Source: Cick Here

• Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne was in Bangkok after Canberra said it would consider giving asylum to an 18-year-old Saudi woman who fled to Thailand, saying she feared her family, which she accused of abuse, would kill her.


• Payne is also expected to discuss the case of a Bahraini footballer with Australian asylum status who has been jailed in Thailand and faces extradition back to Bahrain.

Source: Cick Here

• South Korean President Moon Jae-in suggested that he’ll push for sanction exemptions to restart dormant economic cooperation projects with North Korea.


• Some experts say the the sanctions relief, if pursued before South Korea’s ally Washington is ready, could weaken ties with the United States and complicate efforts to rid the North of its nuclear weapons. But others say Moon simply made a symbolic, conciliatory gesture toward North Korea.

Source: Cick Here

• President Donald Trump threatened to withhold money to help California cope with wildfires a day after new Government. Gavin Newsom asked him to double the federal investment in forest management.


• Trump once again suggested poor forest management is to blame for California's deadly wildfires and said he's ordered the Federal Emergency Management Agency to stop giving the state money "unless they get their act together."

Source: Cick Here

• UN office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) released a latest Global Report on “Trafficking in Persons”, which reveals that the number of human trafficking victims around the world is on the rise while armed groups and terrorists are trafficking women and children to generate funds and recruit.


• This report shows that human trafficking is on the rise with sexual exploitation of victims the main driver. Children now account for 30 per cent of those being trafficked, and far more girls are detected than boys.


• This report shows that more victims of human trafficking were reported to the United Nation’s agency in 2016 than at any time over the past 13 years.


• Trafficking for sexual exploitation is the most prevalent form in European countries, whilst in sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, forced labour is the main factor driving the illicit trade.


• While the average numbers of reported victims had fluctuated during the earlier years for which UNODC had collected data, the global trend has shown a steady increase since 2010.


• Yuri Viktorovick Fedotov, a high level diplomat of Russian Federation said that “We need to step up technical assistance and strengthen cooperation, to support all countries to protect victims and being criminals to justice, and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals”.

Source: Cick Here

• Union Cabinet has approved Scheduled Tribe (ST) status to six communities of Assam.The communities that are proposed to be extended ST status include, Koch Rajbongshi, Tai Ahom, Chutiya, Matak, Moran and the tea tribes.


• The move came before the centre introduced the Citizenship Amendment Bill, 2019 in Lok Sabha.this amendment bill will give a status to the various tribal people.

Source: Cick Here

• The Ministry of Women and Child Development, Government of India, has launched an online campaign, ‘#www: Web- WonderWomen’.


• To recognize the exceptional women who have been driving positive agenda of social change via social media.


• The partners of the campaign are: Breakthrough and Twitter India.


• Entries via Nominations from across the world are now invited open till 31st January, 2019.


• Nominations have been invited in a large number of categories including Health, Media, Literature, Art, Sports, Environmental protection, fashion among others.


• The shortlisted entries will be open for public voting on Twitter and the finalists will be selected by a specialized panel of judges.

Source: Cick Here

• The Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) proposed renaming of the Indian Forest Service as Indian Forest and Tribal Service.


• The move was made for the IFS to be more receptive towards tribals and forest dwellers.


• This was made after a directive from the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes (NCST) suggested to do so.

Source: Cick Here

• The Ministry of Civil Aviation has approved operations of seaplanes in the Andaman Islands under UDAN-3 (Ude Desh ka Aam Nagrik) making Andaman the first island of India to operate seaplanes.


• The Union Minister for Civil Aviation, Suresh Prabhu has approved operations on 13 water aerodrome routes out of five are from Andaman islands which others are from dams in Gujarat and coastal areas in Kerala.


• The Islands of Andaman that would be connected through seaplanes are Campbell Bay, Car Nicobar, Havelock, Hutbay, Neil, Long island and Diglipur.


• Operation of Seaplanes which are commonly used in Maldives and Mauritius is a part government’s ambitious regional connectivity scheme and it will give a huge push to tourism in the strategically important region.

Source: Cick Here

• the Chief Minister of Meghalaya, Shri. Conrad K Sangma, inaugurated the project “Development of North East Circuit: Umiam (Lake View) – U Lum Sohpetbneng- Mawdiangdiang – Orchid Lake Resort” under Tourism Ministry’s Swadesh Darshan Scheme.


• The project was sanctioned by the Ministry of Tourism in July 2016 for Rs. 99.13 Crores.


• It has facilities like Traditional Healing Centre, Tribal Rejuvenation Centre, Tourist Information Centre, Multipurpose Hall, Log Huts, Cafeteria, Sound and Light show, Souvenir Shops, Water Sports Zone, Zip Line, Canopy Walk, Trekking Routes, Cycling Track, Last Mile Connectivity, Caravan Parking, Public Toilets, and Solid Waste Management.

