DAILY CURRENT AFFAIRS: JANUARY 12, 2019

Dear Aspirants,

Daily Current Affairs (January 12, 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

GST Council’s 32nd Meeting Held In New Delhi :

• GST Council’s 32nd Meeting Held In New Delhi Under The Chairmanship Of The Union Minister Of Finance & Corporate Affairs, Shri Arun Jaitley.
• The limit of Annual Turnover in the preceding Financial Year for availing Composition Scheme for Goods shall be increased to Rs 1.5 crore.
• There would be two Threshold Limits for exemption from Registration and Payment of GST for the suppliers of Goods i.e. Rs 40 lakhs and Rs 20 lakhs.
• The Threshold for Registration for Service Providers would continue to be Rs 20 lakhs and in case of Special Category States at Rs 10 lakhs.

Dr. Harsh Vardhan launched National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) in New Delhi :

• The Union Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Dr. Harsh Vardhan launched National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) in New Delhi.
• It will be a mid-term, five-year action plan with 2019 as the first year.
• It will be launched in the 43 smart cities falling in the list of the 102 non-attainment cities, under the Smart Cities program. Selection of 102 non-attainment cities identified with respect to ‘Ambient Air Quality India’ report of 2011-15 and WHO report of 2014-2018.

Ravi Shankar Inaugurates NIC Command & Control Centre at National Informatics Centre (NIC), New Delhi :

• Ravi Shankar Prasad,Minister for Electronics & IT and Law and Justice inaugurated NIC’s(National Informatics Centre) Command & Control Centre (CCC) and Centre of Excellence in Artificial Intelligence by NIC, it have stamina to transform societies in the regime of transparency and efficient governance.
• NIC as of now has 4 National Data Centres and 30 Mini Data Centres across the country hosting over 10,000 e-Governance applications.

One-day Global Skill Summit 2019 held in Ranchi, Jharkhand :

• The one-day Global Skill Summit 2019 was held in Ranchi, Jharkhand.It is the only state where overall three global summits were organized in a row merely in four years by the state government.
• The theme of the Summit was: ‘Skilling Youth, Enabling Youth’.It was under the #MOMEMTUM JHARKHAND campaign.

STATIC:Jharkhand

Capital: Ranchi.

Chief Minister: Raghubar Das.

Governor: Draupadi Murmu.

Sikkim will become first state to roll out Universal Basic Income :

• Sikkim,though being a smallest state have set a initiative to introduce UBI in the entire nation.
• Sikkim’s long lasting chief minister and head of sikkim’s ruling party(sikkim democratic front) Pawan kumar chamling, quoted that if everything goes right then sikkim would be the first state to implement UNIVERSAL BASIC INCOME SYSTEM and execute it by 2022.

INTERNATIONAL

Guatemala unilaterally terminate the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) agreement :

• The Foreign Minister of Guatemala Sandra Jovel notified the United Nations secretary-general about the Government’s decision to terminate the agreement which established the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG).
• UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has “strongly rejected” the Guatemalan Government’s decision to unilaterally terminate the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG).

STATIC :Gautemala

Capital: Gautemala city

Currency: Gautemala Quetzal

Prime Minister: Benjamin Netanyahu

President: Jimmy Morales

APPOINTMENTS

Ashok Chawla resigns as NSE chairman over Aircel-Maxis charges:

• Ashok Chawla resigned as chairman of the National Stock Exchange of India Ltd (NSE) with immediate effect.
• Ashok Chawla’s resignation as NSE chairman came on a day CBI obtained sanction to prosecute him and four others in the Aircel-Maxis case

Su Tseng-chang appointed as Taiwan PM :

• Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen has appointed Su Tseng-chang as Prime Minister during a Cabinet reshuffle following the ruling Democratic Progressive Party’s heavy losses in local elections.
• Su is a former premier appointed in 2006 by then-President Chen Shui-bian and was a chairman of Tsai’s Democratic Progressive Party for two terms.
• His appointment follows the widely-expected resignation of William Lai, the second premier to quit since Tsai took office in 2016.

STATIC: Taiwan

Capital: Taipei,

Currency: New Taiwan dollar.

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

First manned mission to space by December 2021: ISRO

• ISRO Chairman Dr. K Sivan stated that the organisation is well prepared to meet the targets of launching Gaganyaan manned mission to outer space by December 2021.
• 332 launches are planned this year. Important among them are Chandrayaaan -2 mission to the moon in mid-April. GSAT-20 Satellite for high bandwidth connectivity to be launched in September-October.

STATIC : ISRO

ISRO Director: K. Sivan

Headquarters: Bengaluru

AWARDS & HONOURS

Virat Kohli and Ravi Shastri received honorary membership of Sydney Cricket Ground:

• Virat Kohli and coach Ravi Shastri received honorary membership of the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG) for their contribution to the sport of cricket.
• Apart from them, the only other international cricketers to be granted the honorary membership of the SCG are iconic Sachin Tendulkar and Brain Lara of the West Indies.

Adi Godrej Conferred ICSI Lifetime Award :

• 
• Industrialist and Godrej Group Chairman Adi Godrej was conferred the ICSIs Lifetime Achievement Award for ‘Translating Excellence in Corporate Governance into Reality”.
• The awards were instituted by The Institute of Company Secretaries of India (ICSI), which is celebrating its golden jubilee.
• The 18th ICSI National Awards for Excellence in Corporate Governance were bagged jointly by Cipla Ltd and Dabur India Ltd and five others:ACC Ltd, Hindustan Unilever Ltd, Indian Oil Corp, Tata Metaliks Ltd and Indian Hotels Co Ltd.

SPORTS

Albie Morkel announces retirement from all formats of cricket :

• South African allrounder Albie Morkel announced his retirement from all forms of cricket, putting an end to nearly 20-year of professional cricketing career.
• Morkel earned a call-up into the South African ODI set-up for the series against New Zealand in 2004 after snaring 12 scalps in List A games in the 2003-04 season.
• Morkel has represented South Africa in 58 ODIs, 50 T20Is and one Test, in which he amassed overall 1,412 runs and picked 77 wickets.

IMPORTANT DAYS

January 10 : Army Air Defence Day

• 26th Army Air Defence Day was being observed by Army Air Defence Corps on January 10.
• A wreath Laying Ceremony was held at the Amar Jawan Jyoti at India Gate, New Delhi.