Current Affairs 12th October 2018
NATIONAL
- The Union Cabinet has approved the merger of the existing regulatory institutions in the skills space – National Council for Vocational Training (NCVT) and the National Skill Development Agency (NSDA) into the National Council for Vocational Education and Training (NCVET)
- IIT-Madras will collaborate with Tamil Nadu e-Governance Agency (TNeGA) to enhance data-driven governance. Through this engagement, the Robert Bosch Centre for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (RBC DSAI ) at IIT-Madras has agreed to support the State government on various data science and ICT-related challenges.
- Coal India and NLC India (NLCIL), formerly Neyveli Lignite Corporation, will jointly set up 5000 MW of power generation capacity of which 3000 MW would be solar powered while the rest 2000 MW would be coal-fuelled
- The Severe Cyclonic Storm ‘TITLI’ over the west-central Bay of Bengal moved northwards with a speed of about 14 kmph over Westcentral Bay of Bengal near latitude 16.5°N and longitude 85.8°E, about 320 km south-southeast of Gopalpur (Odisha) and 270 km southeast of Kalingapatnam (Andhra Pradesh)
INTERNATIONAL
- Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has left for Paris on a three-day visit to France. Ms Sitharaman will hold wide-ranging talks with her French counterpart Florence Parly on ways to deepen strategic cooperation between the two countries.
- External Affairs Minister (EAM) Sushma Swaraj participated in the 17th Council of Heads of Government, CHG, meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization to be held in Dushanbe, Tajikistan.
BANKING & ECONOMY
Questions on Day to Day Banking-3
APPOINTMENTS
- State-run IDBI Bank has announced that Rakesh Sharma has taken charge as the managing director and chief executive officer of the bank. He has replaced B Sriram.
- PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PHDCCI) has announced that Mahesh Y Reddy has taken over as its Secretary General with immediate effect.
- The government has appointed 58-year-old Pravin Srivastava, a senior officer with the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI), as the Chief Statistician of India (CSI).
- Additional Solicitor General Tushar Mehta has been appointed as the new Solicitor General of India. The senior lawyer will assume the office of the Solicitor General till June 30, 2020.
AWARDS
- Veena Sendre from Chhattisgarh has been chosen as India’s first ‘Miss Trans Queen’.
- Indus Towers, world’s largest telecom tower company (outside China), won the Deming Prize for 2018, being the first Indian company in the service sector and the fifth in the world to achieve this.
SPORTS
- Pistol shooter Saurabh Chaudhary has bagged the Gold Medal in the 10-meter air pistol event in the ongoing Youth Olympic Games in Argentina.
- Archer Harvinder Singh notched up the men’s individual recurve gold, while track-and-field athletes added a silver and a bronze to India’s tally in the Asian Para-Games in Jakarta.
- The International Olympics Committee (IOC) has picked its first African host of any Olympics, formally awarding the 2022 Youth Games to Senegal.
OBITUARY
- Well-known Malayalam poet M N Paloor passed away at the age of 86-year due to age-related ailments.
