19
  projects of the State are under the priority-II category.

• The scheme was approved by the
  Union Cabinet in July 2015 with an outlay of Rs 50000 crore.
• Its primary objective is to
  improve convergence among existing water harvesting schemes in order to improve
  water usage efficiency.
• It is implemented over a
  five-year period till April 2020.

• The scheme was launched by the
  Union Government in 1996-97 to provide Central Loan Assistance (CLA) to states
  for executing irrigation projects.
• The primary objective of the
  programme is to accelerate the implementation of major and medium irrigation
  projects which were beyond resource capability of the states or were in
  advanced stage of completion.

• The World Bank’s Board of
  Executive Directors in December 2016 approved USD 235 million for the Bihar
  Rural Roads Project.
• The project aims at improving and
  effectively managing Bihar’s rural road network. It will also suggest better
  contract management practices to avoid time and cost over-runs. It will also
  propose better contract management practices to avoid time and cost over-runs.
• The fund will support the
  construction of about 2500 km of rural roads under the Mukhiya Mantri Gram
  Sampark Yojana (MMGSY).
• The roads under the project will
  be constructed using cost-effective designs and will also incorporate
  engineering measures that ensure road safety.

• After the completion of the
  project, around 1.2 million people will be able to access all-weather road. A
  majority of these people belong to the poor and vulnerable sections of society.
• 30% of the people, who will
  benefit from the project, live below the poverty line and about 48% of them are
  women.
• The project will also create
  direct employment of about 20 million person days for local labourers through a
  rural road construction and maintenance program.
• Under the project, climate
  resilient and cost-effective engineering designs will be used. Local materials
  and industrial by-products will be used to construct the roads.
• It will also use the alluvial
  sand that gathers on large tracts of farmable land after floods. It is expected
  that the step will save more than 25% in construction costs for rural roads.

• The Committee on Digital Payments
  headed by Ratan P Watal in December 2016 submitted its report to the Union
  Ministry of Finance.
• The committee was formed by the
  Union Government to suggest measures for increasing digital financial
  transactions across the country.

Accordingly, it has suggested the following
recommendations in its report.

• Make regulation of payments
  independent from the purview of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
• Update the current Payments and
  Settlement Systems Act, 2007.
• Promote digital payments and
  receipts within Government.
• Create a fund proposed as DIPAYAN
  from savings generated from cash-less transactions.
• Create a ranking and reward
  framework to encourage and recognise government agencies who lead the efforts
  on enabling digital payments.
• Consider outsourcing the
  operations of payment systems like Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) and
  National Electronic Fund Transfer (NEFT).
• Upgrade payment systems like RTGS
  and NEFT to operate on a 24×7 basis in the due course of time.
• Allow non-bank payment service
  providers (PSPs) to directly access payment systems.
• National Payments Corporation of
  India (NPCI) should be made payments centric in its ownership and objectives.
• Enable payments to be
  inter-operable between bank and non-banks as well as within non-banks.
• Create a formal mechanism to
  enable innovations and new business models.
• Implement other measures to
  promote digital payments.

• Union Minister of Shipping and
  Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari on 26 December 2016 inaugurated
  Sagarmala Development Company (SDC) in New Delhi.
• The incorporation of Sagarmala
  Development Company is a part of the ambitious Sagarmala Programme of the Union
  Government.
• The programme aims to harness
  India’s 7,500 km long coastline, 14,500 km of potentially navigable waterways
  and strategic location on key international maritime trade routes.
• The main objective of the company
  is to identify port-led development projects under the Sagarmala Programme.
• It would also aim to increase the
  scope of private sector participation in project development.
• The company provides equity
  support for the Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) set up by the ports, state,
  central ministries.

• India and Bhutan in December 2016
  signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for extending technical cooperation
  in infrastructure engineering.
• The MoU was signed between the
  Central Public Works Department (CPWD) of India and Bhutan’s Department of
  Engineering Services in Thimpu.

• Promoting sustainability in the
  built environment
• Capacity building through
  training of Bhutanese manpower
• Benchmarking in building and road
  sectors
• Besides, the CPWD also deploy
  engineering experts in Bhutan to achieve the above objectives.

• The Cabinet Committee on Economic
  Affairs (CCEA) on 28 December 2016 approved Road Connectivity Project for Left
  Wing Extremism (LWE) Affected Areas, a Centrally Sponsored Scheme aimed at
  improving the rural road connectivity in the worst LWE affected districts.
• This project will be implemented
  as a vertical under Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY).

