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• The UK has officially left the European Union after 47 years of membership - and more than three years after it voted to do so in a referendum.


• The historic moment, which happened at 23:00 GMT, was marked by both celebrations and anti-Brexit protests.


• Candlelit vigils were held in Scotland, which voted to stay in the EU, while Brexiteers partied in London's Parliament Square.

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• US President Donald Trump is set to be acquitted in his impeachment trial after senators voted against calling witnesses or admitting new evidence.


• Democrats hoped four swing Republicans would vote for witnesses, which would have extended the trial without in all likelihood changing its outcome.


• In the end, only two of the four Republicans voted with Democrats.


• The trial now moves forward to a vote on whether to acquit President Trump, which he is all but certain to win.

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• The US has announced it is expanding its curbs on immigration to include six more countries, including Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation.


• Citizens from Nigeria, Eritrea, Sudan, Tanzania, Kyrgyzstan, and Myanmar will now be blocked from obtaining certain types of visas.


• People from those countries will still be able to visit the US as tourists.


• In 2018 the US issued twice as many immigration visas to Nigeria than to the other five nations combined.

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• Advising its citizens to reconsider visiting Pakistan due to terrorism, the US on Friday issued the highest level travel alert for the provinces of Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa along with the Line of Control.


• Level 4 of US travel advisory means asking citizens not to travel to the provinces of Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) along with the LoC. The rest of the areas in Pakistan continues to remain on Level 3 of the travel alert.

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• Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and BJP national president JP Nadda will address two public rallies each in New Delhi on Saturday to campaign for the upcoming Delhi Assembly elections.


• Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath will also campaign in Delhi and hold four rallies.


• Delhi Chief Minister and AAP national convenor Arvind Kejriwal will hold roadshows at Najafgarh and Bijwasan.

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• The Supreme Court issued notice to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) in a plea by former Indian Forest Service officer Sanjiv Chaturvedi seeking details of black money recovered from overseas locations since June 2014.


• The notice came after Chaturvedi challenged a Delhi high court judgment which upheld the decision of the Chief Information Commissioner (CIC), partly in favor of the PMO. Chaturvedi has contended that the CIC initially ruled in his favor before reviewing part of its decision.

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• The Indian economy, which has been caught in a six-quarter deceleration, is already in a revival phase and GDP growth will increase to 6-6.5% from the current level in the next fiscal year, according to the Economic Survey for 2019-2020, presented, a day ahead of the Union Budget for 2020-21.


• Interestingly, growth data released by the ministry of statistics a few hours after the survey was tabled in Parliament, said that the Indian economy grew at a slower pace than previously estimated last year (2018-19).

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• Staff Selection Commission (SSC) has notified Physical Standard Test (PST) and Physical Efficiency Test (PET) for 19,101 candidates out of the 19,734 additional candidates who were declared qualified for PST process for Constable (GD) recruitment.


• SSC had released a list of 19,734 additional candidates for participating in the PET and PST process in order to fill up the increased vacancies in the Central Armed Police Force (CAPF).

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• The CA exam regulator, ICAI, will allow candidates to edit their application forms after submission.


• For this, the ICAI would open the edit window for a week and CA candidates who wish to edit details like centre, medium or group can make the changes.

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• FM Sitharaman has arrived at the North Block where the Ministry of Finance is housed. Minister of State for Finance, Anurag Thakur, was earlier seen offering prayers at his residence.


• FM Sitharaman will begin her Budget 2020 speech at 11 am on February 1 in the Parliament.

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• State Bank of India expects better profitability in Q4 as well, led by better asset-quality trend, one-off gains from SBI Cards and lower tax.


• The country's major lender State Bank of India on January 31 reported its historically highest ever quarterly profit of Rs 5,583.4 crore (up 41 percent YoY) in Q3FY20, backed by better margins, lower provisions and major recovery from one of its bad accounts (Essar Steel).

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• Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman is presenting the annual Budget in Parliament.


• Budget 2020 is likely to focus on reforms aimed at reviving the sliding economy and stimulate consumer demand. The Economic Survey, has projected India’s growth rate at 6%-6.5% for 2020-21.


• The projection indicates that the economy has bottomed out.

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• India’s top badminton doubles specialist Chirag Shetty has been closely following news of the novel coronavirus, because it can directly affect his playing plans over the next few months.


• Having already claimed at least 213 lives—all in China—the new virus has spread across the world with 24 countries reporting a total of over 9,900 confirmed cases, mostly in the east and southeast Asia, the region that also happens to be an epicentre for global badminton.

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• Midnight, somewhere in Asia. Roman Weidenfeller and his Borussia Dortmund teammates have got off a long flight and into their hotel when coach Juergen Klopp says, “we will go for a run now.”


• “We thought he was joking, but run we did,” says Weidenfeller, who played 349 games for Borussia Dortmund in a 16-season career, half of which 2008-15 overlapped with Klopp as a coach.

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• Senior journalist Yusuf Jameel from Jammu & kashmir (J&K) won the 2019-20 PEN Gauri Lankesh Award for Democratic Idealism for his outstanding contribution in journalism.


• PEN South India and Pen Delhi have instituted the award in the name of editor late Gauri Lankesh, who was assassinated in 2017. The award carries a cash prize of Rs.1 lakh and a citation.

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• As per the Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India (GoI), Shri Vinay Mohan Kwatra, a 1988 batch Indian Foreign Service (IFS) officer, has been appointed as the next Ambassador of India to Nepal.


• He will replace Manjeev Singh Puri.