Daily Current Affairs – 29th December 2016
1) Anil Baijal has appointed as the 21st Lieutenant Governor of Delhi.
Baijal will succeed Najeeb Jung, who resigned from the post of Delhi LG on 22 December 2016. Jung had resigned 18 months short of his tenure.The approval for his appointment was given on 28 December 2016 by President Pranab Mukherjee.
Anil Baijal is a 1969 batch IAS officer of Arunachal Pradesh-Goa-Mizoram and Union Territory (AGMUT) cadre. At present, he is associated with the Vivekananda International Foundation.
He is the former Vice-Chairman of Delhi Development Authority (DDA).He has also given his services as the Chief Secretary of Andaman & Nicobar Islands, MD of Indian Airlines, Development Commissioner of Goa, CEO of Prasar Bharati, additional Home Secretary in the Information and Broadcasting.
He has also served on the executive council of the Vivekananda International Foundation and also served on multiple corporate boards including IDFC bank.
2) The Union Health Ministry in collaboration with All India Institute Of Medical Science (AIIMS) will set up a National Death Registry.
The aim behind setting up of this registry is to have a nationwide database about the causes of deaths occurring in hospitals in various regions of India. It will help the policy makers in having a better understanding of disease outbreaks so as to optimise the resources and healthcare facilities in respective regions.
AIIMS already implemented the pilot version of the death registry with the unique feature of having a coding system called the Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine (SNOMED) and will be the technical as well as the implementing partner of this programme.
The announcement was made on 27 December 2016. Presently, the entire death data cannot be transmitted to the central depository, which is creating hurdles for policymakers in framing health and disease related policies.
SNOMED is an international standard of providing codes, terms and synonyms and definitions. It covers anatomy, diseases, findings, procedures, microorganisms, etc.
It is the most comprehensive, clinically validated and multilingual clinical healthcare terminology used by physicians in Electronic Healthcare Records to capture and analyse clinical data.
3) The National Board for Wildlife (NBWL) has gave its clearance to the Ken-Betwa Inter-Linking of Rivers (ILR) project.
The project will benefit two states, namely Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, and help them in meeting the needs of drinking water, irrigation and electricity in six districts.
Now the project need clearances from environment and forest but the clearance from the wildlife board has ended the last hurdle for the project. Other clearances will be given soon.
The approval from the wildlife board was a must because the project requires diversion of forest land of Panna Tiger Reserve.
As per the proposal, the quantity of water that will be diverted from Ken basin after considering in basin demands and downstream commitments earmarked for providing irrigation in Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh is 1020 Mm3. This link cannel would provide water for irrigation in areas of upper Betwa basin of Madhya Pradesh by the way of substitution enroute Uttar Pradesh.
The Ken-Betwa Inter-Linking of Rivers project was stuck due to objects from wildlife conservationists and environmentalists. They were opposing the project by terming that the project will have an impact on wildlife sanctuaries as well as the tiger reserve.The project received clearance of Union Cabinet in July 2014. It is a of Rs 9000 crore project.
4) Meghalaya will host the 2022 National Games, which will coincide with the state’s 50 years of statehood.
With this, Meghalaya will become the third north-eastern state after Manipur and Assam to host the National Games.The state had pledged 5 crore rupees as the bid amount for the game.
The IOA accepted Meghalaya’s bid to host the 2022 National Games following the successful South Asian Games, which was co-hosted by Shillong and Guwahati earlier in 2016.The next Nation Games will be hosted by Goa in November 2017.
The news was announced on 27 December 2016 in the meeting of the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) meeting held in Chennai. The IOA accepted Meghalaya’s bid to host the National Games overshadowing four other bidders, which were Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Chhattisgargh and Uttarakhand.
The country’s first few Olympic Games, later christened as National Games, were held in Delhi, Lahore, Allahabad, Patiala, Madras, Calcutta and Bombay.The National Games comprises various sports disciplines in which sportsmen from the different states of India participate against each other.
The 2015 National Games were held from 31 January 2015 to 14 February 2015 in Kerala. It was the second time that Kerala hosted the National Games. It first hosted the games in 1987. Sachin Tendulkar was the goodwill ambassador for the games.
5) Former attorney general Soli J Sorabjee was re-elected as the President of the India International Centre (IIC),
The Board of Directors of IIC unanimously elected Sorabjee for a second consecutive term while recognising his services in achieving the objectives of IIC. He was appointed for a period of five years with effect from 1 January 2017.
Sorabjee has been working for IIC for two decades. He is known for surrendering the cases in the Supreme Court and Delhi High Court to be able to devote time for IIC affairs.
He was honored with Padma Vibhushan in 2002 for his defense of the freedom of expression and the protection of human rights. Born in March 1930 in Bombay, he studied at St Xavier’s College, Mumbai and Government Law College, Mumbai.
The India International Centre was inaugurated in 1962 by the then Vice-President S Radhakrishnan. Its aim is to work towards promoting the understanding and amity between different communities of the world.