• The construction or upgradation
  of 5411.81 km road and 126 bridges will be taken up at an estimated cost of Rs
  11724.53 crore.
• The fund sharing pattern of LWE
  road project will be same as that of PMGSY that is in the ratio of 60:40
  between the Union Government and State Government.
• However, the fund sharing will be
  in the ratio of 90:10 for eight North Eastern and three Himalayan States (Jammu
  & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh & Uttarakhand).

• Seeking to make India a hub of
  international arbitration and to accelerate the system of alternate dispute
  resolution, the government today set up a high level committee to recommend
  ways to make arbitration more efficient.
• The committee will be headed by
  retired Supreme Court judge B N Srikrishna. It will submit its report in 90
  days.
• The minister said the government
  has been taking legislative and administrative initiatives on arbitration with
  an aim of minimising court intervention, bring down costs, fix time lines for
  expeditious disposal, and ensure neutrality of arbitrator and enforcement of
  awards.
• The mandate of the panel will be
  to analyse and review effectiveness of present arbitration mechanism, the
  facilities, resources, funding and manpower of existing ADR (Alternate Dispute
  Resolution) institutions.
• It will also examine the
  institutions funded by the Centre for arbitration purposes and assess skill
  gaps in ADR and allied institutions for both national and international
  arbitration.
• The committee will also evaluate
  information outreach and efficacy of existing legal framework for arbitration.

• Haryana government today signed a
  memorandum of understanding with Andhra Pradesh to assist it compile a
  centralised database of its population to ensure efficient and effective
  implementation of welfare programmes.
• The MoU for State Resident Data
  Base (SRDB) was signed by Haryana Principal Secretary, Information Technology
  Devender Singh and Secretary Andhra Pradesh, Information Technology, Vijayen. Haryana
  Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar and Andhra’s N Chandra Babu Naidu were
  present during the signing of the MoU at Andhra Bhawan here.
• Andhra already has a database of
  this sort. It’s described as a comprehensive portal for managing demographic
  (name, gender, age, photograph and address) and biometric information for
  facilitating “Unique ID” based identity authentication.

• The Union Health Ministry in
  collaboration with All India Institute Of Medical Science (AIIMS) will set up a
  National Death Registry encompassing data about deaths and their causes in all
  the hospitals across the country. The announcement was made on 27 December
  2016.

• The aim behind setting up of this
  registry is to have a nationwide database about the causes of deaths occurring
  in hospitals in various regions of India.
• It will help the policy makers in
  having a better understanding of disease outbreaks so as to optimise the resources
  and healthcare facilities in respective regions.
• AIIMS already implemented the
  pilot version of the death registry with the unique feature of having a coding
  system called the Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine (SNOMED).
• AIIMS will be the technical as
  well as the implementing partner of this programme.

• The Union Cabinet on 28 December
  2016 gave its ex-post facto approval for ratification of ISA’s Framework
  Agreement of International Solar Alliance (ISA) by India.
• The approval was given at a
  meeting of the cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi.

• It is an alliance of 121 nations
  that are primarily situated between Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn
  launched on 30 November 2015.
• The International Solar Alliance
  (ISA) was jointly launched by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and France
  President Francois Hollande in Paris on the sidelines of the Conference of
  Parties 21 (CoP21) of the United Nations climate change conference (UNFCCC).
• It is considered as first
  international and inter-governmental organization mooted by India.

• It tries to improve living
  standards by facilitating greater access to energy.
• The ISA works with partner
  countries to formulate projects and programmes to accelerate development and
  deployment of existing clean solar energy technologies.
• It also develops innovative
  financial mechanisms to reduce cost of capital.
• It is also instrumental in
  spreading knowledge about solar energy through knowledge e-portal.

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi on
  27 December 2016 laid the foundation stone of Char Dham Highway Development
  Project in Dehradun, Uttarakhand.
• The primary objective of the programme
  is to develop all-weather roads leading to Char Dham – Kedarnath, Badrinath,
  Yamunotri and Gangotri in Uttarakhand.

• It is also called as the Chardham
  Mahamarg Vikas Pariyojna.
• It is a part of the Union
  Government’s National Highway Connectivity Improvement Programme for Char Dham
  in Uttarakhand.
• Char Dham Highway Development
  Project is an ambitious initiative to improve connectivity to the Char Dham
  pilgrimage centres in the Himalayas.
• Under the project, 900 km of
  national highways will be developed.
• These highways will be built at
  an approximate cost of Rs 12,000 crore.
• The all-weather roads will have
  tunnels, bridges and fly-overs to enhance road safety and uninterrupted access.

