1st December 2015 - Important Current Affairs updates

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International Affairs

• Today (1st December) is World AIDS Day.
• This day is dedicated to raising awareness of the AIDS pandemic caused by the spread of HIV infection, and mourning those who have died of the disease.
• Theme of World Aids Day 2015 : Getting to zero; end Aids by 2030
• Important Note :
• World AIDS Day is one of the eight official global public health campaigns marked by the World Health Organization (WHO).
• Remaining are,
• World Health Day,
• World Blood Donor Day,
• World Immunization Week,
• World Tuberculosis Day,
• World No Tobacco Day,
• World Malaria Day and
• World Hepatitis Day.
• For the first time women of Saudi Arabia are allowed to vote and contest polls in the kingdom.
• Around 865 women are among 6,140 Saudis standing in the local elections due to be held on 12th December 2015.
• China has hosted 1st BRICS media summit  at Beijing.
  
• This summit will be held for 2 days.
• A total of 25 media organisations participated in this summit.
• This summit was initiated by Xinhua, a news agency of China.
• BRICS - Brazil - Russia - India - China - South Africa
• India has been ranked a low 131 out of 167 nations on a Global Index that measures the level of information and communication technology access.
• South Korea is ranked at the top of this index followed by Denmark and Iceland, in second and third places respectively.
• Prime minister Narendra Modi has launched an international solar alliance of over 120 countries with the French president, François Hollande, at the Paris COP21 climate summit.

National Affairs

• The International Film Festival of India (IFFI) concluded in Goa.
• The festival was organised by the Union Ministry of Information & Broadcasting (I & B).
• Highlights :
• This was the 46th edition of the festival.
• This year's focal theme was the Kingdom of Spain
• Around 760 films were registered for the category of 'Foreign Cinema' this year.
• Out of the registered films, 182 were selected for the next round of competition; only 15 were selected for final screening
• The jury was headed by IFFI Chairperson, Shekhar Kapur, along with UK-based director, Micheal Radford, Palestine-based Israeli director, Suha Arraf, German actress, Julia Jentsch and South Korean filmmaker, Jeon Kyu-Hwan
• Out of the final 15 films that were screened at the festival, five were Oscar nominations from different countries
• The list of five movies that made it to the final round including,
• Colombia's Embrace of the Serpent directed by Ciro Guerra, 
• France's Mustang directed by Deniz Gamze Erguven, 
• Germany's Labyrinth of Lies directed by Giulio Ricciarelli, 
• Iceland's Rams directed by Grímur Hakonarson and 
• Serbia's Enclave directed by Goran Radovanovic
• The best film award went to Colombian film ‘Embrace of The Serpent’ directed by Ciro Guerra.
• The opening film at this year's festival was 'The Man who knew Infinity', which is based on the life of great Indian Mathematician, Srinivasa Ramanujan Iyengar
• For the first time, four Indian films were nominated for the UNESCO Fellini Medal for their support to global welfare. These included 
• Kaushik Ganguly's Cinemawala, 
• Subodh Bhave's Katyar Kaljat Ghusli, 
• Sidhartha Siva's Ain and 
• Dr. Biju's Valiya Chirakulla Pakshikal. 
• Note : Ganguly's Cinemawala received the award
• The Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to Oscar-winning Russian filmmaker and actor Nikita Mikhalkov for his contributions to world cinema
• Legendary South Indian music composer, Illayaraja received the Centenary Film Personality Award at the opening ceremony on November 20.

Awards & Honors

• 46th International Film Festival of India (IFFI) Awards
• Best Film (Golden Peacock Award) : Embrace of The Serpent (Al Abrazo de la Serpiente)
• Best Director : Peter Greenway for ‘Eisenstein in Guanajuato.
• Best male actor : Vincent Lindon for ‘The Measure of a Man’.
• Best Female actor : This award was shared by five actress — Gunes Sensoy, Doga Doguslu, Tugba Sunguroglu, Elit Iscan and Ilyada Akdogan for their roles in Turkish film Mustang. 
• Special Jury Award : Julia Vargas for his film ‘Sealed Cargo’.
• ICFT-UNESCO Fellini Award : Kaushik Ganguly’s Bengali film ‘Cinemawala’.

New Appointments

• Roch Marc Christian Kabore elected as president of Burkina Faso.

Deaths

• Russian legendary film Director and screenwriter Eldar Ryazanov passed away.
• He was one of Russia’s best-loved Soviet-era film directors and an icon of popular USSR culture of tragi-comedies that satirised daily life in the erstwhile Soviet Union.

Business & Economy

• In it's 5th Bi-Monthly Monetary Policy review, the Reserve Bank kept the key policy rates unchanged.
• The Repo Rate, at which RBI lends money to banks, stayed at 6.75%, while the Reverse Repo Rate, at which RBI borrows money from banks, was at 5.75%.
• The Cash Reserve Ratio, which is the amount of deposits lenders need to keep with RBI, also remained unchanged at 4%. 
• The Statuary Liquidity Ratio, or the percentage of deposits that lenders have to maintain in the form of gold or government bonds, was retained at 21.5%.
• The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund today decided to include the Chinese currency, the renminbi (yuan), into its basket of currencies that make up the IMF’s Special Drawing Right (SDR). 
• Over Rs 42,520 crore has been disbursed under the MUDRA Yojna to more than 66 lakh borrowers, of which nearly a third are women, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said today.
• MUDRA Yojana : funding the unfunded.
• The 3Es of MUDRA : enterprise, earning and empowerment
• Total Number of Borrowers : 66,00,241
• Women Borrowers : 23,50,542
• New Enterpreneurs : 32,86,094
• SC / ST / OBC Borrowers : 22,01,944
• America's General Electric (GE) and France's Alstom today signed joint venture (JV) agreements with Indian Railways to set up high horse power diesel and electric engines at Bihar's Marhowra and Madhepura at a combined cost of Rs.40,000 crore.

Sports

• MUMBAI Indians chief mentor Anil Kumble has decided to step down from his post from the IPL franchise with immediate effect.
• The former India captain has been associated with Mumbai Indians since January 2013 and he has decided to pursue other opportunities in sports and cricket.

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