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December 17, 2016

17th December 2016 Important Daily Current Affairs

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Dear Great Ambitionists, here are today's (17th December 2016) Important Current Affairs updates. Happy Reading :)

Daily Current Affairs of 17th December 2016

International Current Affairs
  • Today (17th December) is International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers.
    • This day calls attention to hate crimes committed against sex workers worldwide, as well as the need to remove the social stigma and discrimination that have contributed to
      violence against sex workers and indifference from the communities they are part of.
  • Poland's parliament has passed a law restricting public meetings, with the Opposition slamming the law as 'anti-democratic'. 
    • The new law introduced the concept of 'periodic meetings' for rallies organised repeatedly and put restrictions by separating new unrelated meetings from 'periodic meetings'. 
    • The ruling party claimed the law would boost the security of participants by preventing clashes.
MOUs & Agreements
  • Prime Minister Narendra Modi and visiting President of Tajikistan Emomali Rahmon today signed 4 agreements in various fields. They are,
    • Memorandum of understanding (MoU) on cooperation in the exchange of financial intelligence related to money laundering, related crimes and financing of terrorism
    • MOU on Exchange of financial intelligence, following delegation-level talks
    • Protocol amending avoidance of double taxation and prevention of fiscal evasion
    • MoU regarding cooperation on broadcasting in exchange of audio-visual programmes
  • Note : The two sides also initialled a document on bilateral investment.
National Current Affairs
  • Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje today launched Annapurna Rasoi scheme, under which the state government will provide breakfast for ₹5 and lunch and dinner for ₹8 to the poor. 
    • Rajasthan government has introduced 80 vehicles to cover headquarters of 12 districts for the first phase of the scheme, which is similar to Late Tamil Nadu CM Jayalalithaa's Amma canteen.
  • The Maharashtra Assembly has unanimously passed a resolution of renaming the Elphinstone Road railway station to Prabhadevi and adding 'Maharaj' to the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport.
  • Prime Minister Narendra Modi is going to lay the foundation stone of the Pune Metro rail project on 24th December 2016
    • The project is expected to be completed in five years from the date of start of work.
  • The government is going to launch a mobile application to facilitate Aadhaar-linked digital payments in 2-4 days, IT and Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad announced today. 
    • About 40 crore bank accounts have been linked to Aadhaar and the aim is to link the rest, he stated. 
    • The government will also roll out a nation-wide programme to train over one crore people on e-payments.
  • Aiming to reduce administrative costs, West Bengal government today reduced the number of its departments from 63 to 52 by merging 21 departments into 10. 
    • The net reduction of the government departments would be 11.
    • The decision was also taken to increase efficiency and ensure better delivery of public services, he added.
Recent Committees in News
  • Government has formed an inter-ministerial task force to look into all the strategic aspects of Indus Water Treaty (IWT) with Pakistan
    • This task force will be headed by :  Nripendra Mishra (Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Principal Secretary)
    • Other members of the team are :
      • Ajit Doval (National Security Adviser)
      • S Jaishankar (Foreign Secretary)
      • Secretaries in ministries of Finance, Environment, Power and Water Resource.
New Appointments
  • The government today announced the appointment of the following :
    • Lieutenant General Bipin Rawat as the new Indian Army Chief 
    • Air Marshal Birender Singh Dhanoa as the new Indian Air Force Chief.
    • Rajiv Jain as the new Intelligence Bureau (IB) Chief 
    • Anil Dhasmana as the new Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) Chief.
  • Newly appointed UN Secretary-General António Guterres has selected women for three top jobs at the United Nations following his pledge to promote gender equality. 
    • He has nominated Nigeria's Environment Minister Amina Mohammed as Deputy Secretary-General, Maria Luiza Viotti from Brazil as his Chief of Staff and created a Special Advisor on Policy post for South Korea's Kyung-wha Kang.
Science & Technology
  • US space agency NASA has successfully launched a constellation of eight microsatellites into space from the 'belly' of an airplane. 
    • The satellites, meant to improve hurricane forecasting, were fired from a height of around 12 km and were put in an orbit 500 km above Earth's surface. 
    • The launch is a part of $157 million Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System.
Banking & Economic Affairs
  • Unaccounted cash can be disclosed under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana (PMGKY) starting from today (December 17) till March 31, Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia announced today. 
    • The new disclosure scheme comes with 50% tax including penalty. 
    • Further, declarations under the new scheme will be kept confidential and information will not be used for prosecution, he added.
  • The World Bank has announced that negotiations with rich nations have led to a record $75 billion (over ₹5 lakh crore) commitment for grants to its poorest members over the next three years. 
    • With this, a group of over 60 donor and borrower governments have agreed to step up the fight against extreme poverty.
  • China is no longer the biggest foreign holder of US debt after its US Treasury holdings declined to the lowest in over six years. 
    • This comes as the world’s second-largest economy uses its currency reserves to support yuan. 
    • Note : Japan emerged as the largest foreign US debt owner, marking the first time the countries swapped places in nearly two years.
  • Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has today announced that GST can be implemented anytime between April 1 and September 16 in accordance with the constitutional amendment legislation. 
    • The GST Council has resolved 10 issues and only one pertaining to its administration is pending.
    • GST is a transactional tax, which can start at any part of the financial year, he added.
Sports Current Affairs
  • The first ever century for India in Test cricket was scored by Lala Amarnath on this day (17th December) in the year 1933 against England at Gymkhana Ground in Bombay. 
    • Amarnath, playing in his debut match, scored 118 in India's second innings.
    •  In India's Test cricket history, there have been 469 centuries scored by 79 batsmen with the most recent one made by Jayant Yadav.
This is the end of today's Daily Current Affairs session friends. Good Day :)

Download November 2016 Month's Current Affairs PDF File from here

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