Current affairs shorts 21-January-2016

1.Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has slammed the Facebook for its FreeBasics platform, as a crudely majoritarian and orchestrated opinion poll.


2.India has initiated a probe into alleged dumping of rubber variants used for leather goods by the EU, South Korea and Thailand following complaints from Reliance Industries and Indian Synthetic Rubber.


3.Housing.com, an online real estate platform has appointed co-founder Snehil Buxy as its new chief product officer.


4.ICICI Bank inaugurated its first full service branch at Sandton in Johannesburg becoming the first Indian private sector bank to open a branch in the African continent.


5.MRF Ltd has become a global partner for International Cricket Council (ICC) by signing a four- deal with the council that includes this year’s ICC World Twenty 20 in India, next year’s ICC Champions Trophy and ICC Cricket World Cup in 2019.


6.The Airports Authority of India (AAI) said J P Alex has taken over as executive director of operations.


7.According to the recently released National Family Health Survey, in the past 10 years, sex ratio has significantly decreased in nine out of 11 states of India. The report also says that literacy rate of women has gone up in each of those nine states.


8.Mercury, Venus, # Mars
, Jupiter and Saturn to Align in Sky for 1st Time in Over a Decade the five planets will all be visible from # Earth before dawn on Wednesday, EarthSky.org said. Binoculars and #telescopes are not needed. five bright planets will appear together in the morning sky from # January 20 to # February 20, 2016. That hasn’t happened since 2005.


9.The head of a Hindu deity’s statue from the 7th century was returned by France and reattached to its body today for display at a museum, more than 130 years after it was spirited away.


10. Ratan Tata, Chairman Emeritus of Tata Sons and Senior Advisor to IDG Ventures India, has invested an undisclosed amount in his personal capacity in Brainbees Solutions Pvt Ltd, which owns the ‘FirstCry.com’ brand.


11.Legendary classical danseuse Mrinalini Sarabhai passed away this morning in Ahmedabad.


12.Japan-based Softbank has invested a fresh round of Rs 100 crore funding in online real estate portal Housing.com.


13.A pair of planetary scientists, Konstantin Batygin and Mike Brown of the California Institute of Technology, have claimed to have found a ninth planet loitering beyond the dwarf planet, Pluto.


14.The longest prime number has been discovered. The Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search or the GIMPS project has found out the longest prime number imaginable to man, 2^74,207,281-1.


15.Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan and beauty queen Priyanka Chopra have been brought on board as the new brand ambassadors of the ‘Incredible India’ tourism campaign.


16.The Union Cabinet has
apprised of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Indian SpaceResearch Organization (ISRO) and Kuwait Institute of Scientific Research (KISR) on cooperation in the exploration of outer space and use of outer space technology for peaceful purposes.


17.The Prime Minister Narendra Modi released a book titled The Z Factor: My Journey as the Wrong Man at the Right Time in New Delhi written by Subhash Chandra.


18.Uttar Pradesh won its maiden Mushtaq Ali T20 Trophy with a 38-run win over two- time champions Baroda in the final played at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai.


19.Maharashtra became the first state to grant female government employees 180 days maternity leave while having a baby through surrogacy.


20.Union Government, World Bank signed financing agreement for Bihar Kosi Basin Development Project of 250 million US Dollars.


21.Noted EnvironmentalistRavi Chellam took charge as Executive Director of Greenpeace India, a NGO.


22.India’s first LGBT (Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender)radio cab service ‘Wings Rainbow’ was announced in Mumbai.


23.Rupa Devi qualified to officiate international football matches conducted by FIFA.The 24 year old referee from Dindigul, Tamilnadu, is a teacher at the Madurai Kamaraj University, where she used to play football for the college team.

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