Daily GK Updates - 12th January, 2019

NATIONAL UPDATES:

1. National Youth Day being observed today : National Youth Day (Yuva Diwas) is celebrated in India on 12th January on the birthday of social reformer, philosopher and thinker Swami Vivekananda (156th).According to Ramakrishna Mission, the theme for 2019 is “Youth and Nation Building”Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das has unveiled the tallest bronze statue of Swami Vivekanand at Ranchi Lake.

2. Malala pens new book on refugee girls titled 'We are Displaced' : Nobel Peace Prize winner, Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai is coming up with a new book, charting her experiences travelling the world and visiting refugee camps.The Title of the 244-page book is ‘We Are Displaced’, priced at Rs 399.Malala's experiences visiting refugee camps caused her to reconsider her own displacement - first as an Internally Displaced Person when she was a young child in Pakistan, and then as an international activist who could travel anywhere in the world except to the home she loved.

3.  ISRO announces Human Space Flight Centre in Bengaluru : The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman K. Sivahas announced setting up of Human Space Flight Centre in Bengaluru to make India's maiden human mission to Space a reality.Gaganyaan project (Headed by- R. Hutton), will send three astronauts to orbit the Earth for three to seven days at about 400 kilometres.The space agency has tied up with the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) and L&T among other firms to manufacture the industry-made PSLV launch vehicles.

4.  NIC Command and Control Centre inaugurated : The Union minister of Electronics and IT Ravi Shankar Prasad has inaugurated the National Informatics Centre (NIC)’s Command and Control Centre (CCC) and its Centre for Excellence in Artificial Intelligence.National Informatics Centre hosts over 10,000 e-Governance applications and offers Data Centre and Cloud services to the Government.The Command and Control Centre is set up as a specialized facility with a nationwide view of ICT infrastructure for effective monitoring and management of the performance & availability of all these critical services.

5.  Urea fertilizer prices reduced by 11% in UP : The Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has reduced the prices of urea fertilizer by 11% in the interest of the farmers.The decrease in prices of Urea is due to the reduction in additional VAT levied on natural gas.Now, the bag of 45 kilograms of urea will be available at the cost of Rs. 266.50 instead of Rs. 299.

6. Union Government launched the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) :   The National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) was launched by Union minister for environment, forests and climate change, Harsh Vardhanwith an initial budget of Rs. 300 crores for the first two years.The NCAP will be a mid-term, five-year action plan with 2019 as the first year.The Centre stepped up its efforts to combat air pollution by launching a five-year action plan with a tentative target of 20-30% reduction in concentrations of PM10 and PM2.5 by 2024, with 2017 as the base year.

INTERNATIONAL UPDATES:

1. Su Tseng-chang appointed as Taiwan PM : Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen has appointed Su Tseng-chang as Prime Minister, during a Cabinet reshuffle following the ruling Democratic Progressive Party's heavy losses in local electionsSu is a former premier appointed in 2006 by then-President Chen Shui-bian.She was a chairman of Tsai’s Democratic Progressive Party for two terms.

OTHER UPDATES:

BUSINESS/ECONOMY:

1.  TCS appoints Daniel Hughes Callahan as Independent Director : India’s largest IT services company Tata Consultancy Services (TCS)has appointed Daniel Hughes Callahan as an Additional and Independent Director for a period of five years.He was the Chief Administrative Officer (CEO) and Head of Operations and Technology at Citi group and was a member of Citi’s Operating Committee until November 2018. Callahan has broad experience in driving strategic change across large global organisations and dealing with multiple stakeholders in local and national governments and regulatory bodies.

2. Finance Minister to present interim Budget for 2019-20 fiscal on 1st February : Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will present the interim Budget for 2019-20 fiscal on 1st of February 2019.The budget session of the Parliament to be held from 31^st January to 13th February.The work for preparation of interim Budget has already commenced and is now gaining momentum.

SPORTS:

1. Egypt to host 2019 Africa Cup of Nations : According to Confederation of African Football (CAF) President Ahmad Ahmad, Egypt will host the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations between 15th June and 13th July 2019.The CAF executive committee preferred Egypt to South Africa as a replacement for original hosts Cameroon.Cameroon was dropped due to delays in preparations and concerns over security.