DAILY CURRENT AFFAIRS: JANUARY 2, 2019

Dear Aspirants,

Daily Current Affairs (January 2, 2019) like many other sections is inevitable and this also helps to score in the Banking awareness , Static GK and Financial Awareness sections. Remember, Banking Awareness and Static Awareness Questions are asked from the General Awareness section. This will also help you to ride your preparations for the forthcoming exams.

NATIONAL

Government sets up export promotion cell for MSMEs:

• Giriraj Singh, Minister of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) informed the parliament that the MSME ministry has established an Export Promotion Cell with an aim to create a sustainable ecosystem for entire MSME development.
• Evaluation of readiness of MSMEs to export their products and services.
• Recognition of areas where improvements are required in order to be able to export effectively and efficiently.

STATIC: MSME

Minister: Giriraj Singh

Headquarters: Udyog Bhawan, New Delhi

Panel suggests not to allow new Engineering colleges from 2020:

• A government appointed panel headed by IIT- Hyderabad chairman B V R Mohan Reddy has suggested to the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) to stop setting up new engineering colleges from 2020 and review the creation of new capacity every two years after that.
• In a 41-page report, the panel has also suggested that no additional seats should be approved in traditional engineering areas such as mechanical, electrical, civil and electronics.

STATIC:AICTE

Chairman: Anil Sahasrabudhe

Headquarters: New Delhi

INTERNATIONAL

U.S, Israel quit UNESCO citing bias:

• The United states of America (USA) and Israel officially quit the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) amid concerns that the organization fosters anti-Israel bias.
• UNESCO was established in 1945 after the end of world war II to foster peace and it is best known for its World Heritage programs which designates cultural sites and aims to preserve traditions.
• Both the countries filed the notice to withdraw from the organization in 2017.

STATIC:UNESCO

Headquarters: Paris, France

Director-General: Audrey Azoulay

Qatar to withdraw from OPEC in January 2019:

• Qatar has withdrawn its membership from Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).
• Qatar, which joined Opec in 1961 and is the first Middle East country to withdraw from the organisation.
• The decision came amid the ongoing diplomatic and economic blockade imposed on the country by its Persian Gulf neighbours and several Arab states.

STATIC:Qatar

Capital: Doha

Currency: Qatari riyal.

France to introduce tax on global internet, technology firms:

• France will introduce its own tax on large internet and technology companies from January 1.
• France has been pushing hard for a new so-called “GAFA tax” — named after Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon -to ensure the global giants pay a fair share of taxes on their massive business operations in Europe.
• French finance minister Bruno Le Maire says the tax on large internet and technology companies will be introduced from January 1 and expects to collect $570 million.

STATIC:France

President: Emmanuel Macron

Capital: Paris

Currency: Euro, CFP Franc

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

AI tool found to hide data in image to ‘cheat’ on next task :

• As per the Research of Stanford and Google, A Machine learning Agent, CycleGAN which works on Artificial Intelligence tasked with transforming Aerial images into map was hiding information in order to cheat later.
• CycleGAN, a neutral network that learns to transform images was working well till it was found that the agent didn’t really learn to make the map out of image but it learned to subtly encode the features from one into the noise patterns of the other.

NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft Historic Flyby of Ultima Thule:

• The American space agency NASA‘s New Horizons spacecraft performed the farthest flyby in history as it approached the Kuiper Belt object Ultima Thule.
• Ultima is an object in the Kuiper belt which is a band of frozen material that orbits the Sun more than 2 billion km (1.25bn miles) further out than the Neptune; and 1.5 billion km beyond even the dwarf planet Pluto, which New Horizons visited in 2015.

STATIC:NASA

Headquarters: Washington, D.C., United States

Administrator: Jim Bridenstine

AWARDS & HONOURS

Dr. Rajan Deshpande received the 12^th Shankar Vaidya Shree Award :

• A Dharwad-based paediatrician, Dr. Rajan Deshpande, received the Shankar Vaidya Shree Award at the 19th anniversary of the Dr. P.S. Shankar Pratishtan in Kalaburagi, Karnataka.
• In this award, he got a cash prize of Rs. 10,000, a medal and a citation.

