Current Affairs in English – January 28,29 – 2023

January 28-29, 2022

National Events:

INTERPOL:

• The 3rd INTERPOL Young Global Police Leaders Programme being held in New Delhi. Event is being organized by Central Bureau of Investigation began from 25 January 2023 to 2 February 2023.
• This is a flagship INTERPOL leadership programme which brings together young police leaders holding vital assignments in their respective countries and helps them develop an international perspective and understanding.

Lala Lajpat Rai birth anniversary : 28th January

• He was a prolific freedom fighter for India. He was born in 1865 in Punjab. He was also known as ‘Punjab Kesari’.
• Along with Bipin Chandra Pal and Bal Gangadhar Tilak, he formed Lal-Bal-Pal trio of extremist leaders. He founded Servants of People Society in 1921. He co-founded Punjab National Bank in 1894. He was elected deputy leader of Central Legislative Assembly in 1926.

Naresh Lalwani:

• Naresh Lalwani has taken over as the new General Manager of Central Railway. He is a senior officer of the Indian Railway Engineering Service of 1985 batch.
• Before taking over as General Manager, Central Railway, he was working as Senior Deputy General Manager and Chief Vigilance Officer of Western Railway. He succeeds Ashok Kumar Misra, General Manager Western Railway who was holding the additional charge of Central Railway as well.

AI and Tinkering:

• Atal Innovation Mission – NITI Aayog, Central Board of Secondary Education -Ministry of Education, and Intel India have collaborated to bring a change in the education sector by embedding future skills such as AI and Tinkering in the formal curriculum.
• The larger aim is to align the NEP 2020’s guidance to increase the pace of tech integration for youth, the need to bridge the future skills gap in the country, and optimize the current infrastructure (ATLs, etc.) towards making India AI-ready. Together, they launched the AIoT Integration in School Curriculum in September 2022 and initiated a pilot.

NCC:

• PM Modi released special ₹ 75 Coins on the Occasion of completion of 75 years of National Cadet Corps (NCC) at the Delhi NCC Event. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) of India Lt. Gen Anil Chauhan were also present at the Delhi NCC event.
• The Yuva Shakti of India is what is propelling the nation’s progress, according to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who made the statement at the NCC rally.

 ‘She Feeds the World’:

• ‘She Feeds the World’ program has been launched by PepsiCo Foundation, philanthropic arm of PepsiCo and CARE, in India. Aim of programme is to strengthen the role of small-scale women producers through sustainable training and economic support.
• Programme will be implemented in Coochbehar and Alipurduar districts of West Bengal. This programme aims to improve the status of over 48,000 women.

Luminous Power Technologies:

• Luminous Power Technologies on 27 January 2023 announced its plan to build the country’s first green energy-based solar panel manufacturing factory in Uttarakhand.
• The plant, located in Rudrapur, is expected to be fully operational by the end of 2023. It will produce a range of solar panels with power output from 40W to 600W. It will help enable a solar generation capacity of 500 MW per annum.

Unemployment allowance:

• Chhattisgarh chief minister Bhupesh Baghel announced unemployment allowance for youth from the financial year 2023-24 during the Republic day speech. Other specific details will be discussed before a detailed announcement.
• Other announcements: Ration card holders of Chhattisgarh will get rice for a year for free of cost. Chhattisgarh State Innovation Commission will be constituted.

Jharkhand:

• Jharkhand launched first survey of migrants. The survey is to be conducted of 11,000 households in 24 districts. The purpose of it is to create a robust database of migrants and migration pattern in the state.
• The survey outputs will be used to create a state-level policy. Survey will gather information about incoming migrants, outgoing migrants, quality of life of migrants, understanding the mindset of migrants, etc.

National Child Science Congress:

• The 30th National Child Science Congress began at Science City in Ahmedabad on 27 January 2023. The Gujarat Council on Science and Technology, Gujarat Council of Science City, and SAL Education are hosting the five-day Congress, which will conclude on 31 January 23.
• More than 850 students from across the country will be showcasing their unique projects at the Congress.

