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All India Radio News Summary : 24 JANUARY 2018

All India Radio News Summary : 24 JANUARY 2018

  1. Prime Minister to hold bilateral talks with ASEAN leaders in New Delhi ahead of India-ASEAN Summit.

Prime Minister holds bilateral meetings with leaders of three ASEAN nations – Vietnam, Philippines and Myanmar.

  • The focus of the Summit will be on counter-terrorism, security and connectivity.
  • The highest-level of participation at the meeting will mark 25 years of Indo-ASEAN ties.
  • The meet can be an opportunity for India to present itself as a powerful ally to these countries in the strategic areas of trade and connectivity.
  • There will be a leaders’ retreat during which the leaders will have a “free and frank” discussion.
  • The theme of the retreat session is ‘maritime cooperation and security’.

 

  1. National Girl Child Day – 24th January
  • The day is observed for focusing attention on ensuring equal opportunities to the girl child.
  • The day is celebrated to increase awareness among people about inequalities faced by the girl child in society and the need to promote equality of opportunities for them in various sectors like education, nutrition, legal rights, medical care, etc.
  • PM said, India salutes the skills, strengths and fortitude of the girl child.

 

  1. Country urgently needs data minimisation, data privacy and a data residency law

A parliamentary panel said the country urgently needs data minimisation, data privacy and a data residency law to ensure the security of private and public data while cautioning against India becoming a digital colony.

  • The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance in its draft report has urged the government to bring data protection legislation before Parliament at the earliest.
  • The draft report also pitched for establishing a duly empowered coordinating authority, at par with Space and Atomic Energy Departments with adequate budget and reporting directly to the Prime Minister’s Office.
  • The panel said, as the country marches towards digitalisation, especially after demonetisation, it is necessary to have a sound consumer policy and data protection laws.
  • It also suggested that users or individuals must have control or ownership of the data they shared with various entities.

 

  1. The government announced 88,139 crore rupees capital infusion in 20 public sector banks, PSBs

The government announced 88,139 crore rupees capital infusion in 20 public sector banks, PSBs, during the current fiscal ending 31st March to boost lending and revive growth.

  • IDBI Bank will get the most — 10,610 crore rupees followed by State Bank of India 8,800 crore rupees.
  • The 20 banks that will receive the capital infusion during this phase include Bank of India, UCO Bank and Punjab National Bank.
  • In October last year, the government had announced over two lakh crore rupees bank recapitalization plan spread over spread over two financial years  2017-18 and 2018-19.
  • The PSBs are faced with mounting non-performing assets or bad loans, putting the financial sector under stress.

 

  1. China has hailed Prime Minister speech at the plenary session of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Chinese Foreign Ministry said, PM speech reflects the fact that economic globalization is the trend of the times which serves the interests of all countries, especially the developing countries.

  • It said, on the fronts of opposing trade protectionism and advancing economic globalization, China and India share common grounds and common interests.
  • Beijing said, they would like to enhance communication and coordination with India and other countries in actively adapting to and steering economic globalization so that it becomes a positive force for the economic growth and welfare of all countries.

 

  1. Civil Aviation Minister announced the name of 73 new airports and helipads to be set-up under the Regional Connectivity Scheme UDA

The ambitious scheme Ude Desh Ka Aam Nagrik-UDAN, seeks to boost regional air connectivity and provides various incentives to airlines.

  • Round two of UDAN has been announced. Out of 73, forty three will be constructed in the North-East and the hill states and will add 29 lakh seats annually.
  • With this the connectivity within the country is going up and the new part of it is that what we call priority area where the connectivity of road, rail are little low, air connectivity is going up more there.
  • Under the scheme the fare for a one hour journey of approximately 500 kilometre on a fixed wing aircraft or for a 30 minute journey on a helicopter will be capped at two thousand 500 rupees.     

 

  1. The Government has announced four new schemes to promote young scientists and researchers

The schemes include,

  • Teacher Associateship for Research Excellence – Scheme will connect the educators to leading public funded institutions like IIT, IISc or national institutions like CSIR to pursue research.
  • Overseas Visiting Doctoral Fellowship – scheme will offers support to one hundred PhD scholars for training in universities/laboratories abroad up to 12 months during their doctoral research.
  • Distinguished Investigator Award – This will offer a maximum of 100 fellowships to principal investigators of Science and Engineering Research Board and Department of Science and Technology projects.
  • Augmenting Writing Skills for Articulating Research – scheme  aims to encourage science writing

Main objective of the schemes is to focus on youth to empower, recognise and motivate them.