6) The Union Cabinet has approved ratification of ISA’s Framework Agreement of International Solar Alliance (ISA) by India.
The approval was given at a meeting of the cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi.
The International Solar Alliance (ISA) was jointly launched by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and France President Francois Hollande in Paris on the sidelines of the Conference of Parties 21 (CoP21) of the United Nations climate change conference (UNFCCC).
It is an alliance of 121 nations that are primarily situated between Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn launched on 30 November 2015. It is considered as first international and inter-governmental organization mooted by India.
It tries to improve living standards by facilitating greater access to energy.It also develops innovative financial mechanisms to reduce cost of capital.
The ISA works with partner countries to formulate projects and programmes to accelerate development and deployment of existing clean solar energy technologies.
It facilitates capacity building for promotion and absorption of solar technologies and research and development activities among member countries and encourages multilateral bodies like the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), the International Energy Agency (IEA) and agencies of the United Nations to contribute towards enhanced use of solar energy.
The Assembly will provide guidance, direction and advice to the Secretariat for undertaking the activities.Its headquarters is located in Gurugram, Haryana.
The Framework Agreement was opened for signature on the sidelines of 22nd CoP of the UNFCCC meeting at Marrakesh, Morocco.The agreement invokes the Paris Declaration on ISA and encapsulates the vision of the prospective member nations.
7) Viral V Acharya was appointed as the Deputy Governor of Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
He will be joining the ranks of Vishwanathan, S S Mundra, R Gandhi as one of four Deputy Governors of RBI. He will be serving under RBI Governor Urjit Patel. He is a professor of economics at New York University.
Acharya’s research interests lie in the regulation of banks and financial institutions, credit risk and valuation of corporate debt, and asset pricing with a main focus on the effects of liquidity risk.He has significant experience in global finance specifically in theoretical risk assessment of the financial sector.
In 2015, Acharya co-authored a research paper that analysed the precarious condition of public sector banks in India. He has previously served on the International Advisory Board of Securities and Exchange Board of India.
8) Samit Gohel, the Ranji player from Gujarat has broken the 117-year-old record in first-class cricket.
He was able to create the world record with 45 boundaries and one six in 723 balls by scored 359 not out runs in Ranji Trophy quarterfinal in Jaipur, Rajasthan.
Samit remained not out in his team’s score of 641, which was the highest first-class score for team Gujarat. With this score, Gujarat was able to enter into the semi-final of the Ranji Trophy. It defeated the Ranji team of Odisha.
One of his teammates Priyank Panchal has been the top scorer in this season’s Ranji Trophy.While Hanif Mohammed’s score of 499 remains the highest score by an opener in first-class cricket.
In cricket, the term carries one’s bat or carrying the bat refers to an opening batsman who remains not out when the team innings is closed. The term is generally used in the case, where all the 10 wickets have fallen.
9) Nitin Gadkari has inaugurated Sagarmala Development Company (SDC) in New Delhi.
The incorporation of Sagarmala Development Company is a part of the ambitious Sagarmala Programme of the Union Government.
The programme aims to harness India’s 7,500 km long coastline, 14,500 km of potentially navigable waterways and strategic location on key international maritime trade routes.
The main objective of the company is to identify port-led development projects under the Sagarmala Programme. It would also aim to increase the scope of private sector participation in project development.
The implementation of the identified projects would be taken up by the relevant ports, state governments, maritime boards, central ministries, through private or public-private partnership mode.
The Company would act as the nodal agency for coordination and monitoring of all the currently identified projects under the Sagarmala Programme. It would also undertake the preparation of the detailed master plans for the Coastal Economic Zones (CEZs) identified as part of the National Perspective Plan (NPP).
The union cabinet had approved the formation of the SDC under the administrative control of the Ministry of Shipping in July 2016.The Sagarmala Development Company (SDC) has been incorporated under the Companies Act, 2013.The SDC has an initial authorised share capital of Rs 1,000 crore and a subscribed share capital of Rs. 90 crore.
10) The Prime Minister of Japan Shinzo Abe Seeks reconciliation with US in Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.
The meeting of the two leaders at the memorial site was another move towards reconciliation.Both the leaders used the ceremony to encourage their citizens to reconcile and move forward. Though Abe did not apologise for the attack, he did offer his most sincere and everlasting condolences to the victims and stated that Japan had taken a solemn vow to never wage a war ever again.
Abe also visited the USS Arizona Memorial, which was built in 1962 in the memory of the American sailors and Marines who lay buried in the wreckage of the battleship, sunk by the Japanese during the attack.
Both Abe and Obama sought to guide their citizens to embrace reconciliation and remembrance.Though Abe is not the first Japanese Prime Minister to visit the historic site, he is the first to do so with a US President and the first one to visit Arizona Memorial.
The meeting comes at a time when Abe prepares to lead Japan into a new yet uncertain era and Barack Obama prepares to move out of the office and let the Republican President-Elect Donald Trump take over. It could possibly be Obama’s last meet with a foreign leader as the president of the United States of America.
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