• Viral V Acharya was on 28
  December 2016 appointed as the Deputy Governor of Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
  He is a professor of economics at New York University.
• He will be joining the ranks of
  Vishwanathan, S S Mundra, R Gandhi as one of four Deputy Governors of RBI. He
  will be serving under RBI Governor Urjit Patel.

• The Jammu and Kashmir government
  on 28 December 2016 cleared the appointment of Dr Shesh Pal Vaid, Special DG,
  Coordination and Law and Order, as new Director General of Police. Vaid, the
  1986 batch Indian Police Services (IPS) officer of J&K cadre, will hold the
  office until October 2019.
• He will succeed DGP K Rajendra,
  whose extended term of service will end on 31 December 2016. Kumar was
  appointed as DGP of J&K in May 2014 and later was given an extension of
  three months during the unrest that occurred in the valley after killing of a
  militant named Burhan Wani.
• His appointment was approved at a
  cabinet meet chaired by Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti.
• He is the second officer from
  Jammu to have risen to the post of Director General of Police. MM Khajuria was
  the first person from Jammu to hold the position. He held the position in 1985.

• Former IAS officer Anil Baijal is
  all set to be appointed as the 21st Lieutenant Governor of Delhi. The approval
  for his appointment was given on 28 December 2016 by President Pranab
  Mukherjee.
• Baijal will succeed Najeeb Jung,
  who resigned from the post of Delhi LG on 22 December 2016. Jung had resigned
  18 months short of his tenure.

• Former attorney general Soli J
  Sorabjee was on 26 December 2016 re-elected as the President of the India
  International Centre (IIC), a prestigious cultural institution. He was
  appointed for a period of five years with effect from 1 January 2017.
• The Board of Directors of IIC
  unanimously elected Sorabjee for a second consecutive term while recognising
  his services in achieving the objectives of IIC.

• Meghalaya will host the 2022
  National Games, which will coincide with the state’s 50 years of statehood. The
  state had pledged 5 crore rupees as the bid amount for the game.
• With this, Meghalaya will become
  the third north-eastern state after Manipur and Assam to host the National
  Games.
• The news was announced on 27
  December 2016 in the meeting of the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) meeting
  held in Chennai. The IOA accepted Meghalaya’s bid to host the National Games
  overshadowing four other bidders, which were Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Chhattisgargh
  and Uttarakhand.
• The IOA accepted Meghalaya’s bid
  to host the 2022 National Games following the successful South Asian Games,
  which was co-hosted by Shillong and Guwahati earlier in 2016.
• The next Nation Games will be hosted
  by Goa in November 2017.

• Samit Gohel, the Ranji player
  from Gujarat, who scored 359 not out runs in Ranji Trophy quarterfinal in
  Jaipur, Rajasthan, has broken the 117-year-old record in first-class cricket.
  He was able to create the world record with 45 boundaries and one six in 723
  balls.
• Samit remained not out in his
  team’s score of 641, which was the highest first-class score for team Gujarat.
  With this score, Gujarat was able to enter into the semi-final of the Ranji
  Trophy. It defeated the Ranji team of Odisha.
• One of his teammates Priyank
  Panchal has been the top scorer in this season’s Ranji Trophy.
• Samit, 26, registered the highest
  first-class 359 while carrying the bat in a match against Odisha at the Sawai
  Man Singh Stadium. With his score, he also broke the first-class record held by
  an Englishman, Bobby Abel. Surrey’s Bobby Abel scored 357 against Somerset way
  back in 1899 at the Oval.
• While Hanif Mohammed’s score of
  499 remains the highest score by an opener in first-class cricket.

• India’s Test captain Virat Kohli
  on 27 December 2016 was named Cricket Australia’s ODI team of the year.
• Kohli was earlier also picked as
  the Captain of the ICC’s ODI team of the year.
• Cricket Australia stated that
  Kohli played only 10 one-day matches in 2016; however, he underlined his status
  as one of the best in the 50-over format. He scored back-to-back centuries
  against Australia in January 2016 and then a 154 against New Zealand, which was
  more than half of his team’s total. At present, he averages an incredible 90.10
  in 59 successful run chases for India.

