9th December 2014 - Important Current Affairs updates

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National Affairs

• Lok Sabha passes Payment and Settlement Systems (Amendment) Bill, 2014 to increase transparency in Indian Financial markets.
• The Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007 was enacted for regulation and supervision of payment systems in India and to designate the Reserve Bank of India as the authority for the purpose.
• The new bill seeks to amend certain parts of the act to provide that if “a system participant” is declared as insolvent or is dissolved or wound up by an order of the court or an authority, it will not affect any settlement that has become final prior to such order or immediately after it.
• It also seeks to insert new sections including one on protection of funds collected from the customers by the payment system providers.
• There has been a 132 per cent rise in incidents of crime committed by juveniles against women in 2013 over the previous year, Lok Sabha was told today.

International Affairs

• Today (9th December 2014) is International Anti Corruption Day.
• This day is being observed since the passage of the United Nations Convention Against Corruption on 31 October 2003.
• This day aims to raise public awareness of corruption and what people can do to fight it
• This year's theme is "Break the corruption chain".
• External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj will travel to Seoul later this month to hold Joint Commission meeting with her Korean counterpart Yun Byung-se during which the two sides will discuss key bilateral issues, including trade and civil nuclear cooperation.
• The WTO (World Trade Organization) has ruled against the US imposing high duty on imports of certain Indian steel products, an order hailed by India as a "significant victory" that will help domestic manufacturers and exporters. 

Awards & Honors

• Child rights activists India's Kailash Satyarthi and Pakistan's Malala Yousafzai, along with 11 others will receive this year's Nobel Prizes tomorrow.

Business & Economy

• Drug-makers Sun Pharma and Ranbaxy today got fair trade watchdog CCI's (Competition Commission of India) approval for their long- pending USD 4-billion merger, but with a condition that they will have to modify the deal by divesting seven key products to address monopoly concerns. 

Science & Technology

• NASA's Curiosity rover, led by a team of scientists of Indian-origin, has found new evidence of water on Mars.
• This indicates that the planet was most like Earth in the solar system and was suitable for microbial life.
• An advanced version of the indigenously developed Pinaka Mark-II rocket was successfully test fired today from a defense base in Odisha using a multi-barrel launcher.

Read more Daily Current Affairs updates from here

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