Daily Current Affairs : 24th December 2013

1. Sidharth Birla, Chairman of Xpro India Limited took the charge as the President of Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) on 21 December 2013. Sidharth Birla succeeded the HSBC India Country Head Naina Lal Kidwai. Chairperson and Managing Director of Bharat Hotels, Joytsna Suri elected as Senior Vice-President of FICCI and Chairman of Ambuja Neotia group, Harshavardhan Neotia as Vice-President of FICCI.

2. Vinod Kumar Duggal, the former Home Secretary has been appointed the new Governor of Manipur on 23 December 2013. His appointment will come into effect from the date on which, he will assume the charge of the office. He will replace the present Governor of the state, Ashwani Kumar, who was given an additional charge of Manipur, while being a Governor of Nagaland.

3. Rajiv Gandhi International Airport of Hyderabad received Sword of Honour award. Rajiv Gandhi International Airport Ltd is operated by GMR Hyderabad International Airport Ltd (GHIAL) and it is first airport in India to receive this award. The airport received award in recognition of its effective implementation of occupational health and safety management systems from the British Safety Council for health and safety works at the airport. The Sword of Honour is considered to be Oscar of the Safety World.

4. The Centre has launched e-inclusion project to make people e-literate. Communication and IT Minister Kapil Sibal told reporters in New Delhi today that the project is an initiative to make at least one individual in every household e-literate. He said, under the project, economically weaker sections of the society including rural SC, ST and women will receive IT training. The Centre is implementing the national e-governance plan with the objective of creating a transparent and accountable governance model for enabling service delivery at the doorsteps of citizens.

5. Election Commission signs MoU with Yemen. India has offered its expertise to Yemen in election management and electoral roll preparations. A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in this regard was signed between the two nations during a visit by India’s Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) V.S. Sampath to Yemen. He is currently on a visit to the country at the invitation of Judge Mohammed Hussain Al-Hakimi, President of the Supreme Commission for Elections and Referendum (SCER) of Yemen.

6. Pakistan is set to sign an initial deal for import of electricity from India to overcome a crippling power crisis. At a time when the international court has allowed India to divert water from the Neelum Jhelum River for the Kishanganga Dam in Indian-controlled Kashmir. According to The Express Tribune, the Ministry of Water and Power had sent draft of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to the Law Division for vetting, before signing it to pave the way for electricity import. India has offered to supply about 500MW of electricity in the beginning and this plan could be implemented within a year by laying a transmission line, it added.

7. Sindhu and Shrikant won singles titles in National Badminton Championship. Srikanth won the men’s singles crown of the Senior National Badminton Championship by defeating M V Guru Sai Dutt 21-13, 22-20 in the finals. In the Women’s singles, PV Sindhu defeated the Junior National Champion Rituparna Das 21-17, 21-11 in the finals to win the title. In the men's doubles the second seeded Pranav Chopra and Akshay Devalkar beat the top seeds Munnu Atri and Sumit Reddy 21-19, 21-17 to lift the title. Women's doubles title was won by Jwala Gutta and Ashwani Punnappa. Jwala and Punnappa regained the women’s doubles crown for the first time, since 2009. 

8. Agni-III the nuclear capable ballistic missile was successfully test-fired by India on 23 December 2013. It was test-fired for its full range of 3000 kilometer from the Wheeler Island of Odisha Coast. The test fire of the surface-to-surface missile was conducted by Strategic Forces Command (SFC) of the Indian Army with the logistic support from the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).

9. A senior IAS officer, Rajendra Kumar, is tipped to become the Principal Secretary to Arvind Kejriwal, who is set to take over as Chief Minister of Delhi later this week. Like Mr Kejriwal, 47-year-old Kumar, at present Higher Education Secretary, is an alumnus of IIT-Kharagpur. Mr Kumar met Mr Kejriwal at his residence here. Chief Secretary D M Spolia also met Mr Kejriwal. They were described as courtesy calls.

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