1st January 2015 - Important Current Affairs updates

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National Affairs

• The 65-year-old Planning Commission was today replaced by a new body, NITI Aayog, which will serve as a policy think-tank for the central as well as State governments and have Prime Minister as its Chairperson.
• The NITI Aayog will have a governing council comprising of all State Chief Ministers and Lt. Governors and will work towards fostering a ‘co-operative federalism’ for providing a “national agenda” to the Centre and States.
• This renaming of the ‎Planning Commission‬ is being seen as the first step towards replacing it with a new-age institution. 
• Chairperson : Prime Minister Narendra Modi 
• NITI - National Institution for Transforming India
• The government has withdrawn excise duty concessions to the Auto industry, which were given by the previous UPA Government in the interim budget in February.
• The excise duty for SUVs (Sport Utility Vehicles) had been reduced to 24 per cent from 30 per cent, whereas for mid-sized cars, it was reduced to 20 per cent from 24 per cent.
• It was slashed from 27 percent to 24 percent for the large cars.
• The LPG‬ consumers across the country will get cash subsidy directly into their bank accounts from today so that they buy the cooking fuel at market price.
  
• Domestic LPG users will get 568 rupees in the bank account the moment they join the Direct Benefit Transfer Scheme for LPG, which has now been renamed ‎PAHAL‬.
• They will have to use this money to buy 14.2-kg refill at the market price.
• PAHAL - Pratyaksh Hanstantarit Labh
• The Hyderabad‬ Metro Rail Project, HMR will be transporting passengers from March this year.
• The Managing Director of Metro rail project N V S Reddy told this to reporters after successfully completing trail run on ‎Automatic Train‬ Operation mode. 
• He said the HMR project set a new record by successfully running on Automatic mode, without driver for the first time in the country.
• The Union Water Resources Ministry will launch a “Hamara Jal, Hamara Jeewan” initiative to be adopted in every district of the country during the India Water Week from January 13 to 17.
• Water Resources Minister - Uma Bharti

People in News

• The  Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairperson K Radhakrishnan retires.
• The tenure of Radhakrishnan as ISRO chief, secretary, Department of Space and Chairman, Space Commission was ended in August 2014. But it was extended by four months till December 31, 2014 on "functional grounds and in public interest."
• Radhakrishnan, a recipient of Padma- Bhushan, the third highest civilian award, was recently chosen as one of the top ten scientific personalities in 2014 by Nature Science Journal.
• The government has appointed Shailesh Nayak, secretary in the ministry of earth sciences, as the ad-hoc chairman of ISRO.

Science & Technology

• Home Minister Rajnath Singh launched mobile application "Himmat".
• This application will allow women to send a distress call to police control room and their relatives in case of any emergency.
• The Indian Government has blocked at least 32 websites in a fresh crackdown as they were carrying jihadi propaganda and promoting anti-India views.
• According to reports, the websites have been blocked on the advise of Anti-Terrorism Squad. 
• Some of the websites were reportedly using social media as its weapon to lure Indian youths to join jihadi activities.
• These URLs have been blocked under Section 69 of the Information Technology Act, 2000, and under Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking for Access of Information by Public) Rules, 2009.

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