20th December 2016 Important Daily Current Affairs

sponsored links

Dear Great Ambitionists, here are today's (20th December 2016) Important Current Affairs updates. Happy Reading :)

Daily Current Affairs of 20th December 2016

International Current Affairs

• Today (20th December) is International Human Solidarity Day.
• This day is observed to celebrate unity in diversity. 
• The UN General Assembly, on 22 December 2005, by resolution 60/209 identified solidarity as one of the fundamental and universal values that should underlie relations between peoples in the Twenty-first century, and in that regard decided to proclaim 20 December of each year International Human Solidarity Day.
• This day also aims to remind people on the importance of solidarity in working towards eradicating poverty.
  
• The President of the Republic of Kyrgyzstan, Alamazbek Sharshenovich Atambaev is on a 4 day visit to India.
• Merriam-Webster today named 'surreal', meaning "marked by the intense irrational reality of a dream," its 2016 word of the year. 
• The publishing company said surreal was a word "people came back to over and over again in response to several events."

MOUs & Agreements

• The visiting President of Kyrgyzstan, Alamazbek Sharshenovich Atambaev along with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi today signed 6 agreements in various fields after talks. The signed MOUs are,
• MOU  on cooperation in the field of Agriculture and Food Industry.
• MoU in the field of cooperation in youth exchange
• MoU on cooperation in the field of Broadcasting and exchange of audiovisual programmes.
• MoU on cooperation in the field of Tourism
• MoU on cooperation in the field of Youth development
• MoU on exchange of information on training programmes of diplomats.

National Current Affairs

• Union Minister of State (IC) for Power Piyush Goyal today launched the 'GARV-II' app that will provide real-time data on electrification of 6 lakh villages, with 15 lakh habitations, across the country. 
• Adding that the application will provide village-wise and habitation-wise data covering 17 crore people.
• In a first in the country, the Maharashtra forest department is set to launch a state-wide 24X7 call centre facility from January 6 for registering complaints or getting information about issues related to forests and wildlife.
• The facility would enable citizens to complain about illegal wildlife trade, poaching, forest fires and encroachments on reserved land, among others.
• The central government is going to start toll-free number '1955' for taking feedback from telecom subscribers on call drops. 
• Provisioning of this number will be mandatory for telecom operators and should be accessible for local and STD calling.

New Appointments

• President Pranab Mukherjee today cleared the appointment of Justice JS Khehar as the next Chief Justice of India.
• He will be the first chief justice from Sikh community. 
• He will be sworn in as the 44th CJI on January 4, 2017.
• He will have a short tenure of about seven months until August 28, 2017, following which he will retire.

Awards & Honors

• The 14th edition of Sansui Stardust Awards, hosted by Abhishek Bachchan, Riteish Deshmukh, Farah Khan and Maniesh Paul, were held in Mumbai. 
• Editors' Choice Category :
• Shah Rukh Khan won the Best Actor award for 'Fan'.
• Sonam Kapoor was named the Best Actress for 'Neerja'.
• Viewers' Choice Category :
• Amitabh Bachchan won the Best Actor award for 'Pink'.
• Anushka Sharma was named the Best Actress. 
• 'Sultan' was named the Best Film.

Deaths

• The Russian ambassador to Turkey, Andrei Karlov, was shot dead while visiting an art gallery in Turkey's capital Ankara. 
• Note : Russia and Turkey have recently restored their diplomatic relations, which had broken down after Turkey shot down a Russian fighter plane near Turkey-Syria border in 2015.

Banking & Economic Affairs

• Pakistan Senate has passed a resolution seeking withdrawal of Rs 5,000 currency notes to curb the flow of black money.
• The move is expected to encourage the use of bank accounts and reduce the size of unaccounted economy. 
• This comes after India demonetised ₹500 and ₹1,000 notes to crack down on black money and tax evaders.
• India's largest lender State Bank of India (SBI), in partnership with state-run telco BSNL has launched its mobile wallet application ‘State Bank MobiCash’ for smartphones as well as feature phones. 
• It will enable users to deposit cash through BSNL retail outlets and withdraw funds from their accounts. 
• The Railways has introduced a 10% discount on vacant berths in its premium trains, namely the Rajdhani, Duronto and Shatabdi, on a trial basis till May 31. 
• It has also slashed the emergency tatkal quota from 30% to 10% of the total berths. 
• Further, the fares of the New Delhi-Ajmer and Chennai Central-Mysore Shatabdis have been slashed to ₹300.
• The government today announced that small traders and businesses with a turnover below ₹2 crore will pay less tax if they accept payments through banking and digital means. 
• The deemed profit of small businesses has been reduced from 8% to 6% of the total turnover or gross receipts received through banking/digital means for the fiscal 2016-17.
• The Haryana government has introduced a draw of lots scheme to promote digital transactions. 
• Under the scheme, ₹5 as an appreciation amount will also be transferred to each citizen of the state, who had carried out at least one cashless transaction. 
• The facility can be availed by posting details of cashless transactions on the newly developed website ‘cashlessharyana.nic.in’.

This is the end of today's Daily Current Affairs session friends. Good Day :)

Read more Daily Current Affairs updates from here

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

sponsored links