Current Affairs

18^th October 2022

Top 22 Daily GK Updates: National & International News

Here is the Daily GK Update of the 18th October 2022 covering the following news headlines: Adani Airports, Sir Syed Excellence Award, Booker Prize 2022, Global Handwashing Day 2022, World Trauma Day 2022, World Chess Champion.

National News

1.Ulf Kristersson Elected As Sweden’s new Prime Minister Backed By Far Right

Sweden’s parliament elected Moderates leader Ulf Kristersson as the country’s new prime minister. A total of 176 members of the Riksdag voted in favor of Kristersson, while 173 members voted against him.

The Sweden Democrats were the big winners in the closely fought September 11 general election.  They emerged as the second-largest party with a record 20.5 percent of votes, trailing only the Social Democrats, who have dominated Swedish politics since the 1930s. The right-wing bloc now has 176 seats in parliament, to their left-wing rivals’ 173.

Appointments News

2.Adani Airports appoints Ericsson veteran Arun Bansal as CEO

Adani Airport Holdings has again rejigged its top management, naming Ericsson veteran Arun Bansal its chief executive officer.

Bansal, who spent 25 years at the Swedish telecom network company, was most recently its president for Europe and Latin America. The appointment will help strengthen digital transformation and the business growth agenda.

Notably: Adani’s airports account for 25% of airport footfalls and 40% of air cargo in India.

Important takeaways for all competitive exams:

Adani Airport Headquarters location: Ahmedabad;

Adani Airport Founded: 2 August 2019;

Adani Airport Parent organization: Adani Group.

3.Justice DY Chandrachud named as 50th Chief Justice of India

President Droupadi Murmu has appointed Dr Justice DY Chandrachud as the new Chief Justice of India. He will succeed the present Chief Justice of India Justice Uday Umesh Lalit.

Justice Chandrachud’s appointment will come into effect from the 9th of next month. Justice DY Chandrachud would be the 50th Chief Justice of India. While Justice Lalit has a tenure of 74 days, Justice Chandrachud will serve as the CJI for two years. Justice Chandrachud will demit office on November 10, 2024.

4.Apoorva Srivastava named as India’s Ambassador to Slovak Republic

Indian Foreign Service, Apoorva Srivastava has been appointed to serve as India’s Ambassador to the Slovak Republic. An officer of the 2001 batch, she currently serves as Consul-General at the Consulate of India in Toronto.

Prior to this, she served in various positions in the Ministry of External Affairs and has been posted in Kathmandu and Paris, among other locations.

Slovakia, officially the Slovak Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the southwest, and the Czech Republic to the northwest.

Important takeaways for all competitive exams:

Slovak Republic (Slovakia) Capital: Bratislava;

Slovak Republic (Slovakia) Currency: Euro;

Slovak Republic (Slovakia) President: Zuzana Čaputová.

Agreements News

5.Arya.ag and FWWB India partner with UNDP to implement Project Excel

Arya.ag and FWWB India partner with UNDP: Project Excel is being implemented in the Gujarati districts of Jamnagar and Dwaraka Devbhumi by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in collaboration with the integrated grain commerce platform Arya.ag and Friends of Women’s World Banking India (FWWB India).

It aims to increase the incomes of 10,000 farmer households through the promotion of small businesses, intervention in the agri-value chain, and skill development in the agricultural industry.

Economy News

6.India may draw $475 billion in FDI in next 5 years: Report

India may draw $475 billion in FDI: India has promising growth prospects for foreign direct investment (FDI) and has the potential to draw $475 billion in FDI flows over the next five years, according to a CII-EY report.

Despite the effects of the pandemic and geopolitical developments, foreign direct investment (FDI) in India has steadily increased over the past ten years, reaching $84.8 billion in FY 2021–22.

Important Takeaways for All Competitive Exams:

CII, Director General: Chandrajit Banerjee

Finance Minister of India: Nirmala Sitharaman

7.India’s foreign exchange reserves increased by USD 204 million

India’s Foreign Exchange Reserve Increases: The Reserve Bank reported an increase in the value of gold assets caused India’s foreign exchange reserves to climb by USD 204 million to USD 532.868 billion for the week ended October 7.

The total reserves decreased by USD 4.854 billion to USD 532.664 billion during the previous reporting week.

The aggregate foreign reserves decreased to USD 532.664 billion from USD 4.854 billion the previous week ending September 30.

The foreign reserves have been declining for several weeks as the central bank uses its funds to protect the rupee against pressures mostly brought on by international events.

