DAILY CURRENT AFFAIRS : FEBRUARY 4, 2018

NATIONAL

Vice President Venkaiah Naidu to inaugurate first International Kala Mela

  • Vice President M. Venkaiah Naidu inaugurated the first International Kala Mela at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts in New Delhi.
  • The objective of the event is to focus on direct interaction between the artist and the connoisseur and also educating and raising awareness about art.
  • The Art Festival, organised by Lalit Kala Akademi, wherein artists and groups will showcase their work.

Oil tanker with 22 Indians goes missing

  • An oil tanker with 22 Indian sailors on board is reported missing off the coast of Benin, a west African country for last three days.
  • It is suspected that the MT Marine Express carrying 13,500 tonne of gasoline may have been hijacked by pirates.
  • In January, another vessel MT Barret had gone missing off the coast of Benin and six days later crew, most of them Indians, were released after reportedly paying ransom.

Floating Island to clean up Neknampur Lake

  • The Floating Treatment Wetland (FTW) was inaugurated on World Wetlands Day (February 2) in Neknampur Lake in Hyderabad to clean and purify the polluted waterbody.
  • Plants planted on FTW can clean the lake by absorbing nitrates and other pollutants in the water.
  • FTW is joint effort of NGO Dhruvansh, Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority (HMDA).

Assam Govt signs with NBCC for Twin Tower Trade Centre

  • Assam Government has signed a MoU with the National Building Construction Corporation Limited (NBCCL).
  • It aims  to build a Twin Tower Trade Centre (65 storey) in Guwahati at an investment of Rs. 1950 crores.
  • The center has enacted a pro-active ‘Act East Policy’ to elevate and harness the strengths of North- East India and reduce the isolation of the region by improving all-round connectivity and civic infrastructure.

KUSUM scheme to encourage farmers for solar farming

  • Power Minister R K Singh announced a Rs 48,000-crore Kisan Urja Suraksha Utthaan Maha Abhiyaan KUSUM scheme.
  • The objective is to incentivise farmers to run solar farm water pumps and also use their baron land for generating solar power.
  • It has been approved by the EFC (Expenditure Finance Committee) and the Cabinet and it will be launched next fiscal.
  • It will aid total solar power generation capacity of 28,250 MW in next 10 years.

INTERNATIONAL

New Manchester-India Partnership set up in UK to expand trade opportunities

  • A new Manchester-India Partnership (MIP) aimed at connecting Indian companies with the northern regions of England has been set up to further trade, investment, science and innovation ties between India and Britain.
  • The Chair of the Manchester-India Partnership is Manchester Airport CEO Andrew Cowan.
  • Minister of State in the UK Department for International Trade: Rona Fairhead.

BUSINESS AND ECONOMY

CRISIL, SIDBI Launch India’s First MSE Sentiment Index

  • The Union Minister for Finance and Corporate Affairs Shri Arun Jaitley launched CriSidEx.
  • It is India’s first sentiment index for micro and small enterprises ( MSEs) developed jointly by CRISIL & SIDBI.
  • CriSidEx is a composite index based on a diffusion index of 8 parameters and measures MSE business sentiment on a scale of 0 (extremely negative ) to 200 ( extremely positive).

BOOKS AND AUTHORS

PM Modi’s book Exam Warriors released

  • Exam Warriors, a book penned by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for students,has been released in the presence of External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar.
  • The book is the fifth one to be written by the Prime Minister and the first on the need to develop stress-free attitude to exams.

SPORTS

India lifts U-19 World Cup trophy for record 4th time

  • India has lifted the ICC Under-19 World Cup for the record fourth time.
  • They defeated Australia by eight wickets at bay oval at Mount Maunganui in New Zealand.
  • India’s star batsman Manjot Kalra adjudged Man of the Match and Shubman Gill Man of the Series.

IMPORTANT DAYS

World Cancer Day – Feb 4

  • World Cancer Day is observed on  February 4, 2018. Communities across the world will come together to spread and raise awareness about cancer.
  • For 2016-2018, the theme for observing World Cancer Day is ‘We Can. I can.’

 

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