Today's Current Affairs 24th December 2022

NATIONAL

UP's Sania Mirza clears NDA, set to become country's first Muslim woman fighter pilot

• Sania Mirza, a Mirzapur resident and the daughter of a TV mechanic, successfully passed the National Defense Academy admission examination (NDA). Sania Mirza is from the Jasovar village, which is within the jurisdiction of the Mirzapur Dehat Kotwali Police Station.
• Sania Mirza was born in the Jasovar hamlet under the Mirzapur Dehat Kotwali Police Station.
• Sania Mirza aspires to be a fighter pilot like Avni Chaturvedi, the nation’s first female fighter pilot.
• She will join NDA Khadakwasla in Pune on December 27. Both Sania’s parents and the villagers are pleased with her.

 SPORTS

English all-rounder Sam Curran becomes most expensive IPL player ever, breaks Ishan Kishan’s record

• Sam Curran breaks all the records and became the most expensive cricketer ever to be bought by any franchise of the Indian Premier League (IPL). Sam Curran is a 24-year-old English Cricketer who was bought by Punjab Kings on the first day of the IPL auction for ₹18.5 crores. The IPL auctions for the 2023 season are being held in Kerala.
• Sam Curran has broken the record of Ishan Kishan who was bought for ₹15.25 crore by Mumbai Indians.
• Punjab Kings Director Ness Wadia said that Same Curran is one of the best all-rounder players in the world and will bring good balance to our team.
• Other than Sam Curran, Cameron Green was bought by Mumbai Indians for ₹17.50 crore and Ben Stokes was bought by Chennai Super Kings for ₹16.25 crore.

 OBITURY

Veteran Telugu actor Kaikala Satyanarayana passes away

• Veteran Telugu actor Kaikala Satyanarayana has died at his Filmnagar residence in the wee hours of Friday. He was 87. The last rites will be performed on Saturday in Hyderabad’s Mahaprasthanam.
• Kaikala was admitted to the hospital in November 2021. Before that, he was on respiratory support at home following post-Covid complications. He was also admitted in October 2021, after a fall at his residence.
• Fondly known as Navarasa Natana Sarvabhouma, Kaikala was born on 25th July 1935 in the Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh. He starred in more than 770 films and has worked with over 200 directors.

 IMPORTANT DAYS

National Consumer Rights Day 2022: History, Significance and More

• Every year on December 24, India observed the National Consumer Day or Bharatiya Grahak Diwas. This day is used to make all consumers aware of their powers and rights. This day was made under the Consumer Protection Act, which came to power in 1986 to create awareness and save consumers from market exploitation like defective products or expensive pricing.
• The significance of Bharatiya Grahak Diwas 2022 revolves around giving a wholesome shopping experience to consumers. They are provided protection against unfair trade practices like fake advertisements, false gift offers, and hoardings, among others. Owing to an effective complaint redressal forum, the Consumer Protection Act assures that there is an efficient settlement of consumer disputes. The act also brought changes in the process of how consumer complaints were dealt.
• World Consumer Rights Day is celebrated on March 15 every year. The day marks an opportunity to urge that all consumers’ rights be recognised and safeguarded, as well as to protest market abuses and social injustices that jeopardise those rights.

 AWARDS & RECOGNITION

The Last Show And RRR’s Naatu Naatu Make It To Shortlist: Oscars 2023

• The Gujarati-language Chhello Show (The Last Show), which is India’s official entry for the 2023 Academy Awards or Oscars awards in the International Feature film category, has been shortlisted for next year’s Academy Awards. Meanwhile, the track Naatu Naatu from SS Rajamouli’s RRR has been shortlisted in the Best Original Song Category. The Academy announced the list of shortlisted entries in 10 categories. The nominations for the Academy Awards will be announced on January 24.
• India’s history with the Oscar entries for the last few years were – Koozhangal, Jallikattu, Gully Boy, Village Rockstars, Newton, Visaranani, all of which have failed to make the Oscar shortlist. The only Indian films to have been nominated for an Oscar so far have been Mother India, Salaam Bombay and Lagaan.
• As far as RRR’s best song category is concerned, 15 songs have been shortlisted from among 81 tunes. Other songs include ‘Nothing Is Lost’ from ‘Avatar: The way Of Water’, ‘Lift Me Up’ from ‘Blank Panther: Wakanda Forever’, ‘Hold My Hand’ from ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ among others.

