24th October 2014 - Daily Current Affairs

24th October 2014 - Daily Current Affairs 


National Affairs

• Today is World Polio Day.
• India has been declared polio free now.
• India today offered Pakistan "full cooperation" for eradicating polio from its soil.
• Pakistan accounts for 85 per cent of the world's polio cases which is a cause for concern for India.
• The Indo-Tibetan Border Police celebrated its 53rd Raising Day today.
• United Nations Day (UN Day) 2014 observed today.
• This day is devoted to making known to peoples of the world the aims and achievements of the United Nations Organization.  
• Unfazed by China's objections to development of border areas, Centre decides to set up 54 new border out posts and announces a 175 crore rupee package for beefing up infrastructure along the border in Arunacahl Pradesh.  
• Mumbai, Ahmedabad and Kochi airports are on high alert after an anonymous threat letter to the Airports Authority of India which warned of flights being targeted.
• India's first fish hospital to treat abnormalities and diseases in fish is set to come up in Kolkata by mid-2015
• India today rejected Pakistan's attempts at third party mediation on bilateral issues.

International Affairs

• Two French filmmakers (director Alexandre Dereims and producer Claire Beilvert) have been booked on the charge of trespassing into the protected Jarawa tribal reserve in the Andaman islands and filming a documentary on the threatened aboriginal tribe.
• US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has reassured US support for Iraq's anti-Islamic State (IS) efforts during a phone conversation with newly appointed Iraqi Defence Minister Khaled al Obeidi.

Visitors

• Vietnam Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung will make a state visit to India during 27th and 28th October 2014.
• This will be his third state visit to India after traveling here in 2007 and 2012

MOUs 

• India along with 20 other countries today signed an agreement to become founding members of the China-backed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) to aid the infrastructure development in the Asian region and reduce the dependence on Western-dominated World Bank and IMF.

New Appointments

• Former India batting great VVS Laxman has been appointed batting consultant in Cricket Association of Bengal’s Vision 2020 Project.

Science & Technology

• Technology giant Google is teaming up with Oxford University to advance research on artificial intelligence to ultimately enable machines to better understand human users.
• This partnership will focus specifically on the fields of image recognition and natural language.

Deaths

• Veteran Tamil actor S.S. Rajendran known as SSR passed away.
• He was known as the first actor-legislator of Indian politics.
• Tedlapally Venkata Narasimha Rao Deshmukh, a prominent RSS leader who worked as Dakshin Madhya Kshetra Sanghachalak handling the RSS activities in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Telangana, passed away.

Business & Economy

• In order to boost supply and contain rising potato prices, co-operative major NAFED (National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India) today said it will invite expression of interest (EoI) this weekend from global suppliers for supplying 25,000 tonnes of potatoes.

Sports

• With two fine performances (winner in one and runner-up in another in back-to-back National zonal table tennis tournaments this month), Paddler G. Sathiyan has jumped to No. 1 in the National rankings list.
• Sardar Singh will lead a 21-member Indian men’s hockey squad for the four-match Test tour of Australia to be held in Perth from November 4 to 9.
• IOA president N Ramachandran today announced that the IOA will hold a meeting with Sports Ministry officials on 28th October 2014 to discuss the decision of the International Boxing Association to provisionally suspend boxer L Sarita Devi for her protest at the Asian Games.