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Current Affairs Today - February 1 2017

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We bring you the Latest (GK)General Knowledge and Current Affairs, General awareness Today  1st February 2017 Section in FREE PDF (English & Hindi), a section which outlines the latest news, Events headlines which are hardly covered elsewhere. This will help you with the Latest GK and Current Affairs  asked in various competitive examinations of Banking & Government Sector like IBPS, SBI (RRB, PO and Clerk), SSC, Railways, LAW (CLAT) entrance exams, UPSC -IAS etc. and will help you score good marks in the competitive examination. We recommend all our readers to go through the Gk & Current Affairs section and boost your general awareness, Gk, Current Affairs before the examination.

NATIONAL NEWS

Former Union Minister E Ahamed Passes Away


E Ahamed, former Union Minister passed away in the early hours of 1 February 2017 after suffering from a heart attack. He was 78.
●    The veteran leader had collapsed during President Pranab Mukherjee’s address to the joint sitting of the Parliamen.
●    He was born on 29 April 1938.
●    He had graduated from Brennen College in Tellicherry in Kerala and had a law degree from the Government Law College in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala.
●    He had served as the Minister of State for External Affairs under the Manmohan Singh government during the period 2004-14.
●    He represented the Malappuram Lok Sabha constituency of Kerala.
●    He was also the National President of the Indian Union Muslim League.

ECONOMY


Economic Survey 2016 published

The Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on 31 January 2017 presented the Economic Survey 2017 in the Parliament. 
●    The survey observed that the Indian Economy has sustained a macro-economic environment of relatively low inflation, fiscal discipline and moderate current account deficit coupled with broadly stable rupee-dollar exchange rate.
●    Macro economy: As per the advance estimates released by the Central Statistics Office, the growth rate of GDP at constant market prices for the year 2016-17 is placed at 7.1 per cent, as against 7.6 per cent in 2015-16.
●    This estimate is based mainly on information for the first seven to eight months of the financial year. 
●    For 2017-18, it is expected that the growth would return to normal as the new currency notes in required quantities come back into circulation and as follow-up actions to demonetisation are taken.

ENVIRONMENT


February 2 : World Wetlands Day


The 2 February each year is World Wetlands Day, marking the date of the adoption of the Convention on Wetlands on 2 February 1971.
●    Established to raise awareness about the value of wetlands for humanity and the planet, WWD was celebrated for the first time in 1997 and has grown remarkably since then. 
●    Each year a theme is selected to focus attention and help raise public awareness about the value of wetlands.
●    The theme for the world wetland day 2017 is “Wetlands for Disaster Risk Reduction”.
●    Since 1997 the Ramsar website has posted reports from about 100 countries of their WWD activities 
●    These materials are available to freely download in the three languages of the Convention English, French and Spanish on the World Wetlands Day website .
●    All the materials are also available in their design files for event organizers to customize and adapt them to their local languages and contexts. 
●    A few print copies are available to countries upon request to the Secretariat.

ECONOMY


CSO Revises GDP Growth for 2015-16 to 7.9%


Government has marginally revised upwards GDP growth for 2015-16 to 7.9 per cent from the earlier estimate of 7.6 per cent after factoring in latest data on agriculture and industrial production.
●    Real GDP or GDP at constant (2011-12) prices for 2015-16 and 2014-15 stands at Rs. 113.58 lakh crore and Rs. 105.23 lakh crore, respectively, showing growth of 7.9 per cent during 2015-16 and 7.2 per cent during 2014-15.
●    The figure for 2014-15 has remained unchanged at 7.2 per cent in the second revision of the national accounts for the fiscal.
Last year, CSO has estimated GDP growth rate for 2015-16 and 2014-15 at 7.6 per cent and 7.2 per cent, respectively.

GLOBAL NEWS

Trump fires US Attorney General


Mr. Boente, who has been a prosecutor with the Justice Department for 31 years, had no hesitation about accepting the acting attorney general’s job given his “seniority and loyalty” to the department, Mr. Stueve said in a telephone interview on Monday night.
●    As acting attorney general, Ms. Yates was the only person at the Justice Department authorized to sign applications for foreign surveillance warrants. 
●    Ms. Yates’s decision had effectively overruled a finding by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, which had already approved the executive order “with respect to form and legality.”
●    Ms. Yates said her determination in deciding not to defend the order was broader, however, and included questions not only about the order’s lawfulness, but also whether it was a “wise or just” policy. 
●    She also alluded to unspecified statements the White House had made before signing the order, which she factored into her review.

NATIONAL NEWS

Rashtriya Rail Sanraksha Kosh to be aided by Finance Ministry

The Union Finance Ministry has agreed to contribute partially to a new dedicated railway safety fund named as ‘Rashtriya Rail Sanraksha Kosh’. 
●    The proposed safety fund will be utilised for track improvement, bridge rehabilitation, rolling stock replacement, human resource development, improved inspection system and safety work at level crossing, among other things. 

●    The Finance Ministry is likely to grant a fresh infusion of only Rs. 5,000 crore in the upcoming financial year out of the initial proposed corpus of Rs. 20,000 crore. 
●    Railways may now be asked to fund the remaining Rs. 5,000 crore for the initial corpus from its own resources.
●    For this Indian Railway’s may either have to bring back a cess on rail tickets to finance its share of Rail Safety Fund or look to fund it from non-budgetary resources.

ENVIRONMENT

BHNS launches Climate Change Programme in Central Himalayas

The Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) has launched climate change programme to assess the status, distribution and conservation of finches and pheasants in the Central Himalayas. 
●    The first study will be funded by Oracle and facilitated by CAF-India. 
●    Currently, there are nearly 50 species of pheasants and 62 species of finches in the Indian subcontinent.
●    Several of these species are listed under the ‘Globally Threatened’ category created by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
●    Shrinking habitat as a result of climate change and several biotic factors along with poaching and trapping have pushed both these groups to almost extinction.
●    While species that are capable of adapting to the change will survive, those that are habitat specialist and sensitive to temperature will suffer.


NATIONAL NEWS


 Karnataka Govt. to Amend Law for Conducting Kambala

 The Karnataka government has decided to bring an amendment to the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, for conducting kambala and bull-cart race, traditional sports of the State. 
●    The government has decided against promulgating an ordinance since the legislature would meet from February 6 for five days. 
●    The State would follow the model of the Tamil Nadu government and bring changes to the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act. 
●    The Bill passed by the legislature would require an assent from the President.
●    Earlier in the day, hundreds of people marched with 300 he-buffaloes at Moodbidri town in Dakshina Kannada district demanding lifting of the ban on kambala.
●    About 150 pairs of kambala buffaloes were brought from Kasaragod, Kerala, in the south, and Baindoor, Udupi district, in the north. 

On This Day

On 1 February 1968, the World Trade Conference Unctad II was held in New Delhi. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) was established in 1964 as a permanent intergovernmental body. UNCTAD is the principal organ of the United Nations General Assembly dealing with trade, investment, and development issues. The first UNCTAD conference took place in Geneva in 1964, the second in New Delhi in 1968. The Fourteenth was recently held in Nairobi (Kenya) in 2016. Currently, UNCTAD has 194 member states and is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland.


 

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