Current Affairs 14th-15th January 2015

Current Affairs 14th January 2015 - Important Points

• DRDO Chairman Avinash Chander sacked by Govt

• Flight Search Tool in India launched by Google

• Idukki in Kerala became first District of India to have Complete Rural Broadband Coverage

• MoU inked between India and Australia for skill and infrastructural development in sports

• Trade deficit between India and China increased to 37.8 billion US dollars in 2014

• Bhakti Sharma sets world record in Antarctic Ocean by swimming 1.4 miles in 52 minutes

• Sahitya Akademi Award 2014 for Sanskrit bagged by Prabhu Nath Dwivedi

• In sixth Bi-Monthly Monetary Policy Statement 2014-15 RBI cut Repo Rate by 0.25%

• Anupam Shrivastava appointed as CMD of BSNL

• On 15th January 67th Army Day observed in India

• 100 crore rupees fine imposed on Riddhi Siddhi Bullion by DGFT for violation of RBI norms

Current Affairs 14th January 2015 - Details

DRDO Chairman Avinash Chander sacked by Govt

On 13th January 2015, Chairman of Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO) Mr. Avinash Chander was removed by Govt. He contract was scheduled to end after 16 months. His contract will now end on 31st January 2015. 

Earlier he retired from post on 30th November 2014 then he was again given a contract for 18 months till 31st May 2016. Mr. Avinash Chander is a recipient of Padma Shri is the chief architect of Agni series of ballistic missile systems.

Flight Search Tool in India launched by Google

Among the important Technological Current Affairs, On 13th January 2015 Search Engine Google launched its Flight Search Tool in India. This tool will be helping in search directly for flights within Google to quickly find, compare and book flights from your mobile device, tablet or desktop.

Idukki in Kerala became first District of India to have Complete Rural Broadband Coverage

On 12th January 2015, Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology linked Idukki district in Kerala to the National Optic Fiber Network, thus it became first district of India to have complete rural broadband coverage.

This connectivity is provided by BSNL, so for the first time the villages of this district and all Panchayats would be connected through Mobile phones and internet.

MoU inked between India and Australia for skill and infrastructural development in sports

On 13th January 2015, Sport Education Development Australia and India's Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services Limited (IL-FS) inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to encourage the development of sports and fitness vocational courses in India. This agreement was signed by Andrew Robb (Australian Minister for Trade and Investment). After this MoU they will be imparting training to youngsters in 350 centres across India in 25-26 states.

Trade deficit between India and China increased to 37.8 billion US dollars in 2014

Among the Banking Current Affairs, Trade deficit between India and China increased to 37.8 billion US dollars in 2014. However the increase in bilateral trade is by 7.9 percent. General Administration of Customs (GAC) of China released this annual trade report on 13th January 2015.

India and China had fixed a trade target of 100 billion US dollars for the year 2014.

Bhakti Sharma sets world record in Antarctic Ocean by swimming 1.4 miles in 52 minutes

Among the Important Sports Current Affairs, On 15th January 2015, Indian open water swimmer Bhakti Sharma set a world record in Swimming. She made this record by swimming 1.4 miles in 52 minutes in one degree temperature in the Antarctic Ocean. Also she became first Indian women as well as to achieve this.

Earlier this record was with British open water swimming champion Lewis Pugh and American swimmer Lynne Cox.

24-year old Bhakti Sharma is youngest in the world achieve this.

Sahitya Akademi Award 2014 for Sanskrit bagged by Prabhu Nath Dwivedi

On 14th January 2015, Noted Sanskrit scholar Prabhu Nath Dwivedi was named as winner of the Sahitya Akademi Award 2014 for Sanskrit. He was honoured with this prestigious award for his work Kanakalochanaha, a collection of 16 short-stories based on various social issues.

In March 2015 he will be presented with this award during the Festival of Letters that will be organised by the Sahitya Akademi in New Delhi.

Do You Know : 

Sahitya Akademi Award is conferred every year on writers who have shown outstanding works in one of the twenty four major Indian languages. These languages are Assamese, Bengali, Bodo, Dogri, English, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Maithili, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Oriya, Punjabi, Rajasthan, Sanskrit, Santhali, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu.

In sixth Bi-Monthly Monetary Policy Statement 2014-15 RBI cut Repo Rate by 0.25%

Among the Important Banking Affairs, On 15th January 2015, RBI announced sixth Bi-Monthly Monetary Policy Statement and In this it cut its main lending rate (Repo Rate) by 0.25 per cent with immediate effect which is first rate cut since 2013.

Now repo rate will be 7.75 percent which was 8 percent earlier. 

Anupam Shrivastava appointed as CMD of BSNL

Among the important appointments, On 14th January 2015, Appointments Committee of the Cabinet approved appointment of Anupam Shrivastava as Chairman and Managing Director (CMD) of BSNL. At the time of appointment he was serving as Director - Consumer Mobility at the BSNL. Currently A N Ria is handling additional charge of CMD.

On 15th January 67th Army Day observed in India

On 15th January 2015, India observed 67th Army Day. This day is observed annually to commemorate when Lieutenant General (later Field Marshal) K M Cariappa on 15 January 1949 became the first Indian Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Army post Independence.

Do You Know : 

Last British Commander-in-Chief of India was General Sir Francis Butcher.

Army Chief is General Dalbir Singh Suhag,

Chief of Naval Staff is Admiral Robin K Dhowan and 

Air Chief is Marshal Arup Raha.

100 crore rupees fine imposed on Riddhi Siddhi Bullion by DGFT for violation of RBI norms

Among the Banking Current Affairs, On 14th January 2015, Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) imposed a penalty of 100 crore rupees on Riddhi Siddhi Bullion Limited (RSBL) for violation of Reserve Bank of India (RBI) norms.

It also cancelled its nominated agency certificate (NAC) which is mandatory document needed for direct import of precious metals.

The DGFT had issued a showcause notice to the bullion trader in October 2014. According to the order, RSBL had obtained NAC in April 2013 for direct import of bullion. In FY14, RSBL had imported 550 kg gold and according to the RBI circular, this entire quantity should have been exported back.

However, the company had shipped back only 350 kg so for this reason this action was taken.