18th October 2014 - Daily Current Affairs
National Affairs
- Former President Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam today asked India and Bangladesh to join hands to promote jute, saying their joint initiatives can eliminate plastic products from the world and benefit their economy.
- Prime Minister Narendra Modi today reconstituted the National Committee to commemorate the 125th Birth Anniversary of India's 1st Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru (on 14th November this year).
- AIADMK supremo J Jayalalithaa was today released from jail after 21 days, a day after Supreme Court granted her bail in an 18-year-old disproportionate assets case.
- She is the first politician to get bail in 21 days of incarceration
- The Supreme Court refused to bring former coal ministers including ex-Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who had held the portfolio during the previous UPA government, under scrutiny for criminal liabilities in the coal blocks allocation scam.
- Cabinet gives its nod for Ahmedabad Metro Rail Project Phase-1 covering a length of 35.96 kilometres.
- The total project cost will be 10,773 crore rupees.
- In a significant move, the Centre has approved Karnataka government’s proposal to rename 12 cities and towns, including Bangalore, stating “it has no objection to the change of names” of those places.
- National-award winning movie 'Yellow' and Rajat Kapoor's 'Ankhon Delhi' were today named in the Indian Panorama for this year's International Film Festival of India (IFFI), which is scheduled to take place in Goa from next month.
- No government bungalow will be made available for a memorial, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announced today.
- This decision came against the backdrop of Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) chief Ajit Singh's recent protest against orders to vacate his government alotted bungalow and demanding that it be converted into a memorial for his father and late prime minister Choudhary Charan Singh.
International Affairs- The South African Tourism has launched a new "Gandhi- Inspired Tourist Attraction" project that identifies 13 places that were seminal in Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi's tenure in the country.
- US Secretary of State John Kerry held talks with visiting top Chinese diplomat Yang Jiechi at his private residence in Boston, kicking of their two days of talks aimed at easing tensions between the two countries.
- Awards & Honors
- The UK government announced the inaugural Dadabhai Naoroji Awards to honour individuals who have worked to strengthen the UK-India relationship over the years.
- This years winners :
- UK India Business Council chair Patricia Hewitt in the commerce category,
- Dame Asha Khemka for services in the field of education and
- Actor Madhav Sharma for culture.
Business & Economy
- More than 1.2 billion people are living on less than $ 1.25 a day and 2.4 billion are living on less than $ 2 a day, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said.
- The Government announced today that it would lift controls on diesel pricing with immediate effect, leading to an immediate fall in pump prices of nearly 6 per cent and easing the subsidy burden on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government.
- Govt approves special banking arrangement of about Rs 14,000 crore for fertiliser subsidy
Science & Technology
- The micro-blogging site Twitter has added a new feature to allow its users to listen music directly from the twitter stream on mobile devices.
- This new feature is called audio card.
- Developed with the Berlin-based audio-streaming service SoundCloud
Awards & Honors
- Indian-origin Singaporean poet and writer K.T.M. Iqbal will be awarded Cultural Medallion, the country’s highest cultural award, by President Tony Tan Keng Yam.
- He wrote more than 200 children’s songs for Radio Singapore in the 1970s and 1980.\
Sports
- BCCI has said it has suffered huge losses and that it will claim all the damages following the West Indies cricket team’s unprecedented move to pull out of the remainder of India tour in the wake of an acrimonious unresolved pay dispute with its Board back home.
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