Current affair for NTpC

• Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi embarked on a day long
visit to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
• The PM laid a wreath at the Tsunami Memorial,and lit a candle
at the Wall of Lost Souls remembering those who lost their
lives in 2004 Tsunami.
• Mr Modi also dedicated the 150 feet high Flag Mast at South
Point in Port Blair to commemorate the first unfurling of the
Tricolor on Indian soil by Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose in Port
Blair on Dec 30, 1943.
• Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone of 50
MW LNG-based power project at Hope Town in South Andaman
• Union Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan launched
the Ujjwala Sanitary Napkin initiative in Bhubaneswar,
Odisha.
• The Congress-led Madhya Pradesh Government announced that it is going to create an Adhyatmik Vibhag (spiritual department) by merging several existing department.
• The Deen Dayal Veterinary University in Uttar Pradesh proposed to set up the first goat fertility lab in the state under Rastriya Krashi Vikas Yojna at the cost of Rs 22 crore.
i.The University has entered into a contract
with Pradeshik cooperative Dairy Federation for marketing.
• Three Indian-origin women scientists were among the 60 Superstars of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics) list awarded by Australian government.
• The 3 scientists are Onisha Patel, Devika Kamath and Asha
Rao.
• Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s alliance won Bangladesh’s
election with a thumping majority giving her a third straight
term.
• The Government of India has appointed Sudhir Bhargava, an information commissioner in the Central Information Commission as the new chief information commissioner. The government has also appointed four new information cgovernmentrs.
• The Sports Authority of India Director General Neelam
Kapur announced that The Sports Ministry has earmarked Rs
100 crore for the funding of athletes under the Target Olympic
Podium Scheme (TOPS) for their preparations for 2020
Olympics.
• 25 years old Indian fast bowler Jasprit Bumrah became the highest international wicket-taker of 2018 with 78 wickets after taking 9 wickets in the 3rd Test Match against Australia held in Melbourne Cricket Ground, Australia.
• 21 years old Indian wicket-keeper Rishabh Pant became the 1st ever player to take 20 catches in a Test series by surpassing
former cricketers Naren Tamhane and Syed Kirmani who had recorded 19 catches in 1954-55 and 1979-80 respectively.
• Indian pace trio of Ishant Sharma, Mohammed Shami and Jasprit Bumrah broke the 34 year record of highest test wickets in a calendar year to become the most successful pace trio with 131 wickets in 2018.
i. The record was previously held by West Indies seamers Joel Garner, Michael Holding and Malcolm Marshall who had taken 130 wickets in 1984.
• A government appointed panel headed by IIT-Hyderabad chairman B V R Mohan Reddy has suggested to the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) to stop setting
up new engineering colleges from 2020 and review the creation of new capacity every two years after • A government appointed panel headed by IIT-Hyderabad chairman B V R Mohan Reddy has suggested to the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) to stop setting up new engineering colleges from 2020 and review the creation of new capacity every two years after that.
• About All India Council for Technical Education( AICTE):
♦ Chairman: Anil Sahasrabudhe
♦ Headquarters: New Delhi
♦ Parent Agency: Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Human Resource Development that.
• About All India Council for Technical Education( AICTE):
♦ Chairman: Anil Sahasrabudhe
♦ Headquarters: New Delhi
♦ Parent Agency: Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Human Resource Development.
• Andhra Pradesh got a separate high court which will
temporarily function from the Chief Minister’s camp office
in Amravati, the new capital of the state till a permanent
building for the High Court is being set up at the ‘Justice City’in
Amaravati.
•
Justice C Praveen Kumar, the senior-most judge among the
judges allotted to Andhra Pradesh, was appointed as acting
Chief Justice of AP High Court, that will have 15 other judges
with effect from January 1 , 2019.
v. Justice Thottathil B Radhakrishnan took over as the first
Chief Justice of the Telangana High Court with effect from
January 1 , 2019.
• The United states of America (USA) and Israel officially quit
the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO) amid concerns that the organization
fosters anti-Israel bias.
• France introduced a new “GAFA tax” named after the large
internet and technology companies Google, Apple,
Facebook and Amazon to ensure the global giants pay a fair
share of taxes on their massive businesses in Europe.
• the Government introduced the Minimum Support Price
(MSP) for 17 items of Minor Forest Produce (MFP) items after
revising 23 items.
i. These changes have been done under the recommendations
of the MFP Pricing Cell constituted by the Tribal Cooperative
Marketing Development Federation of India Ltd. (TRIFED).
ii. Among the items revised,10 MFP items have been under the
scheme from 2013-14 and 13 new items were included w.e.f.
31.10.2016.
iii. Further, the Ministry of Tribal Affairs decided to announce
the inclusion of seventeen (17) more MFP items in the scheme
along with their MSP.

