14th October 2017 Important Daily Current Affairs

Daily Current Affairs of 14th October 2017

International Current Affairs

Today (14th October) is World Standards Day / International standards day.
- This day honors the efforts of the thousands of experts who develop voluntary standards within standards development organizations such as the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), International Organization for Standardization (ISO), International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).
- This day was initially launched in 1970, and is now recognized and celebrated by nations around the globe.
- The aim of World Standards Day is to raise awareness among regulators, industry and consumers as to the importance of standardization to the global economy.
- World Standards Day 2017 Theme : “‘Standards make cities smarter”
- Important Heads :
- IEC President - Dr. Junji Nomura
- ITU Secretary General - Houlin Zhao
- ISO President - Zhang Xiaogang
Following United State's withdrawal from UNESCO citing "anti-Israel bias", Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu today announced that his country would also quit the UN heritage organisation.
- Note : Both the US and Israel have opposed Palestine's inclusion in UNESCO.

National Current Affairs

Uttar Pradesh's Mughalsarai railway station has been renamed as Deen Dayal Upadhyay (DDU) railway station in a bid to revive the legacy of Pandit Upadhyay, who was found dead near the station in 1968.
PM Narendra Modi today announced that the government has decided to allot ₹10,000 crore and autonomy to 10 public and 10 private universities over the next five years, to make them world-class.
- The universities will not be selected on recommendation, but on the basis of a third party appraisal on laid down parameters, PM Modi added.
The Centre is proposing to levy Water Conservation Fee on private townships, apartments, industries, recreational clubs among others based on the amount of groundwater extracted by them.
- The proposal also makes it mandatory for industrial, mining and infrastructure projects to obtain a no-objection certificate for withdrawing groundwater.
- However, farmers are exempted from obtaining the NOC.

Science & Technology

China's National Space Administration has notified the UN that its 8.5-tonne space station, Tiangong-1, will crash to the Earth between October 2017 and April 2018.
- Tiangong-1 was launched in 2011 and had hosted several unmanned and manned missions.
The National Centre for Combustion Research and Development (NCCRD), worlds largest combustion research centre which will impart a major boost to the Indian scientific community was inaugurated at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras today.
- The NCCRD was inaugurated by V K Saraswat (NITI Aayog member)

Banking, Business & Economic Affairs

Vanuatu, a South Pacific archipelago, has become the first nation to accept Bitcoins as payment for its 'investment citizenship' program.
- A family of up to four can receive Vanuatu passports by paying the Bitcoin equivalent of $280,000 (₹1.8 crore).

New Appointments

HSBC Holdings has appointed head of retail banking and wealth management, John Flint as the new CEO.
- He will replace the current CEO Stuart Gulliver from 21st February 2017.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)’s executive board today chose former French Culture Minister Audrey Azoulay to be the UN cultural agency’s next leader.
- Azoulay replaces the outgoing Director-General Irina Bokova of Bulgaria, whose eight-year term was marred by financial woes and criticism over Palestine’s inclusion as a member.

Sports Current Affairs

Ashwini Ponnappa & Satwiksairaj Rankireddy reach semifinals in mixed doubles of Yonex Dutch Open.
India's ODI squad for the three-match series against New Zealand announced.
- They are :
- Virat Kohli (captain),
- Rohit Sharma (vice-captain),
- Shikhar Dhawan,
- Ajinkya Rahane,
- Manish Pandey,
- Kedar Jadhav,
- Dinesh Karthik,
- MS Dhoni (wk),
- Hardik Pandya,
- Axar Patel,
- Kuldeep Yadav,
- Yuzvendra Chahal,
- Jasprit Bumrah,
- Bhuvneshwar Kumar
- Shardul Thakur.

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