Defence News

8.India’s Defence Exports at Rs 8000 Cr in H1 Of FY23

India registered defence exports worth Rs 8,000 crore in six months of the current financial year and aims to achieve the annual export target of Rs 35,000 crore by 2025, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said.

He was speaking at the curtain raiser event of DefExpo, scheduled to be held from October 18 to 22, in Gandhinagar. Gandhinagar is set to host India’s biggest-ever defence exhibition to date – DefExpo 2022 –beginning. This 12th edition of the event has been organised on the theme ‘Path to Pride’.

9.“PowerEX-2022” joint Cyber Security Exercise conducted by CERT-IN and Power-CSIRTs

PowerEx-2022: 193 invited Power Sector Utilities to participate in the Cyber Security Exercise “PowerEX” that was successfully designed and carried out by the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-IN) and Power-CSIRTs.

On the exercise day, the CERT-In team collaborated with the Power-CSIRT authorities’ Exercise Planner Team as Exercise Coordinators.

“Recognize, Analyze & Respond to Cyber Incidents in IT & OT Systems” was the exercise’s stated goal.

“Defending Cyber generated interruption in IT & OT infrastructure” was the exercise’s objective.

CERT-IN hosted exercise “PowerEX” on its platform for simulating exercises.

A total of 350+ representatives from different power sector utilities took part in the event.

The “PowerEX” exercise was successful in achieving its goals and assisting the participants in understanding, practising, and responding to cyber security problems.

10.DefExpo 2022: India-Africa Defence Dialogue to be held in Gandhinagar

India-Africa Defence Dialogue to be held on the sidelines of DefExpo 2022 in Gandhinagar, Gujarat. The dialogue aims to explore new areas of convergence for mutual engagement, including areas like capacity building, training, cyber security, maritime security, and counter-terrorism.

The theme of the India-Africa Defence Dialogue is India-Africa: Adopting Strategy for Synergising and strengthening Defence and Security Corporation.

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh will host the Defence Ministers of African Nations.

Awards News

11.Sri Lankan author Shehan Karunatilaka won Britain’s Booker Prize 2022

Sri Lankan author, Shehan Karunatilaka has won Britain’s Booker Prize 2022 for fiction for his work “The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida”, about a journalist murdered amid the country’s sectarian strife.

The judges praised the “ambition of its scope, and the hilarious audacity of its narrative techniques”. Karunatilaka’s second novel, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida comes more than a decade after his debut, Chinaman, which was published in 2011.

12.American historian Barbara Metcalf conferred Sir Syed Excellence Award for 2022

Noted American historian Prof. Barbara Metcalf was awarded the Sir Syed Excellence Award 2022 by the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) on the 205 th birth anniversary of its founder Sir Syed Ahmad Khan.

Prof. Metcalf has written extensively on the history of the Muslim population of India and Pakistan. “Muslims constituted a full quarter of the population at the time of Independence and an important share of the Indian citizenry in the Republic of India thereafter. Yet their histories are understudied and are essential to telling India’s history well.

Ranks and Reports News

13.India Lifted 415 Million out of Poverty in 15 Years: UN

The number of people living below the poverty line in India decreased by 415 million between 2005-06 and 2019-21, according to a new Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) released  jointly by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) at the University of Oxford.

The index has stated that India still has the world’s highest number of poor at 228.9 million, followed by Nigeria (96.7 million projected in 2020). The report found that across 111 countries which were assessed using the most recent comparable data available, 1.2 billion people (19.1 per cent) live in acute poverty and almost half of these people (593 million) are children under the age of 18 years.

The developing region with the largest number of poor people is Sub-Saharan Africa (nearly 579 million), followed by South Asia (385 million), the report highlighted.

Summits and Conferences News

14.India to host 90th General Assembly of INTERPOL

The 90th General Assembly of Interpol is going to be held in New Delhi from 18th October to 21st October 2022. The 90th General Assembly of Interpol will have the world’s largest police body with 195 members.

The General Assembly is the International policing organization’s top governing body and meets once a year to take important decisions.

The meeting will be attended by 2,000 overseas dignitaries, including Ministers, Police Chiefs, Police Officers, and support staff

The General Assembly is taking place in India after 25 years.

The last General Assembly held in India was in the year 1997.

This was initiated by the Union Home Minister Amit Shah to Interpol Secretary General Jurgen Stock.

Schemes News

15.Total Balance in PM Jan Dhan Accounts Crosses ₹1.75-Lakh Crore Mark

The total balance in the basic bank accounts under the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) has crossed the ₹1.75 lakh crore mark. As per the latest Government data, the total balance stood at ₹1,75,225 crore as on October 5, 2022, as the total number of beneficiaries touched 47 crore.

