Daily GK Updates - 14th January, 2018

NATIONAL UPDATES

1. Amendment in Act leads to ‘enemy’ properties worth Rs 1 trillion being auctioned: Over 9,400 ‘enemy’ properties, worth more than Rs 1 trillion, are set to be auctioned by the home ministry starting the process of identifying all such estates. The properties were left behind by people who took citizenship of Pakistan and China. The move came after the amendment of the 49-year-old Enemy Property (Amendment and Validation) Act.

2. Migrant Workers to Have Orange Passports: New passports for citizens who have Emigration Check Required (ECR) status will have orange cover jackets, instead of the traditional dark blue. Indian passports have a blue cover, diplomatic and official passports have white and red jackets, respectively. Applicants who haven’t cleared 10th standard are given a passport with ECR category.

3. NFHS4 names Delhi and Punjab as the richest states in India: On the basis of data from fourth round of the National Family and Health Survey (NFHS-4), people in Delhi and Punjab are the richest, with more than 60% of their households in the top wealth quintile. The survey was conducted among more than 6 lakh households in 2015-16. The index has been prepared on the basis of scores on ownership of consumer goods and household characteristics.

4. Google Doodle as a tribute to Mahasweta Devi: Google celebrated the 92nd birthday of eminent Bengali littérateur and social activist Mahasweta Devi with a doodle on 14th January, 2018. Hailing from a family of prolific playwrights and writers, Mahasweta Devi wielded the power of the pen to bring to light the plight of “suffering spectators”. Her first book, Jhansir Rani was a biography of the Rani of Jhansi.

5. U5MR declines in India: Under-five mortality rate (U5MR) in India has shown an impressive decline of 9 per cent, from 43 per 1,000 in 2015 to 39 per 1,000 in 2016. The data comes from the recently-released 2016 sample registration system (SRS) bulletin. The number of under-five deaths in the country have come down to below 1 million with nearly 1,20,000 fewer under-five deaths in 2016 as compared to 2015.

6. Rashtriya Sanskriti Mahotsav begins in Karnataka: The seventh edition of the Rashtriya Sanskriti Mahotsav, under the Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat matrix, is set to begin in Karnataka. The state paired with Karnataka is Uttarakhand. The event will cover a profusion of art forms from classical and folk, music and dance, theatre to literature and visual arts.

7. Teen Murti to be renamed as ‘Teen Murti Haifa’: As a symbolic gesture of friendship with Israel, India will rename the iconic Teen Murti Chowk, a war memorial. The new name of the memorial which was the official residence of the first Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru will be, Teen Murti Haifa Chowk.

INTERNATIONAL UPDATES

1. Israeli PM Netanyahu set to visit India: Israeli PM is set to visit India where a series of events that will showcase the growing friendship with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Israeli prime minister. PM Modi will break protocol to receive Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara, at the airport.

OTHER UPDATES

DEFENCE:

1. China commissions new missile frigate ‘Rizhao’: China’s Navy has commissioned a new missile frigate, named ‘Rizhao’, in a naval port in China’s Dalian located in the Liaoning Province. Rizhao is China’s indigenous missile frigate. It is 140-meter-long and 16-meter-wide with the capability to displace more than 4,000 tonnes.

BUSINESS/ ECONOMY:

1. Japan tops, India at 30th position on Global Manufacturing Index by WEF: The World Economic Forum (WEF) has ranked India at 30th position on a global manufacturing index. Japan has been found to have the best structure of production in the Geneva-based WEF’s first ‘Readiness for the future of production report’. It is followed by South Korea, Germany, Switzerland, China, Czech Republic, the US, Sweden, Austria and Ireland in the top 10.

2. BSE’s INX lists IRFC’s first Green Bond: The BSE’s India International Exchange, India INX, has listed the IRFC’s green bonds on its debt listing platform – the global securities market. With this, the Indian Railway Finance Corporation’s green bonds have become the first debt security to be listed on an exchange at International Financial Services Centre in Gujarat’s GIFT city. The bonds have an annual yield of 3.835 percent.

3. World Bank to recalculate EODB rankings: World Bank has announced that it will recalculate the national rankings of business competitiveness going back to at least four years. The announcement was after a complaint by Chile, the ranking of which has come down from 34th in 2014 to 57th in 2017. The last major changes in the methodology and parameter of the EODB rankings were done under the watch of Romer’s predecessor Kaushik Basu.

4. India’s first IT trade union gets registered in Pune: The Pune chapter of the Forum for IT Employees (FITE) has become the first officially registered trade union for the IT sector in India. FITE was formed in Bengaluru a few years ago to fight the layoffs in IT sector. The FITE also helped affected employees file cases under the Industrial Disputes Act before the offices of the Labour Commissioner and the labour court.

5. Bangla tops DIPP’s BRAP 2017: Bangla currently tops the list of the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion’s Business Reforms Action Plan (BRAP) 2017. It is followed by Gujarat. The rankings are based on implementation only and scores of feedback evaluation have not been considered.