sponsored links
Daily Current Affairs of 9th January 2018
International Current Affairs
- The UK's ban on plastic microbeads used in cosmetics and personal care products came into effect today.
- This move is aimed at protecting marine life as the small beads enter water bodies and get absorbed or eaten by the wildlife, affecting their growth.
- India recently retrieved a stolen 12th-century idol of Brahma and Brahmani from London.
- The idol was stolen from the UNESCO World Heritage Site Rani-ki-Vav in Gujarat's Patan in 2001 and smuggled out of the country.
- Congress President Rahul Gandhi today reached Bahrain.
- This is his first foreign visit as party chief.
- He met Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa and discussed ways to develop cricket ties between the two countries.
- India and Saudi Arabia signed bilateral annual Haj 2018 agreement, allowing Indian Haj pilgrims through sea route also (that was suspended in 1995).
- Sending pilgrims through ships will help cut down travel expenses significantly.
National Current Affairs
- Today (9th January) is Pravasi Bharatiya Divas.
- This day is observed to mark the contribution of the overseas Indian community towards the development of India.
- The day commemorates the return of Mahatma Gandhi from South Africa to Mumbai on 9 January 1915.
- Theme of Pravasi Bharatiya Divas 2018 : “Ancient Route, New Journey: Diaspora in the Dynamic ASEAN INDIA Partnership”.
- This theme has been chosen to be in line with the upcoming ASEAN summit.
- Bihar government has banned manufacture, distribution, sale, purchase, display, and advertisement of electronic cigarettes in the state.
- Haryana became first state to launch High-Risk Pregnancy (HRP) Portal, to help in early identification of high-risk pregnant cases and ensure their timely referral to civil hospital.
- Modifying its order on the National Anthem, Supreme Court today announced that it is not mandatory to play the anthem in cinema halls before movie screenings.
- Arunachal Pradesh is going to get it's first Film and Television Institute (FTII).
- Note : This would be the second such one in the country. The first Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) was set up in Pune in 1960.
- To provide institutionalized socio-economic security for the workers in the unorganised sector, the Jammu and Kashmir government is set to launch a scheme called “Muhafiz (Guardian)”.
- Under this scheme, around three lakh workers registered with Jammu and Kashmir Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Board (JKBOCWWB) will be provided accidental, life and disability insurance, besides educational scholarships to their children under it.
- The scheme also envisages extending micro credit facility to such workers and facilitating their registration through online and other modes.
Banking, Business & Economic Affairs
- China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), in which India is a second largest shareholder, is going to issue its first US dollar-denominated bond with minimum worth of $100 crore by June this year.
- With 84 members so far, the AIIB was officially established in December 2015 and opened for business in January 2016.
- ISRO's commercial arm, Antrix, earned ₹288.75 crore by launching satellites for other countries in the last financial year.
- To date, ISRO has launched over 200 foreign satellites, including 101 nanosatellites in its record launch in February 2017.
- The US had become ISRO's biggest client with 96 of the 101 foreign satellites hailing from there.
Science & Technology
- The Union Minister for Science and Technology Harsh Vardhan today launched India's fastest and first "multi-petaflops" supercomputer 'Pratyush' at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) in Pune.
- The system, which will be a national facility for improving weather and climate forecasts, will also help improve India's peak computing capacity from 1 petaflop to 6.8 petaflops.
- Note : Petaflop is a measure of processing speed and equals a quadrillion floating point operations per second.
- In a bid to end the practice of manual scavenging, the Kerala government is procuring 50 robots which are developed to clean sewer holes.
- The robot, named 'Bandicoot', has been developed by Kerala-based startup 'Genrobotics'.
New Appointments
- Music maestro AR Rahman has been officially appointed as the Brand ambassador of Sikkim.
- Note : The Oscar-winning musician would also compose the tourism anthem for the state.
Deaths
- M S Subbulakshmi's stepdaughter and Renowned Carnatic vocalist Radha Viswanathan (84) passed away.
Sports Current Affairs
- The 6th edition of Shenzhen Open 2018 (also known as Shenzhen Gemdale Open) was recently held at Shenzhen Longgang Sports Center in Shenzhen, China. Here are the winners.
- Singles - Simona Halep (Romania)
- Doubles - Irina-Camelia Begu (Romania) and Simona Halep (Romania)
- After taking five wickets in the first Test against India, 22-year-old South African pacer Kagiso Rabada has become the world's highest-ranked Test bowler.
- Rabada dethroned England's James Anderson, who held the spot since September 2017.
Monthly Current Affairs PDF Downloads ↓
- Download December 2017 Month's Current Affairs PDF File from here (New)
- Download November 2017 Month's Current Affairs PDF File from here
- Download October 2017 Month's Current Affairs PDF File from here
- Download September 2017 Month's Current Affairs PDF File from here
- Download August 2017 Month's Current Affairs PDF File from here
- Download July 2017 Month's Current Affairs PDF File from here
- Download June 2017 Month's Current Affairs PDF File from here
- Download May 2017 Month's Current Affairs PDF File from here
- Download April 2017 Month's Current Affairs PDF File from here
- Download March 2017 Current Affairs Quick Review from here
- Download February 2017 Current Affairs Quick Review from here
- Download January 2017 Current Affairs Quick Review from here
sponsored links