• The Indian Olympic Association
  (IOA) on 27 December 2016 appointed Suresh Kalmadi and Abhay Singh Chautala as
  its life presidents.
• The IOA unanimously appointed the
  Kalmadi and Chautala to the post during its Annual General Meeting in Chennai,
  Tamil Nadu.
• A life president of IOA is an
  honorary post with no voting rights or involvement in day-to-day functioning of
  the body. In its 89-year old history, IOA has had 12 presidents, including the
  current incumbent N Ramachandran.

• Serbian professional tennis
  player Ana Ivanovic on 28 December 2016 announced retirement from tennis at the
  age of 29.
• Ivanovic announced her retirement
  in a video in which she stated that she no longer feels fit enough to compete
  at the highest level.
• The tennis player is the first
  Serbian woman to win a grand slam tournament.

• Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz
  Sharif on 28 December 2016 inaugurated Chashma-III nuclear power plant near
  Mianwali in Punjab Province.
• The inauguration of the plant not
  only alleviates the load shedding problems in Punjab Province, but also helps
  Pakistan in achieving the commitments under the Intended Nationally Determined
  Contributions (INDCs).
• As per the INDCs that are submitted
  by Pakistan to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
  (UNFCC), use of non-fossil fuel based energy sources will be encouraged in the
  country.

• In a landmark moment, the Prime
  Minister of Japan Shinzo Abe and President of the United States Barack Obama
  visited Pearl Harbor in Hawaii to offer condolences to the victims of the
  surprise Japanese bombing on US naval base 75 years ago.
• The meeting of the two leaders at
  the memorial site was another move towards reconciliation.

• Both the leaders used the
  ceremony to encourage their citizens to reconcile and move forward.
• Though Abe did not apologise for
  the attack, he did offer his most sincere and everlasting condolences to the
  victims and stated that Japan had taken a solemn vow to never wage a war ever
  again.
• Abe also visited the USS Arizona
  Memorial, which was built in 1962 in the memory of the American sailors and
  Marines who lay buried in the wreckage of the battleship, sunk by the Japanese
  during the attack.

• Nepal rejected India’s ‘open sky’
  proposal at a meeting held at New Delhi on 20 December 2016. The proposal was
  to allow unlimited flights between the two countries.
• Nepal explained its decision by
  saying that it was not ready for the agreement and might consider it two years
  later. Currently, airlines of both the nations are allowed to operate only
  30000 seats from each side.
• India and Nepal signed a
  memorandum of understanding to create a joint technical committee, which will
  be responsible for looking into Nepal’s request for developing new air routes
  and entry points at its Bhairahawa, Janakpur and Nepalgunj airports.
• The committee would convene in
  the first week of February 2017 to check the feasibility of the requested
  routes.

• Renowned Rajasthani litterateur
  Satya Narayan was on 26 December 2016 chosen for the 26th Bihari Puraskar 2016
  by K K Birla Foundation. This was the 26th year of the award.
• He was chosen for his Hindi book
  titled Yeh Ek Dunia which was published in 2010. His novel Yeh Ek Dunia depicts
  the various circumstances of life in contemporary world.
• The book attempts to enter the
  unseen aspects where human experiences and conscience are more important than
  life situations of contemporary time zone.

• Carrie Fisher, known for her role
  as Princess Leia Organa in Star Wars movie, passed away on 27 December 2016
  following a cardiac arrest. She was 60. She is survived by her mother, daughter
  and beloved French bulldog, Gary.
• Escaping Hollywood in 1973,
  Fisher enrolled in the Central School of Speech and Drama in London to study
  acting.
• In 1975, she made her film debut
  in the Warren Beatty-lead movie Shampoo.
• Throughout the 1990s, Fisher
  focused on her writing career and published Surrender the Pink and Delusions of
  Grandma.
• She also crafted the scripts for
  numerous Hollywood films like The Wedding Singer, Hook and Sister Act, etc.

• Sunderlal Patwa, the former Chief
  Minister of Madhya Pradesh, died at a private hospital in Bhopal on 28 December
  2016. He was 92.
• The veteran Bharatiya Janata
  Party (BJP) leader and two-times chief minister of Madhya Pradesh is considered
  as a political mentor of Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan.

• Pioneering astronomer Vera Rubin
  passed away on 25 December 2016. She was 88.
• Rubin, who helped discover
  evidence of dark matter, passed away due to natural causes.

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