• VK Yadav appointed new chairman of Railway Board after
Ashwani Lohani.
• Private sector lender Axis Bank Managing Director (MD) and
Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Shikha Sharma retired from the
services of the bank and Amitabh Chaudhry will be the new
MD and CEO of the Axis bank from 1
st January 2019.

• The American space agency NASA‘s New Horizons spacecraft
performed the farthest flyby in history as it approached
the Kuiper Belt object Ultima Thule.
• Ultima is an object in the Kuiper belt which is a band of frozen
material that orbits the Sun more than 2 billion km (1.25bn
miles) further out than the Neptune; and 1.5 billion km
beyond even the dwarf planet Pluto, which New Horizons
visited in 2015.
iii. NASA launched the $700 million nuclear-powered New
Horizons spacecraft in January 2006 on a mission originally
aimed at Pluto which was very successful as the spacecraft
sent the first-ever detailed photos of the dwarf planet.

• Chief Minister of Odisha,Naveen Patnaik, launched a Rs 10,180-
crore scheme,for overall development of small, marginal and
landless farmers, dubbed as ‘The Krushak Assistance for Livelihood
and Income Augmentation (KALIA)’ scheme.
•
This scheme consists of a life insurance of Rs.2 lakh for 57 lakh
farmers and would grant them crop loans at zero percent interest.
ii. Also,financial assistance of Rs 10,000 per farmer family per
annum to around 30 lakh small and marginal farmers’ families.
iii. Furthermore,Rs. 5000 would be given to farmers for Rabi
cultivation and equal amount will be given for Kharif Cultivation.
iv. For landless farmers, a unit cost of Rs 12,500 would be provided
for goat rearing, poultry farming, duck rearing, bee keeping and
mushroom cultivation.

• MHA had earlier approved the renaming of the British-era
railway station Robertsgang as Sonbhadra,Farah Town railway
station near Mathura and iconic Mughalsarai junction
after Deen Dayal Upadhyay — both in Uttar Pradesh.
ii. The Centre had also approved the renaming of Chhatrapati
Shivaji International Airport in Mumbai as Chhatrapati Shivaji
‘Maharaj’ International Airport, earlier.
iii. The Tripura government also got Centre’s approval to
change the name of Agartala Airport as Maharaja Bir Bikram
Manikya Kishore, the erstwhile ruler of the state.
iv. The Home ministry approves any such proposals of name
change after consulting various concerned agencies like Indian
Railways, Survey of India, Department of Posts etc.

• The Mamata Banerjee led West Bengal government announced
two welfare initiatives for farmers as a part of the ‘Krishi Krishak
Bondhu’ scheme which will come into effect from New Year’s Day
i.e. January 1, 2019.
• Under the first of the two schemes, If a farmer aged between 18 to
60 years dies naturally or unnaturally,the state government will pay
his family Rs 2 lakh. The farmers will be able to start applying for
the scheme from February 1, 2019.
ii. Under the second initiative, farmers would get Rs 2,500 twice a
year for growing a single crop on one acre of land. The farmers will
be able to apply for this scheme from February 1, while the amount
will be calculated from January 1, 2019.
iii. The West Bengal government has already waived tax and cess
on agricultural land to help farmers in distress.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) launched a
new platform named “Samwad with Students” (SwS) as part of
the enhanced outreach programme and to engage youngsters
across India to capture their scientific temperament in
Bengaluru.
• The players in France‘s football team which last year
defeated Croatia to win the World Cup were awarded
the Legion of Honour, France’s highest award for “exceptional
service” to the nation, in the New Year’s honours list

