11th December 2016 Important Daily Current Affairs

Daily Current Affairs of 11th December 2016

International Current Affairs

Today (11th December) is International Mountain Day.
- This day was designated by the United Nations General Assembly in 2003.
- This year, the celebration of this Day aims to highlight Mountain Products. Mountain peoples, who are largely family farmers, base their livelihoods on highly diversified activities.
- 2016 Theme — "Mountain Cultures: Celebrating diversity and strengthening identity"
'Greenery' has been announced as the 'Color of The Year' for 2017 by Pantone Color Institute, a world renowned authority on colours.
India has abstained from voting on a UN General Assembly resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Syria.
- India has abstained from voting on the resolution in line with its traditional approach that it doesn’t mix humanitarian issues with political issues.
- The resolution was adopted by a vote of 122 in favour, 13 against and 36 abstentions on Friday.

National Current Affairs

Indian Air Force (IAF) chief Arup Raha today announced that India will get the first set of Rafale fighter jets from France in the next three years.
- He further said that the Rafale jets will tremendously increase the IAF's capability.
J & K CM Mehbooba Mufti flagged off the first children special train in the Valley today.
- About 612 children of various schools will board the train.
- The railways department is planning to run it on every second Sunday.
- It is seen as an initiative to bring back normalcy in the volatile state.
The Tamil Nadu Assembly today allotted ₹15 crore to build a memorial for late CM J Jayalalithaa near her mentor MG Ramachandran's memorial at Chennai's Marina beach.
- It passed a resolution to rename MGR memorial to 'Bharat Ratna Dr MGR and Jayalalithaa' memorial.
- It also decided to request the Centre to install Jayalalithaa's bronze statue inside the Parliament campus.
A nationwide toll-free helpline number '14444' will be launched soon to educate people and provide support related to cashless mode of transactions.
Andhra Pradesh CM Nara Chandrababu Naidu todyay launched a website of Andhra Pradesh Economic Development Board in Vijayawda.
- The website 'apedb.gov.in' aims at providing repository of knowledge on investing in state, policies of various sectors & also gives investor the various investment opportunities the state has to offer.

Banking & Economic Affairs

Airtel Payments Bank is going to extend services in Southern Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, and Karnataka within a week, CEO Shashi Arora has announced today.
- The bank had launched its pilot in Rajasthan, and has opened over a lakh savings accounts within a fortnight of its rollout.
- Important Point to Note : Airtel had become the first to launch a payments bank in India last month.
To promote cashless transactions, government think-tank NITI Aayog has suggested a scheme to reward winners of digital payments based on weekly and quarterly lucky draw of e-transaction numbers.
- NITI Aayog has asked the National Payments Corporation to conceptualise the scheme.
- The scheme would also provide recognition to urban and rural local bodies, who innovate to promote electronic payments.
As a part of the demonetisation process, the government is going to amend the RBI Act to invalidate ₹500 and ₹1,000 notes printed before November 9.
- A reference to this effect would also be reportedly made in the next year's budget.
- The government, for now, has resorted to a provision under RBI Act to scrap the high-value notes.

MOUs & Agreements

The consortium of oil producing countries OPEC and non-OPEC producers today reached their first deal since 2001 to cut oil output and ease global oversupply.
- The non-OPEC countries decided to cut production by 5.58 lakh barrels per day, their highest-ever contribution.
- This comes after OPEC earlier agreed to slash output by 12 lakh barrels a day from January 1.

Science & Technology

The Japanese city of Iruma has employed a system to keep track of elderly people with dementia by attaching barcode stickers containing personal information to their fingers and toes.
- The 1 cm square water-resistant stickers include an address, telephone number and unique identity number.
- Note : Japan has an ageing population, with more than 25% citizens aged at least 65.

Sports Current Affairs

Mumbai's Iqbal Sayed, who works as a civil engineer with Reliance Infrastructure and Mumbai Metro, became the first Indian to win a medal at the Mr Olympia event, after securing a silver medal in the event.
- Sayed beat participants from 20 countries to finish second in the Olympia Amateur Asia 2016's Classic Bodybuilding category.

This is the end of today's Daily Current Affairs session friends. Good Day :)