SHANMUGAM IAS ACADEMY TNPSC CURRENT AFFAIRS JANUARY 12, 2019
FIRST MANNED MISSION TO SPACE BY DECEMBER 2021: ISRO Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) chairman K Sivan announced that the 1st Gaganyaan manned mission to outer space would be launched by December 2021. First manned mission to space by December 2021. Under Gaganyaan project, India is planning to send three astronauts to outer space for seven days and bring them back. As of 2019, 332 launches are planned this year. Detail of some of these missions are as follows: Launch of Chandrayaaan -2 mission to the moon in mid-april 2019. Indian land up and rover will study south-pole of the moon for the first time under Chandrayaan- 2 mission. GSAT-20 Satellite for high bandwidth connectivity to be launched in September- October 2019. ISRO is conceiving a mission to Venus by 2023. ISRO TV Channel will be launched by another 3-4 months (March to April 2019). 6 incubation centres around the country would be set up by ISRO to help start-ups to begin new ventures. ISRO will invite meritorious students to ISRO for developing Nanosatellites. NATIONAL YOUTH DAY 2019 National Youth Day will be celebrated here with the theme Channelizing Youth Power for Nation Building.National Youth Day is celebrated in India when there was a Birthday of the Swami Vivekanand. The government has declared National Youth Day from the day of Swami Vivekanand s Birthday and the day is Celebrated as National Youth Day. It is celebrated on the 12th of January. It is celebrated to create a great awareness amongst the people of India to get them every knowledge about the Importance of the Rite in India. It is used to generate a positive attitude towards the people to provide them with every knowledge about how to behave in a proper way in the country. National Youth Day is used to make people come closer to each other and understand each other to perform a task better. It is essential for people to get every idea and plans to focus on the actions necessary to do all the tasks with proper knowledge of the things. 2
NATIONAL YOUTH DAY THEME The theme of 2018 Sankalp Se Siddhi. The theme of 2019 Channelizing Youth Power for Nation Building. BIRENDRA PRASAD BAISHYA WILL BE INDIA S CHEF DE MISSION FOR TOKYO OLYMPICS Indian Weightlifting Federation President Birendra Prasad Baishya is named as Chef de Mission for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. Tokyo 2020 organizing committee president is Yoshiro Mori Tokyo Olympics is to be held from 24 July to 9 August, 2020 in which 207 nations will participate.there will be 339 event in 33 sports (50 disciplines) in the Games. Tokyo will be hosting the Games for the second time in 2020 after having organised it 56 years back in 1964. The mascot for the Olympics is named Miraitowa. Miraitowa is a combination of the Japanese words for future and eternity; M. NAGESHWARA RAO DIRECTOR OF CBI Additional Director M. Nageswara Rao took charge of the office of the Central Bureau of Investigation as the Director. Rao, a 1986-batch Odisha cadre Indian Police Service officer, was given charge as interim Director after the government on October 23 divested the previous Director, Alok Verma s power. Alok Verma was removed from the post within 48 hours after rejoining as CBI Director. The decision was taken by a 2-1 decision by a selection committee headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi with its other two members being Leader of Congress Mallikarjun Kharge and Supreme Court judge A.K. Sikri. 3
VENEZUELAN PRESIDENT On January 11, 2019, Nicolas Maduro was sworn in as Venezuelan President for the 2nd term for a new 6-year term.venezuela is one of the world s largest oil producers and holds the presidency of oil cartel Opec until 2025. SU TSENG-CHANG APPOINTED AS TAIWAN PM Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen appointed 71 years old Su Tseng-chang as the new Prime Minister of Taiwan during a cabinet reshuffle following the loss of Rulling Democratic Progressive Party in the local elections. Tseng-chang will replace Lai Ching-te who resigned from the post following the defeat in the elections. K2-288BB NEW PLANET DISCOVERED USING NASA TELESCOPE Scientists have discovered new planet K2-288Bb,which is twice the size of Earth. Its discovery was announced at the 233rd meeting of the American Astronomical Society held in Seattle,Washington DC. It is estimated that liquid water may exist on the planet s surface.the new world, known as K2-288Bb,is similar to Neptune. It is found 226 light-years away in the Taurus constellation. The planet contains a pair of dim, cool M-type stars that are 5.1 billion miles apart, about six times the distance between Saturn and the sun. The brightest of the two stars is half as massive as our sun, and the other star is one-third of the sun s mass. K2-288Bb orbits the smaller, dimmer star, completing a full orbit every 31.3 days. EIU DEMOCRACY INDEX 2018 India ranked at 41st at the 11th edition of EIU Democracy Index 2018, Norway topped the Index: Economist Intelligent Unit report It was released by the Economist Intelligent Unit compiling the state of democracies in 167 countries in the world.india Ranked 41st in the Index.The Index was started in 2006. The scores were divided based on 60 indicators on five categories of: 1. Electoral process and pluralism; 2. Civil liberties; 4
3. The functioning of government; 4. Political participation; and 5. Political culture. One country, Costa Rica, moved from a flawed democracy to a full democracy; at the other end of the spectrum, one country, Nicaragua, moved from flawed regime to authoritarian regime. Ranking of Nations: 1. Norway 2. Iceland 3. Sweden 4. New Zealand and 5. Denmark closing off the top 5 rankings. The bottom 5 of the list are: Chad (163), Central African Republic (164), Democratic Republic of Congo (165), Syria (166) and North Korea (167). India ranked 41st Position,falling in the Flawed Democracy category. Following are the list of the ranks of her neighbours: China (130), Pakistan (112) Bangladesh (88) Afghanistan (143) Nepal (97) Bhutan (94) Sri Lanka (71) Myanmar (118) ICSI LIFETIME AWARD On January 10, 2019, Industrialist and Godrej Group Chairman Adi Godrej was conferred the ICSIs Lifetime Achievement Award for Translating Excellence in Corporate Governance into Reality in Mumbai. The award instituted by The Institute of Company Secretaries of India (ICSI), was given at its golden jubilee celebrations. 5
Other awards given by the institute are as follows: 18th ICSI National Awards for Excellence in Corporate Governance were bagged jointly by Cipla Ltd Dabur India Ltd ACC Ltd, Hindustan Unilever Ltd, Indian Oil Corp, Tata Metaliks Ltd and Indian Hotels Co Ltd. 6