Prabdev Singh:

• The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has approved JP Morgan Chase & Co. to appoint Prabdev Singh as the new Chief Executive Officer (CEO) in India in Jan 2023. He has been JPMorgan’s interim CEO since November 2022.
• He has replaced Madhav Kalyan who was named as the head of payments in the Asia Pacific. Prabdev Singh is a trained engineer and has worked for a decade at HSBC Holdings Plc.

‘Avataran Mahotsav’:

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address the ceremony commemorating 1111th ‘Avataran Mahotsav’ of Bhagwan Shri Devnarayan Ji in Bhilwara, Rajasthan on 28th January 2023. PM Modi will be the chief guest during the programme.
• Bhagwan Shri Devnarayan Ji was born in the family of a popular Mandalji Gurjar who established the famous Mandal Lake near Bhilwara district in Mewar.

G20:

• Inaugural Yuvamanthan Model G20 Summit held in Goa in January 2023. It is a unique initiative for youth, who wish to ace the art of public speaking. It aims to recruit motivated students from high schools, colleges, and universities and designate them as “Campus Sherpas”.
• The Campus Sherpas will be responsible for organizing Model G20 Programmes in their schools, colleges, or universities.

12 Cheetahs:

• India has signed an agreement with South Africa to translocate 12 cheetahs to the Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh. Under the agreement, South Africa will send seven male and five female cheetahs by February 15, 2023.
• Cheetah was declared extinct in 1952. Under the Cheetah reintroduction program, PM Modi released the first batch of eight spotted felines from Namibia in September 2022.

Woxsen University:

• Woxsen University launched Project Aspiration to empower adolescent girls of standards 9-12 of Model Schools and Junior Colleges of Telangana.
• Under the Project, the school principal selected a few deserving students to participate in the ‘Train the Trainer’ workshop, which commenced in December 2022. The univeristy is located in Hyderabad and is one of the 1st private universities in Telangana.

Sarbananda Sonowal:

• Union Minister for Ports, Shipping, and Waterways Sarbananda Sonowal inaugurated National Logistics Portal (Marine) on 27 January 2023.
• The portal is aimed at connecting all the stakeholders of the logistics community using Information Technology to improve efficiency and transparency by reducing costs and time delays. The portal had been initiated in July 2021 with the development of NLP Marine.

ISRO:

• The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is planning to launch the Aditya-L1 mission by June or July 2023. Aditya-L1 is the first Indian space mission to observe the Sun and the solar corona.
• In total it has seven payloads, which the primary payload is the Visible Emission Line Coronagraph (VELC), designed and fabricated by the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bengaluru.

Hemant Soren:

• Hemant Soren became the first Jharkhand Chief Minister to visit the ‘Budha Pahad’ on January 27, 2023.
• Security forces freed the area from the grip of Maoists through three special operations that were launched at the beginning of April 2022. Budha Pahad, is located around 150 km from Ranchi, along the Latehar and Garhwa districts.

UP Nature and Bird Festival:

• Uttar Pradesh is set to host the 7th edition of the UP Nature and Bird Festival on 1-3 February 2023 at Vijaysagar Bird Sanctuary in Mahoba district.
• The festival aims to inspire and accelerate nature-based ecotourism and appreciation of biodiverse-rich wildlife reserves and sanctuaries of Uttar Pradesh. The main focus area of the festivals is ‘Ecotourism for nature conservation.

Tamil Nadu Events:

Ear-Nose-Throat welfare:

• For the first time in the state, a medical conference on Ear-Nose-Throat welfare in Tamil will be held at Raja Annamalaipuram, Muthamil Assembly Hall.
• Also, in this conference,They will give a special speech in Tamil about researches related to ear-nose-throat welfare, modern technological treatments and medical methods.

“Tamil Nadu Scheduled Tribes Entrepreneurship Fund Scheme”:

• Chief Minister M.K.Stalin launched a new scheme called “Tamil Nadu Scheduled Tribes Entrepreneurship Fund Scheme” to achieve inclusive development of all communities in new age entrepreneurship.
• Through this scheme, funds will be provided in the form of equity investment or unsecured loans to innovative enterprises started and run by entrepreneurs belonging to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.