BANKING & ECONOMY

RBI Lifts Six Month Ban From Paytm Payments Bank :

• After almost six months of the ban, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has allowed Paytm Payments Bank to restart opening new accounts for its consumers.
• Paytm Payments Bank stopped enrolling new customers in June 2018, following an audit by the RBI, which made certain observations about the process the company follows in acquiring new customers and its adherence to know-your-customer (KYC) norms.

STATIC:Paytm

Managing director and CEO : Satish Kumar Gupta

18^th edition of India’s Fiscal Stability Report was released by RBI:

• The central bank of India, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) released 18th Fiscal Stability Report of India.
• This report has been prepared by the Sub-Committee of the Financial Stability and Development Council (FSDC) on the risks to financial stability, the strength of the financial system and the development and regulation of the financial sector.
• This is the first such report that has been published after Mr. Shaktikanta Das became governor in December following Urjit Patel’s departure.

STATIC:RBI

Headquarters: Mumbai.

Governor: Mr. Shaktikanta Das.

Centre infuses Rs 3,076 crore capital into UCO Bank :

• State-run lender UCO bank, formerly United Commercial Bank, announced that Government of India has infused Rs 3076 crore of capital into it by the way of preferential allotment.
• The UCO Bank has posted a net loss of Rs. 1136.44 Crore in the second quarter of FY19 against a net loss of Rs. 622.56 crore for the same period of previous fiscal.
• Gross NPA (Non-performing assets) of UCO bank fell marginally from Rs. 29786.41 crore to Rs. 29581.49 crore during the September Quarter of FY19.

STATIC: UCO Bank

Headquarters: Kolkata, West Bengal

MD & CEO: Shri Atul Kumar Goel

APPOINTMENTS

Amitabh Chaudhry takes charge as MD & CEO of Axis Bank:

• Private sector lender Axis Bank Managing Director (MD) and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Shikha Sharma retired from the services of the bank and Amitabh Chaudhry will be the new MD and CEO of the Axis bank from 1^st January 2019.

STATIC:AXIS BANK

Headquarters: Mumbai, Maharashtra

MD & CEO: Amitabh Chaudhry

VK Yadav appointed new chairman of Railway Board :

• VK Yadav took charge of the chairmanship of Railway Board.He succeeded Ashwani Lohani.
• He is an electrical engineer and belongs to the 1980 batch of the Indian Railway Service of Electrical Engineers.

STATIC:Ministry of Railways

Union Minister: Shri. Piyush Goyal.

Minister of State: Shri. Manoj Sinha, Shri. Rajen Gohain.

Justice T B N Radhakrishnan sworn in as Chief Justice of Telangana HC:

• Justice Thottathil Bhaskaran Nair Radhakrishnan was sworn in as the Chief Justice of the Telangana High Court.
• His oath was administered by Telangana and Andhra Pradesh Governor E.S.L. Narasimhan.
• He had been serving as the Chief Justice of the High Court of Judicature at Hyderabad for both the states of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.

STATIC:TELANGANA

Capital: Hyderabad

Chief Minister: K.Chandrashekhar Rao.

Governor: E.S.L. Narasimhan.

Jair Bolsonaro sworn in As New President of Brazil :

• Jair Bolsonaro has been sworn in as the 42nd President of the Brazil.
• During a ceremony, organised in the capital Brasilia, Bolsonaro took charge of the office in the presence of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
• Bolsonaro is a former Army captain and admirer of the country’s 1964-1985 military dictatorship.

STATIC:Brazil

Capital: Brasilia

Currency: Brazilian real.

OBITUARY

Veteran actor-writer Kader Khan passed away :

• Veteran actor-writer Kader Khan passed away at 81 in Canada.
• Making his acting debut in 1973 with Rajesh Khanna’s “Daag”, he has featured in over 300 films. He wrote dialogues for over 250 movies and was also a screenwriter.

IMPORTANT DAY

Defence Research and Development Organisation, DRDO day: January 1

• The Defence Research and Development Organisation(DRDO) celebrated its establishment day, the DRDO day, throughout its laboratories and facilities in the country.
• The DRDO has made the country self-reliant in areas of missiles, radars, sonars and torpedoes and many other systems.