Daily Current Affairs, 15th January 2019

1) Indian Army Day: 15 January

•Army Day is observed on January 15 in India. On this day in 1949, Field Marshal Kodandera M Cariappa took over as the first Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Army from General Sir Francis Butcher, the last British Commander-in-Chief.

•Army day is dedicated to the soldiers who fought to safeguard the country’s honour. This is the 71st celebration of the Indian Army Day.

2) Government Launches ‘Womaniya on GeM’ Initiative

•Government e Marketplace (GeM) has launched “Womaniya on GeM”, an initiative to enable women entrepreneurs and women self-help groups (WSHGs) to sell handicrafts and handloom, accessories and many other products.

•The initiative seeks to develop women entrepreneurship on the margins of society to achieve gender-inclusive economic growth. Government e-Marketplace is a 100% government owned company set up under the aegis of Ministry of Commerce and Industry. 

3) Government Launched 2 National Level Initiatives in Field Of Science Communication

•The Department of Science and Technology (DST) along with Doordarshan (DD), Prasar Bharati launched two science communication initiatives, DD Science and India Science. The initiatives were inaugurated by Union Science & Technology Minister, Dr. Harsh Vardhan.

•While DD Science is an one-hour slot on Doordarshan National channel, which will be telecast Monday to Saturday from 5 pm to 6 pm, India Science is a internet-based channel, which is available on any internet-enabled device, and will offer live, scheduled play and video-on-demand services.

4) India’s Largest Startup Ecosystem Inaugurated in Kerala

•India got its largest startup ecosystem when Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan inaugurated a 1.8-lakh-square-feet facility housing incubation set-ups across a string of segments in modern technology.

•The Integrated Startup Complex under the Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM) includes the ultra-modern facilities of Maker Village that promote hardware startups, the BioNest that promotes medical technologies, BRINC which is the country’s first international accelerator for hardware startups.

5) Madras HC Forms Committee To Weed Out Invasive Plant Species

•The Madras High Court has set up an expert committee to find a solution to root out invasive species of plants from the Western Ghats. The committee shall be headed by Cherukuri Raghavendra Babu, the chairman of the expert committee on invasive species in Chennai National Biodiversity Authority.

•It has also directed the panel to file a report on the ways to weed out such species within two months. A division bench of justices M M Sundaresh and N Sathish recently decided to constitute the committee on a batch of petitions seeking to restrain the state government from cultivating eucalyptus species in Tamil Nadu for commercial purpose.

6) Macedonia Renamed As ‘The Republic Of Northern Macedonia’

•The Parliament of Macedonia has passed the resolution to amend the constitution of the country to rename it as the Republic of Northern Macedonia.

•The name change will help resolve a decades-long dispute with neighboring Greeceopening the way for Skopje to join NATO and the European Union.

7) ICICI Bank Appoints B Sriram, Rama Bijapurkar Independent Directors

•Private sector ICICI Bank inducted former SBI Managing Director B Sriram and management consultant Rama Bijapurkar on its board as independent director.

•Both are appointed for 5 years, subject to the approval of shareholders, ICICI Bank stated in a regulatory filing on stock exchanges. Sriram retired as the managing director of IDBI Bank in September 2018. Prior to IDBI Bank, he was the managing director of SBI.