UIDAI bags top data security award for best practices in govt sector

• Data Security Council of India (DSCI), a not-for-profit, industry body on data protection in India, setup by NASSCOM awarded UIDAI for its significant role in securing national critical ‘Aadhaar’ infrastructure that provides digital identity based welfare services to residents.
• The jury recognized the forward looking security strategy, good security practices for safeguarding residents’ demographic and biometric data and the proactive approach in addressing new age cyber security risks and threats through effective and efficient security governance and state of art security infrastructure deployment.
• This award is another feather in the cap for UIDAI, which takes pride to be the first Government Organization to be Privacy Certified on leading industry standard (ISO27701) and one of the leading government institutions that is ahead in innovation and incubation of indigenized technology implementation.
• The award was given in the just concluded three day ‘Annual Information Security Summit (AISS)’ of DSCI in New Delhi. Among over 270 nominations across five award categories, UIDAI was awarded by DCSI jury panel for ‘Best Security Practices in Government Sector’.

The Rabindranath Tagore Literary Prize 2021-22 jointly won by Sudeep Sen and Shobhana Kumar

• The Rabindranath Tagore Literary Prize has been jointly won by Sudeep Sen for his genre and formbender Anthropocene: Climate Change, Contagion, Consolation (Pippa Rann Books & Media, 2021) and Shobhana Kumar for her haibun collection A Sky Full of Bucket Lists (Red River, 2021). The winners, awarded $10,000 and a Rabindranath Tagore statuette, were picked from a shortlist of 11 at India International Centre, with the Tagore Prize for social achievement going to Sanjoy K Roy, producer of the Jaipur Literature Festival.
• The Rabindranath Tagore Literary Prize was started in 2018 to annually recognise literary and social accomplishments. In 2020, the award was won by Raj Kamal Jha, Chief Editor, The Indian Express, for The City and The Sea (2019, Penguin Books), and in 2019, it was awarded posthumously to Kabir for One Hundred Poems of Kabir, translated by Rabindranath Tagore.

NHPC wins ‘Best Globally Competitive Power Company of India – Hydropower and Renewable Energy Sector’ at PRAKASHmay ‘15th Enertia Awards 2022’

• NHPC Limited has been awarded as Winner of ‘Best Globally Competitive Power Company of India – Hydropower and Renewable Energy Sector’ at PRAKASHmay ‘15th Enertia Awards 2022’. Shri U.S. Sahi, Executive Director (EMS/CC/CSR), NHPC received the award on behalf of NHPC at a glittering function held at New Delhi Institute of Management, New Delhi on 22nd December 2022.
• The Award has been conferred to NHPC in recognition of its leadership in the hydropower sector with a gross asset class renewable energy capacity of more than 7000 MW. The award also recognizes that NHPC has more than 5000 MW of projects under construction and an ambitious 7000 MW plus plan for Solar capacity addition. The award was given by Shri V.M. Bansal, Chairman, New Delhi Institute of Management. During the event Shri K. Vijayanand, Special Chief Secretary, Energy, Government of Andhra Pradesh and Shri A.K. Singh, former CMD, NHPC were also present.

 BANKING AND ECONOMY

Jio deposits Rs 3,720 cr in SBI escrow account to acquire Reliance Infratel

• Reliance Projects and Property Management Services — a subsidiary of telecom major Reliance Jio — has deposited Rs 3,720 crore in an SBI escrow account to acquire mobile tower and fibre assets of Reliance Infratel. Reliance Infratel has fibre assets of about 178,000 route kilometres and 43,540 mobile towers across the country. The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) gave an approval to Jio for the acquisition of Reliance Infratel (RITL).
• The Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Jio had placed a bid of Rs 3,720 crore in November 2019 to acquire the tower and fibre asset of debt-ridden subsidiary of his younger brother Anil Ambani-managed firm Reliance Communications.
• The tribunal had asked Jio to deposit Rs 3,720 crore in the State Bank of India (SBI) escrow account to complete the acquisition of RCOM’s tower and fibre assets.

 Govt hikes copra MSP by 3-7% for 2023

• The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs(CCEA) chaired by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has approved Minimum Support Prices (MSPs) for copra for 2023 season. The approval is based on recommendations of the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices and views of major coconut growing states.
• The MSP for Fair Average Quality of milling copra has been fixed at Rs. 10860/- per quintal and for ball copra at Rs. 11750/- per quintal for 2023 season.
• This is an increase of Rs. 270/- per quintal for milling copra and Rs. 750/- per quintal for ball copra over the previous season.
• This would ensure a margin of 51.82 percent for milling copra and 64.26 percent for ball copra over the all India weighted average cost of production.
• The announced MSP of copra for 2023 season is in line with the principle of fixing the MSP at a level of at least 1.5 times all India weighted average cost of production as announced by the Government in the Budget 2018-19.