16th December 2014 - Important Current Affairs updates

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International Affairs

• A group of heavily-armed Arabic speaking Taliban suicide attackers stormed an army-run school in the city of Peshawar in northwestern Pakistan killing at least 126 people including school children and teachers and taken hundreds more hostage.
• A 17-hour-long hostage drama in which a lone heavily-armed man of Iranian-origin held 17 people hostage at a cafe at Central Sydney ended latenight yesterday with the police storming it, resulting in three deaths but two Indians who were among the captives escaped safely.
• Japan ordered the culling of about 4,000 chickens today following an outbreak of avian influenza at one of the country’s poultry farms.

National Affairs

• Today (16th December 2014) is Vijay Diwas (Victory Day).    
• qWe observe this day to remember the martyrs who laid down their lives for the nation during 1971 India-Pakistan war.
• Today is the 45th anniversary of the 1971 India–Pakistan war, this is the first war after World War-II that the Indian Army won conclusively.
• This is the only war that the independent Indian Army planned, executed and carried out with precision and captured 93,000 prisoners.
• The Union Minister for Defence, Manohar Parrikar & three Services Chiefs the Chief of Army Staff, General Dalbir Singh, the Chief of Naval Staff, Admiral R.K. Dhowan, the Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha paid homage to the Martyrs of 1971 War, at Amar Jawan Jyoti today.
• On the eve of Vijay Divas PM Narendra Modi met Lt. General (Retd.) JFR Jacob, known for his impeccable service to the Army.
• Mr Jacob for presented his books, "An Odyssey in War & Peace" &"Surrender at Dacca" to Modi.
• Today is the 2nd anniversary of the Nirbhaya incident in which a 23 year old physiotherapy student was brutally gangraped in New Delhi.
• The woman was assaulted by 6 men in a moving bus which led to her death a fortnight later. The main accused in the incident, Ram Singh, committed suicide in Tihar Jail in March last year.
• A juvenile convicted of rape was given the maximum sentence of 3 years' in a reform home.
• The four surviving adult defendants were found guilty of rape, murder, unnatural offenses and destruction of evidence.
• In March this year, the Delhi HC confirmed death sentence for all 4 men and the matter is now pending in the Supreme Court.
• The Supreme Court today ordered the CBI to further investigate a coalscam case allegedly involving former Coal Secretary P C Parakh & industrialist Kumar Mangalam Birla.
• The Court asked the investigating agency that it wants that statement of the former PM Manmohan Singh who was holding the portfolio of Coal Ministry then, be recorded.
• The Gujarat government has announced a farm relief package worth Rs. 1,100 crore for all the farmers in the state.
• This move comes on the back of strong protest by farmers' body, Bhartiya Kisan Sangh (BKS) pressing for higher MSP of cotton and groundnut.
• The Survey of India would soon begin work to map and survey Ganga river at an estimated cost of Rs 542 crore that will determine the sources of pollution along its basin.
• The availability of gutka and its consumption has reduced since the banning of gutka by various states, the WHO said today.
• The World Health Organisation (WHO) and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health recently had conducted a study on tobacco use in the seven states of Assam, Bihar, Gujarat, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha and the National Capital Region.
• It was found that the support for gutka ban was very high (92%) across the studied jurisdictions and there was an almost universal agreement (99%) that gutka bans were good for the health of India's youth.
• To conserve and develop indigenous bovine breeds, government has launched ‘Rashtriya Gokul Mission’ under the National Programme for Bovine Breeding and Dairy Development (NPBBD).
• Agriculture Minister - Radha Mohan Singh

People in News

• 37-year-old Indian-American physician Vivek Hallegere Murthy has been confirmed as the 19th Surgeon General of America
• He becomes the first Indian American and youngest ever Surgeon General of the US.

Business & Economy

• Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has increased the Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) business hours to 12 hours from 8 am to 8 pm on weekdays which will come into effect from 29 of this month. RTGS system of online fund transfer will be open on Saturdays from 8 am to 3.30 pm.
• As India continues its pursuit of suspected black money stashed abroad, Global Financial Integrity (GFI), an international think-tank has ranked it third globally with an estimated USD 94.76 billion (nearly Rs 6 lakh crore) illicit wealth outflows in 2012. 
• China is on the top with USD 249.57 billion, followed by Russia with USD 122.86 billion in terms of the quantum of black money moving out of a country for 2012 — the latest year for which these estimates have been made. 

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