Daily G.K Current affairs 09 Jan 2019

This post contains important current affairs (National, International, Business and Sports) of 09 January 2019. Very useful to prepare for the General Knowledge section of various competitive and recruitment exams.

• Indian Highways Management Company Ltd. (IHMCL), a company promoted by NHAI, has signed MOUs with state-run Oil Marketing Companies (IOCL, BPC, and HPC). It will ensure availability of FASTags at petroleum outlets across India. Indian highways management company ltd. (IHMCL) had launched the national electronic toll collection program (NETC) under the brand name "FASTag" in April 2016. This program has gain success and running at 450 toll plaza along with national highway and selected state toll plazas. The enhanced adoption of FASTag program will increase user convenience by offering seamless toll-fee payments at Plazas and thus help save time, money and fuel. IHMCL is also planning to launch two mobile applications named MYFASTag and IHMCLPOS , will enable customers to link the FASTags with their preferred bank account.  
• Reserve Bank of India (RBI) granted NBFC - P2P (Non-Banking Financial Company - Peer to Peer) Certificate to IndiaMoneyMart and this certification will enable IndiaMoneyMart to expand operations and target loan disbursals worth INR 100 Crore by the end of financial year 2018-19. The step will validates IndiaMoneyMart's strong framework to make lending and borrowing transparent, digital and convenient in confrontation to the regulatory requirement. IndiaMoneyMart is offering loans starting from Rs. 10 thousand to Rs 10 Lakhs for a tenure ranging between 3 months to 36 months. 
• Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has constituted a High-Level Committee on Deepening of Digital Payments to encourage digitisation of payments and enhance financial inclusion. The five-member committee headed by UIDAI's former Chairman Nandan Nilekani will include RBI's former Deputy Governor Mr. H.R. Khan and Former Secretary, Ministry of Information Technology, Mrs. Aruna Sharma among others. RBI stated that the committee will review the existing status of digitisation of payments and suggest ways to bridge any gaps in the ecosystem if any. The committee will also undertake cross country analysis to identify best practices that can be adopted to accelerate digitisation of the economy and financial inclusion through greater use of digital payments.
• Jana Small Finance Bank launched Current Account with Auto-Sweep facility. The facility will enable bank's existing and potential new customers to auto sweep-in and sweep-out the idle funds in the current account to Sweep Fixed Deposit and earn high interest. For a tenor of 365 days on sweep deposit, the customers will be able to earn interest of 8.5 percent. 
• The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) pavilion received 'Exhibitor of the Year Award' at 106th Indian Science Congress (ISC) held at Lovely Professional University (LPU) in Punjab. The DRDO Pavillion at ISC was inaugurated on 3 January 2019. The pavilion exhibited surface-to-air missile system - Akash, a model of BrahMos missile, remotely operated vehicle etc. 
• Reliance Jio Infocomm launched the Kumbh JioPhone application, specially designed for millions of pilgrims who will congregate during this year's Ardh Kumbh Mela at Prayagraj. The new app which will be available to both existing and new JioPhone users will contain information on Kumbh, real-time travel information (special trains, buses etc.), booking tickets and receiving updates, 'Yatri Ashray' at stations, emergency helpline numbers, area routes and maps, pre-published bath and religious day schedules and railway camp mela. The new app has a feature called 'Khoya Paya' that will help users stay close to near and dear ones by finding their exact location.