• A 12-year-old Indian-origin student Dhruv Manoj from Singapore
has bagged two gold medals at the World Memory Championships
held in Hong Kong from 20th December to 22nd December 2018.
i. Dhruv Manoj won in the “names and faces” and “random
words” disciplines, beating 56 other contestants in the “kids
category”.
• Brazil elected Jair Bolsonaro as its 42nd president
• Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the 5-day long ‘Indian
Science Congress (ISC)-2019’ in Lovely Professional
University Jalandhar, Punjab.It will conclude on January 7, 2019.
• The theme of 106th edition of ISC-2019, is: ‘Future India: Science
and Technology’.

• Veer Savarkar International Airport in Port Blair declared as
an authorized Immigration Check post
• Tropical Storm Usman hits Philippines
• Dronacharya awardee cricket coach Ramakant Achrekar, who
coached Cricketer Sachin Tendulkar passed away at 86 in
Mumbai.

• The Ministry of Culture announced that Archaeological Survey of
India (ASI) declared 6 monuments as ‘protected and of national
importance’ under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological
Sites and Remains Act, 1958, in 2018.
i. These sites are:
• 125-year-old Old High Court Building in Nagpur, Maharashtra,
• 2 Mughal era monuments in Agra- Haveli of Agha Khan and Hathi
Khana,
• The Neemrana Baori in Alwar district of Rajasthan,
• The Group of Temples in Ranipur Jharail in Bolangir district of
Odisha,
• The Vishnu Temple in Kotali, Pithoragarh district in Uttarakhand.
• After this the total number of centrally protected sites or
monuments under ASI are 3693.

• In the latest ranking of Singapore’s Asia Competitiveness
Institute’s (ACI), Ease of Doing Business (EDB) index 2018,
Andhra Pradesh emerged on top of the 21 states of India that
were considered for the
ranking,While Maharashtra and Delhi came in second and third
place, respectively.
•
India’s Arunima Sinha becomes first female amputee to climb
the highest peak of Antarctica – Mt Vinson
30 years old former National level Volleyball player turned
mountaineer, Arunima Sinha became the world’s first female
amputee to climb Mount Vinson, the highest peak
of Antarctica.

• Justice Asif Saeed Khosa, the senior most judge of the Supreme
Court, was appointed as the new Chief Justice of Pakistan.
• Indus Food Meet 2019 to be held in Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh,
Odisha to participate as partner state
• The provincial Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government in northwest
Pakistan has declared the ancient Hindu religious site of Panj
Tirath in the provincial capital Peshawar as national heritage.
• The Water Resources Minister of Andhra Pradesh (AP), Devineni
Umamaheswar Rao received the ‘Central Board of Irrigation and
Power Award-2019‘ for better planning and construction
of Polavaram Irrigation Project on the Godavari River.

• Bandhan Bank announced the resignation of independent
director Krishnamurthy V Subramanian following his
appointment as the chief economic advisor (CEA) to the
government.
• A warning was issued by The India Meteorological
Department (IMD) that a Cyclonic storm
“PABUK” over Andaman Sea and neighbourhood is moving
towards west-northwestwards with a speed of 21 kmph.Cyclone warning for Andaman Islands is • Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik announced interest-
free loans of up to Rs.3 lakh for six lakh women self-help groups (WSHGs) benefitting about 70 lakh women in Odisha“ORANGE MESSAGE”.

• Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik announced interest-
free loans of up to Rs.3 lakh for six lakh women self-help
groups (WSHGs) benefitting about 70 lakh women in Odisha