 “Chief Minister in Field Survey”:

• Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin launched a new scheme called “Chief Minister in Field Survey” and the first phase of the scheme will be implemented in Vellore, Iranipet, Tirupattur and Tiruvannamalai districts on February 1 and 2.
• This scheme has been introduced to carry out a detailed study of the government schemes being implemented in the districts and to study the administrative work, development and welfare work.

ccfms.tn.gov.in:

• Chief Minister M.K.Stalin launched the website ccfms.tn.gov.in which has been created to monitor the activities of Tamil Nadu State PSUs.
• Through this new website, information related to financial and administrative activities of Public Sector Undertakings and Statutory Boards has been introduced to easily share with the Government.

International Events:

Data Privacy Day: 28 January 2023:

• The day is celebrated globally on Jan 28 every year. Year 2023 is 17th edition of the day. The celebration was initiated by the Council of Europe in 2006.
• 28 January was chosen, as this was the day on which the Council of Europe’s data protection convention-‘ Convention 108’ was opened.
• Celebrations are aimed at raising awareness about right to data protection. Theme 2023: ‘Think Privacy First’.

Toyota Motor Corp:

• The chief executive of Toyota Motor Corp, Akio Toyoda will step down as head of the company his grandfather founded, the Japanese automaker.
• Koji Sato, the automaker’s 53-year-old chief branding officer, who is also president of Toyota’s luxury brand Lexus, will take over as chief executive from April 1, as Akio Toyoda becomes chairman.
• The current chairman Takeshi Uchiyamada will drop his chairman title but remain on the board.

India & Egypt:

• India-Egypt MoU on cultural cooperation signed for five years. The MoU was signed by the Culture Minister of India, G.Kishan Reddy and the Foreign Minister of Egypt, Shri Sameh Hassan Shoukry.
• MoU has been signed for a period of five years. Under the aegis of the MoU, both countries will host cultural activities in the fields of music, dance, theatre, literature, organizing festivals in the respective countries, research and documentation etc.

IWT:

• India has issued a notice to Pakistan in view of Islamabad’s “intransigence” in the implementation of the pact, meaning refusing to agree upon the treaty.
• World Bank brokered the treaty. As per IWT, waters of Beas, Ravi, and Sutlej are controlled by India, and waters of Indus, Jhelum, and Chenab are controlled by Pakistan. All these rivers form Indus Water system. It was signed 1960.

ODESA:

• United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) designated Odesa as it faced danger from Russian air strikes.
• Odesa is a historic centre and strategic port city located on the Black Sea. Empress Catherine founded ODESA.
• She took away the region from the Ottoman Empire in 1794. Important Sites: Vorontsovskyi Palace is a beautiful Turkish Castle in Odesa.

Raja Chari:

• Indian-American astronaut Raja Chari has been nominated by US president Joe Biden for the post of Air Force brigadier general in Jan 2023.
• He is currently serving as the commander and astronaut, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Johnson Space Center, Texas, USA. He served as the Commander of the NASA SpaceX Crew-3 mission to the International Space Station (ISS) in Nov 2021.

Justin Trudeau:

• Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has announced to commercialise the world’s first photonic-based, fault-tolerant quantum computer, in January 2023.
• The investment of 40 million Canadian dollars will enable Xanadu Quantum Technologies Inc. to develop the quantum computer which will help solve complex data problems and could be used in finance, transportation, and health.

Sports Events:

Women’s cricket:

• India beat England in the first-ever ICC U-19 Women’s T20 World Cup final in Potchefstroom, South Africa. India bowled out England for a paltry 68 and won by 7 wkts. This is the first ICC trophy India has won in women’s cricket.
• The Indian women’s cricket team has never won a World Cup at any level. The seniors reached the World Cup final on three occasions across formats but failed to go the distance. Bowling first, India cleaned up the English side for mere 68 runs in 17.1 overs.