14th January 2015 - Important Current Affairs updates

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International Affairs

• Japan's cabinet has approved a record 4.98 trillion yen (£28bn, $42bn) budget for defense spending, amid a long-running maritime dispute with China.
• The new budget represents a 2.8% rise from the previous fiscal year. It marks the third year of increased spending after a decade of cuts.
• Defence Minister - Gen Nakatani
• France's lower house of Parliament today overwhelmingly approved extending French airstrikes against the Islamic State group in Iraq.
• The vote came after France's worst terrorist attacks in decades. Last week in Paris, a man claiming allegiance to the Islamic State group killed four people in a kosher grocery and a policewoman, while two brothers that he knew for years claimed ties to al-Qaida in Yemen as they killed 12 people at a newspaper office.
• Yemen’s al-Qaeda branch today claimed responsibility for last week’s deadly attack on a Paris satirical newspaper, with one of its top commanders saying the assault was in revenge for the weekly’s publications of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, considered an insult in Islam.

National Affairs

• ‎Makar Sakranti‬ festival is being celebrated with religious fervour and gaiety.
• The Supreme Court today pulled up the Centre on the issue of cleaning of the Ganges and asked for a status report on setting up of sewage treatment plants within six months.
• The apex court asked the Centre if it will be able to clean River Ganga in this term. 
• It observed that over Rs 2000 crore has been spent in the last 30 years on cleaning of Ganga and It called for a status report on the setting up of sewage treatment plants within six months.
• Replying to the Supreme Court, the Centre assured it that Ganga will be cleaned by 2018.
• Amid concerns over Taj Mahal turning yellow due to increasing pollution, the district administration has banned burning of cow dung cakes in the city while use of coal by small units will also be prohibited soon.
• This ban of ccame after a recent study published in an American journal, which says that due to brown and black carbon particles, the white marble of the Taj Mahal is turning yellow. 
• While cow dung cakes are being used as fuel by poor people for cooking purposes, coal is being used in large quantity mainly by manufacturers of bangles and “petha” sweet.

People in News

• The government today sacked Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) chief Avinash Chander, sixteen months before the end of his tenure.
• The Chief Election Commissioner, V. S. Sampath, demits office, capping less than six years of an eventful tenure, occasionally marked by controversies that saw him conduct two Lok Sabha elections and at least one round of Assembly polls in all the states.
• Vishal Sikka, the CEO of India’s second largest IT services firm, Infosys, today met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and disclosed that his company will spend USD 250 million (over Rs 1,500 crore) to fund innovations in software and services in India.
• Union Minister of State for Minority Affairs, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi was convicted by a court in Uttar Pradesh for poll code violation six years ago.
• He was sentenced to one year in jail and a fine of Rs 4,000.
• However, Naqvi was then released on a surety of Rs 15,000.
• Congress has decided to field former Delhi Woman and Child Development Minister Kiran Walia against Aam Aadmi Party Convener Arvind Kejriwal in the prestigious New Delhi constituency.
• Former Aam Aadmi Party leader Shazia Ilmi will campaign for BJP in Delhi assembly elections.
• She had quit AAP in May last year, blaming lack of internal democracy in the party .

Sports

• India's open water swimmer Bhakti Sharma‬ has set a World Record by Swimming 1.4 miles in 52 minutes in one degree temperature at  Antarctic Ocean‬.
• She has bettered the earlier record of British open water swimmer Lewis Pugh and American swimmer Lynne Cox.
• Bhakti is now the youngest in the world and the first Asian girl to have achieved this feat.

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