56% Jan-Dhan account holders are women and 67% Jan Dhan accounts in rural and semi-urban areas. 31.94 crore RuPay cards issued to PMJDY accountholders About 5.4 crore PMJDY account holders received direct benefit transfer (DBT) from the Government under various schemes in June, 2022.

Books and Authors News

16.Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik launched a new book Pandemic Disruptions and Odisha’s

Odisha Chief Minister, Naveen Patnaik released the book titled ‘Pandemic Disruptions and Odisha’s Lessons in Governance’ by Dr Amar Patnaik, Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha this evening at Naveen Niwas.

This book is a culmination of the various essays on pertinent contemporary issues that emerged in India during the pandemic years of 2020-21 and 2021-2022. Odisha Government’s handling of the covid crisis riding on its earlier experience in handling natural disasters has been applauded nationally as well as globally.

17.Home Minister Amit Shah Launches First Hindi Version of MBBS Course Books

Home Minister Amit Shah launched the MBBS Course books in Hindi version at Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh. It is the first ever Hindi version of the MBBS course books in India.

The book launch event was felicitated by the Bhopal state education minister Vishvas Kailash Sarang and Bhopal CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan.

The Union Home Minister Amit Shah launched India’s first version of MBBS Course Books in Hindi.

The event took place on 16th October 2022, at Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh.

The book launched is praised throughout the country, as the books can help poor children to get admission to medical colleges.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has emphasized the importance of the mother language for the students.

Sports News

18.D Gukesh becomes youngest to beat World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen

India teenager Donnarumma Gukesh scripted history in the ongoing Aimchess Rapid online tournament as he defeated Magnus Carlsen, thereby becoming the youngest player ever to beat him as world champion.

The 16-year-old Donnarumma defeated Carlsen with white in the 9th round and hence he defeated the Norwegian during his reign as world champion. Gukesh at 16 years 4 months 20 days – also became the youngest Indian player to defeat Carlsen. Praggnanandhaa was 16 years 6 months and 10 days old when he defeated the world No.1.

19.Jyothi Yarraji becomes first Indian woman to run sub-13s hurdles

Jyothi Yarraji, an Indian Sprinter made history in the women’s 100m hurdles as the became the first Indian woman to run a sub-13s time to win the gold medal at the Nation Games 2022.

Jyothi Yarraji broke her national record representing Andhra Pradesh by running the final in 12.79s. Earlier, Jyothi Yarraji won the women’s 100m gold, leaving behind Sprinters lime Dutee Chand and Hima Das.

Important Days

20.Global Handwashing Day 2022: Unite for Universal Hand Hygiene

October 15 is marked as Global Handwashing Day, with the aim of increasing awareness and understanding about the importance of handwashing with soap as an effective and affordable way to prevent diseases and save lives.

Hand hygiene has become quite popular after the Covid-19 pandemic. And to make handwashing a habit, there is a day dedicated to it; global hand washing day. It is an initiative to unite universal hand hygiene habits of people across the world. This global advocacy day is celebrated on October 15 each year.

This year’s theme, “Unite for Universal Hand Hygiene”, calls on all of society to work together to scale up hand hygiene.

21.World Trauma Day 2022: History & Significance

Every year, October 17 is celebrated as World Trauma Day. The day is observed with a view to prevent the increasing rate of accidents and injuries causing death and disability across the world. The day was created in New Delhi, India, in 2011.

This was a result of the high number of deaths caused by road accidents in the country, an estimate of over 400 people lost their lives each day to it. Road Traffic Accident (RTA) is the leading cause of trauma across the world.

World Trauma Day was established in 2011 in New Delhi, India. This is because the number of deaths due to traffic accidents in Korea is high, and According to an estimate, it has been seen that more than 400 people die every day.

Miscellaneous News

22.Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw Inaugurates India’s First Aluminum Freight Rake at Bhubaneswar Railway Station

Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw inaugurated India’s first aluminium freight rake — 61 BOBRNALHSM1 — at Bhubaneshwar Railway Station.

The rake’s destination is Bilaspur. As per reports, the aluminium freight rake wields the capacity to carry 180-ton more goods as against the traditional rake. Moreover, it is 180 tons lighter than the traditional steel rake.

Fully Lockbolted construction with no welding on superstructure.

The tare is 3.25 tons lower than normal steel rakes, 180 ton extra carrying capacity resulting in higher throughput per wagon.

Higher payload to tare ratio 2.85.