• A visionary in the field of Solar Energy and the chairman of National Solar Energy Federation, Pranav R Mehta, has taken over as the president of Global Solar Council (GSC). He has become the first Indian to head the GSC. The Global Solar Council (GSC) was launched on December 6, 2015, following the historic United Nations Climate Change Conference (UN COP 21). The GSC came into being as International Coalition of more than 30 nations, utilising maximum solar energy, decided to harness the renewable energy for the greater good.
• The All India Radio National Poets Conference will be held in Chennai on January 10, 2019. It will be inaugurated by the Tamil Nadu Governor Bunwarilal Purohit. This is the first time the city would be hosting the Sarva Basha Kavi Sammelan since its launch in 1956. In it, 22 poets representing as many languages included in the eighth schedule of the Constitution would be presenting their poems. Scholars in Hindi and Tamil will present the translated version of the poems in the Conference itself. The programme will be aired on the 25th of this month. 
• The Group of States' Finance Ministers (GoFM) led by Deputy Chief Minister of Bihar, Sushil Kumar Modi approved levy of 1%'calamity cess' by Kerala for a period of two years to fund rehabilitation work in the state of Kerala. It will recommend the same to the GST council meeting which will be held in January 10, 2019. The goods and services, which will attract the 1% cess, would be decided by Kerala and any other state considering to do the same would have to approach the council. It also suggested the GST council to allow additional borrowing over the permitted limit by states hit by natural calamity.  
• The Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi cleared the redrafted Citizenship Amendment Bill thus providing Indian citizenship to non-Muslims from Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Pakistan. First introduced in Parliament in 2016, the bill seeks to amend the Citizenship Act 1955. It enables grant of Indian nationality to people from minority communities - Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians- from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan after six years of residence in India instead of 12 even if they don't possess any proper document. This would, however, nullify the 1985 Assam Accord under which any foreign national, irrespective of religion, who had entered the state after 1971 should be deported. 
• The North Central Railway, (NCR) launched a mobile application the 'Rail Kumbh Seva Mobile App' to help navigate the attendees of the Kumbh Mela in Prayagraj city from January 15- March 4, 2019. It will also provide information regarding all the 'Mela special' trains that will be run during the period. The app will provide a link to the user to buy both unreserved and reserved train tickets. Also, the users will not only get to know their current location, but will also be able to reach to all railway stations, the mela zone, major hotels, bus stations and other facilities within Prayagraj. A photo gallery, containing pictures of previous Kumbh Melas can also be accessed through the app. 
• An MoU was signed between the Indian Army and Punjab National Bank on the Defence Salary Package. The signing ceremony was chaired by the Adjutant General, Lt Gen Ashwani Kumar. Salient features of the improved and updated MoU are free 'RAKSHAK PLUS' Scheme for serving pers and veterans, overdraft facility range from Rs 0.75 to 3.0 lakhs, multicity 'At Par' cheques, instant credit of outstation cheques, preferential allotment of lockers at concessional AMC and free SMS alerts. 
• Airport Authority of India (AAI) banned single-use plastic items at 16 airports. This entails air travellers not getting any single-use plastic items like straws, plastic cutlery and plastic plates etc at passenger terminals and city side. The 16 airports declared as single-use plastic free are: Indore, Bhopal, Ahmedabad, Bhubaneswar, Tirupati, Trichy, Vijayawada, Dehradun, Chandigarh, Vadodara, Madurai, Raipur, Vizag, Pune, Kolkata and Varanasi. The first batch of 16 airports was selected on the basis of third-party assessment carried out by Quality Council of India. 
• S. Vijay Kumar, Senior Deputy Editor with The Hindu in Chennai, was presented the Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Award for Investigative Reporting (Print category) for his reports on how taxmen alerted officials about payoffs in the Tamil Nadu gutka scam - but were ignored. The award was presented by Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh at a ceremony in New Delhi on January 7. The award for Investigative Reporting in the broadcast category was won by Anand Kumar Patel of India Today TV. The awards for Political Reporting went to Brajesh Rajput of ABP News Network and Sushant Kumar Singh of the Indian Express. The award in the Environmental Reporting category were presented to Sushil Chandra Bahuguna of NDTV and Sandhya Ravishankar of the online magazine The Wire.

• Egypt opened West Asia's largest cathedral in its New Administrative Capital, 45 kms away from its capital, Cairo. President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi inaugurated the newly-built Cathedral of Nativity on the eve of Coptic Christmas.
• India's new ambassador to China, Vikram Misri, took charge of the post. He reported to Hong Lei, Deputy Director General of Protocol at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing. He is a 1989-batch India Foreign Service (IFS) officer, and replaced Gautam Bambawale who retired in November 2018. Prior to this appointment, Misri served as Indian envoy in Myanmar. Earlier, he has served in various capacities at the headquarters of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) as well as in the Prime Minister'ss Office.  
• In a first, the 2-day long Global Aviation Summit 2019 with the theme "Flying for all" will be organized by the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) in collaboration with FICCI from January 15-16, 2019 in Mumbai, Maharashtra. The summit is supported by International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), Federal Aviation Administration of US (FAA), International Air Transport Association (IATA), CiviI Air Navigation Services Organisation (CANSO), Airports Council International (ACl) and Association of Asia Pacific Airlines (AAPA).  
• China passed law to make Islam compatible with socialism and 'sinicize' it within next five years. The law was passed after Chinese government officials met representatives from eight Islamic groups. In 2018, China held over a million people of the ethnic Uighur and Muslim minorities in prison in the Xingjian region. 
• Prime Minister of Norway Erna Solberg and Prime Minister Narendra Modi held bilateral talks in New Delhi. Prime Minister Modi said that both the countries have vibrant trade ties. MoU were exchanged on India-Norway Ocean Dialogue. Erna Solberg also called on President Ram Nath Kovind and Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu. She also delivered the Inaugural address at the Raisina Dialogue and addressed India-Norway Business Summit in New Delhi.

• Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) announced cash awards of Rs 15 lakh per match for each of the playing eleven that featured in India's maiden Test Cricket series win on Australian soil. Virat Kohli and his team defeated Australia 2-1 in the four-match Test series, ending India's 71-year-old wait for the rare achievement. Congratulating the team, the BCCI also announced cash awards of seven and a half lakh rupees for all the reserve players, as well as the members of the support staff.

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Easily the most preferred preparation material for students and aspirants for the following:

• MBA entrance exams like IIFT, TISS and SNAP which feature a General Knowledge Section. 
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