Current Affairs : January 27-28, 2012

IGNOU bags best teaching practices award

• The Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) has received an award for the best teaching practices at the India Today Aspire Education Summit 2012.

India, Canada take vow to fasttrack CEPA

• On the sidelines of World Economic Forum at Davos, India and Canada have committed to fasttracking the comprehensive economic partnership agreement (CEPA)they have been negotiating.
• The India Canada CEPA negotations began in 2010 after prime minister Manmohan Singh met his Canadian counterpart Stephen Harper in the G20 summit in South Korea in 2010.
• Early this month, Canada s high commissioner to India Stewart G Beck said the Cepa is likely to be concluded by 2013.
• Canada is looking at driving into the lucrative Indian auto component market through the CEPA, while India is looking at services sector as well as labour mobility to Canada under this agreement.

Union Cabinet approves commencement of 3rd phase of UID

• The Cabinet Committee on Unique Identification Authority of India related issues (CC-UIDAI) has approved commencement of Phase-III of the UID scheme at an estimated cost of Rs 8,814.75 crore.
• It subsumes the earlier approval of Rs 3,023.01 crore and comprises costs for issue of 20 crore Aadhaar numbers through Multiple Registrars upto March 2012, printing and delivery of 20 crore Aadhaar letters, technology and other support infrastructure cost for creation, storage and maintenance of data and services for leveraging the uses of Aadhaar for the entire estimated resident population upto March 2017.
• Out of the amount of Rs 8814.75 crore that has been approved for incurring expenditure upto March 2017, Rs 2412.67 crore would be towards recurring expenditure including IT operational cost and recurring establishment cost and Rs 6402.08 crore would be towards non-recurring project related expenditure.

IAF conferred best marching contingent award at R-Day parade

• The Indian Air Force (IAF) contingent has been named as the best marching contingent among the three services at the Republic Day parade. The Border Security Force (BSF) contingent was awarded the prize for the best marching contingent among the paramilitary forces and other auxiliary marching contingents.
• The awards for the best three Tableaux went to the Tableaux by Ministry of Human Resources Development (Deptt of School Education & Literacy), the Goa Tableaux and the Tableaux for Karnataka. The award for best children items went to the performance by Government Sarvodaya Kanya Vidyalaya, Hastsal (KodiyanchaKarvan) and that by the North Central Zone Cultural Centre at Allahabad (Gudum Baja of Madhya Pradesh).

US to issue 14% more visas for Indians

• The US has taken a number of steps to modify and accelerate visa process and aim 14% annual increase in travellers from India that would help boost business and political ties.

US to cut down army by 1 lakh

• The US Pentagon has declared curtailment of its military forces by 100,000 in view of a $487 billion cut in its budget over the next 10 years. However it asserted that even after the retrenchment, US will remain a force to contend with anytime and anywhere.
• US military will be smaller and leaner, but it will be agile, flexible, rapidly deployable and technologically advanced. Army will be gradually resized to 490,000 from the present force level of 562,000. Marine Corps will be 182,000 from 202,000. The transition to take place over the next 5 years.

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Month: Current Affairs - February, 2012

Category: Government Schemes Current Affairs