Current Affairs 24th December 2018

Current Affairs 24th December 2018 - Important Points

• India, Japan sign Exchange of Notes and Loan Agreements on Japan’s assistance Loan to India  - on 21st December 2018
• National Mathematics Day celebrated on - 22nd December 2018
• Belgium ends the year as No. 1 in - FIFA global rankings
• Government authorises 10 central organisations to monitor any computer on - 20th December 2018

Current Affairs 24th December 2018 - Details

India, Japan sign Exchange of Notes and Loan Agreements on Japan’s assistance Loan to India  - on 21st December 2018

India & Japan on December 21st, 2018 inked Exchange of Notes and Loan Agreements on Japan’s Official Development Assistance Loan to India.
The Notes were inter-changed between Dr.C.S.Mohapatra, Additional Secretary in Department of Economic Affairs, Union Ministry of Finance & Kenji Hiramatsu, Ambassador of Japan to India on Japanese formal development assistance loan for 3 projects.
3 projects are
1) Chennai Metro Project- Phase 2 (I) for Japanese Yen 75.519 billion, which goals to meet increasing
traffic demand by constructing Mass Rapid Transit System. It will ease worsening road traffic & traffic pollution. Ultimately, it will result into balanced regional progress & enhancement of metropolitan environmental condition in Chennai Metropolitan Area.

2) Programme for Japan-India Co-operative Actions towards Sustainable Development Aims in India for
Japanese Yen 15.000 billion, which goals to contribute to promotion of Sustainable Development Goals
in India especially in social development by backing the efforts by the Union Government to fortify policy framework & implementation process to ease India achieve Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. 
3) Project for Dairy Development for Japanese Yen 14.978 billion, which intends to upsurge sales of milk &dairy products by raising farmers's access to organised market. It also aims to upgrade dairy processing facilities and marketing infrastructure and enhance the capacity of producers owned institutions, thereby contributing to increase in returns to milk producers in the project area.
Loan Agreements

• For these 3 projects, Japan has promised Japan-India Co-operative Actions Official Development Assistance of around Rupees 6668.46 crore conjointly.
• The agreements were inked between Dr. C.S.Mohapatra, Additional Secretary of the Department of Economic Affairs, Union Ministry of Finance and Katsuo Matsumoto, Chief Representative of Japan-India Co-operative Actions, New Delhi.

National Mathematics Day celebrated on - 22nd December 2018

India observed 22nd December 2018 as the National Mathematics Day commemorating the 131 birthday of famous Indian Mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan. Since 2011, December 22nd, is observed as National Mathematics Day every year. The Indian government had also announced 2012 as the National Mathematics year. The National Mathematics Day is observed to honour his involvement to the field of Mathematics & also to keep his legacy alive to encourage the future mathematicians.
More about Srinivasa Ramanujan

• Ramanujan was born in the year 1887 and subsisted during the British rule in India. His life was entirely devoted to Mathematics. At a young age of 11, Ramanujan initiated showing signs of a genius.
• He had reached expertise in trigonometry and established many theorems by himself. He got his papers issued in the Journal of the Indian Mathematical Society in the year 1911.
• Ramanujan accumulated nearly 3900 results, mostly identities & equations, on his own without any support.
• Many of the results were entirely original & novel including the Ramanujan prime, the
  Ramanujan theta function, partition formulae & mock-theta functions.
• These results as well as characteristics have unlocked entirely new fields of work and stimulated further research. 
• He came out with his individual theory of divergent series. Also, he calculated out the Riemann series, the elliptic integrals, hypergeometric series & the functional equations of the Zeta function.
• The number 1729 is superbly known as the Hardy-Ramanujan number.

Belgium ends the year as No. 1 in - FIFA global rankings 

Belgium Football team clinched at number One place in the end of the year FIFA Global rankings. Belgium succeeded to remain at the top with One point above than the current World Champions France.  Belgium has 1727 scores in the place whereas France which came at 2nd rank has 1726 scores.
France had beaten Belgium in the semi-finals of the FIFA World Cup 2018 to reach the finals.
Brazil came at 3rd position with 1676 scores. Croatia has been placed at the 4th place and England
claimed the 5th position. Portugal saved at 6th and Uruguay at 7th position in the rankings. Switzerland,
Spain and Denmark complete the Top-10 teams by claiming 8th, 9th and 10th positions respectively.
The teams of Argentina, Germany and Italy took the 11th, 16th & 18th position and finishes the year outside the Top-10. France has been announced as the 2018’s Best Mover team by FIFA. The football team of Kosovo, which is placed at 131st in the list, are the year’s biggest climbers as Kosovo moved up 46 places in the positions in 2018.
More about FIFA

• FIFA arranges football’s major international tournaments including FIFA the World Cup. FIFA was
  started in 1904 and has its HQ in Zurich.
• It is to be highlighted that the rules of football are formed by the International Football Association Board and not FIFA.

Government authorises 10 central organisations to monitor any computer on - 20th December 2018

The Union Government has permitted 10 central intelligence, security and tax organisations to intercept, monitor & decrypt all the information contained in any computer system. The order was released on December 20th, 2018 by the “Cyber and Information Security” division of the Ministry of Home Affairs under the authority of Home Secretary Rajiv Gauba.
The initiative has resulted into a political storm with the opposition condemning the government of trying to create a ‘surveillance state’. The Union Government has elucidated that the rules for intercepting & monitoring computer information were outlined in 2009 when the Congress-led UPA was in power and its new order only notified the elected authority, which can carry out such action.
New Order

• As per to the order, the ten central probe & snoop organisations are now empowered under the Information Technology Act for computer interception & analysis.
• The organisations, as per to the order, have been sanctioned for the interception, monitoring and decryption of any information produced, transmitted, received/stored in any computer resource under the said Act (section 69 of the IT Act, 2000).
• The ten organisations notified under the fresh order are the Intelligence Bureau, Narcotics Control Bureau, Enforcement Directorate, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (for Income Tax Department), Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, CBI, National Investigation Agency, the Research and Analysis Wing, Directorate of Signal Intelligence, in service areas of J-K, North East and Assam, and Delhi Police commissioner.
• However, the fresh order does not discuss any new powers to any security/law enforcement agency.
  Each case of computer interception, monitoring and decryption will have to be permitted by the competent authority, which is the Union home secretary or the state government.
  Benefits
  The order is aimed at among other things ensuring that any interception, monitoring or decryption of any information through any computer resource is done in accordance with due process of law.