Source: Cick Here

• The Minister of State (HRD), Dr. Satya Pal Singh announced that the University Grants Commission (UGC) approved list of journals and the proposal to establish a Consortium for Academic and Research Ethics (CARE).
Aim to refine and strengthen the Credibility of Research Publications.

• The good quality Research Journals in disciplines will be maintained by CARE and referred to as ‘CARE Reference List of Quality Journals’. The disciplines are Social Sciences, Humanities, Languages, Arts, Culture, Indian Knowledge Systems etc.


• The ‘CARE Reference List of Quality Journals’ will be regularly updated and published by the UGC and the Members of the Consortium at their respective websites and will be used for all academic purposes.


• dditionally, to review its quality mandate relating to promotion of Research and to review the existing M.Phil/ Ph.D Regulations, the UGC constituted a Committee under the Chairmanship of Prof. P. Balram.

Source: Cick Here

• IRCTC tied up with Bharti AXA General insurance company to provide free travel insurance to the air travellers. This insurance is applicable to only those who book ticket in the official website of air ticketing irctc, IRCTC Air.


• Through this tie up,every passenger would be availed of insurance upto 50 lakhs in case of accidental death or life time disability. This facility is made available to everyone irrespective of class of travel.


• The premium of the insurance will be borne by Irctc itself and it is applicable to both one way and round way travels.

Source: Cick Here

• The stage is set for the Narendra Modi government to present its final budget before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, with the government finalizing the dates of the budget session—the last sitting of the 16th Lok Sabha.


• The budget session is likely to run from 31 January to 13 February. Finance minister Arun Jaitley will present an interim budget on 1 February.

Source: Cick Here

• The Reserve Bank of India has allowed tokenization of debit, credit and prepaid card transactions to enhance the safety of the digital payments ecosystem in the country.


• The central bank has allowed card schemes like Visa, Mastercard and others to start issuing tokens for third party payment applications as well.


• “Tokenisation and de-tokenisation” shall be performed only by the authorized card network and recovery of original Permanent Account Number (PAN) should be feasible for the authorized card network only.


• Tokenisation acts as an additional layer of security as it masks sensitive card data such as the 16-digit Account Number, expiration date and security code.

Source: Cick Here

• Indian Army and Punjab National Bank (PNB) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on the Defence Salary Package.


• The signing ceremony was chaired by From Indian Army: Adjutant General, Lt Gen Ashwani Kumar and PNB’s side: Mr Naveen Kumar (General Manager).


• Salient features of the MOU are free ‘RAKSHAK PLUS’ Scheme for serving pers and veterans, overdraft facility range from Rs 0.75 to 3.0 lakhs, multicity ‘At Par’ cheques, instant credit of outstation cheques, preferential allotment of lockers at concessional AMC and free SMS alerts.

Source: Cick Here

• The International Cricket Council (ICC) announced USA Cricket as its 105th member. USA Cricket came into existence after USACA was expelled in June 2017 for lack of cooperation in terms of unifying the cricket community in the country.


• The application of USA Cricket to become the 93rd Associate member in compliance with the ICC constitution, was accepted as per the recommendation of the seven-member Membership Committee to the ICC Board last year.


• In October 2018 USA Cricket had appointed Paraag Marathe president of 49 years Enterprises and Executive Vice President of Football Operations for the 49ers as the Chair of the Board.


• The International Cricket Council (ICC) was founded at Lord’s on 15 June 1909 as the Imperial Cricket Conference with Australia, England, and South Africa as its founding members.


• The Imperial Cricket Conference was renamed the International Cricket Conference in 1965.

Source: Cick Here

• Confederation of African Football’s (CAF) Executive Committee announced that Egypt will host African Cup for the fifth time in 2019. South Africa was the other country who made a bid to host the event.


• The Cup of Nations will take place from June 15 to July 13, 2019.


• Egypt has already hosted the African Cup in 1959, 1974, 1986 and 2006.


• The tournament will be enlarged to 24 teams from its standard 16 teams.


• Guinea’s football federation announced that it has agreed to move its staging of the Nations Cup from 2023 to 2025.


• Egypt’s Mohamed Salah retained his CAF Player of the Year Award at the CAF Awards on 08th January 2019 at Dakar, Senegal.

Source: Cick Here

• Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah was conferred with the 2018 Confederation of African Football Player of the Year award, for the second time, in Senegal.


• He also won the BBC African Footballer of the Year award for the second time in December 2018.


• He beat Liverpool team-mate Sadio Mane of Senegal and Arsenal and Gabon striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang to the title.


• Among other awardees, Houston Dash and South Africa forward Thembi Kgatlana was named Women’s Player of the Year.

Source: Cick Here

• World Bank President Jim Yong Kim has abruptly resigned nearly three years ahead of schedule to join a private infrastructure investment firm, setting up a potential clash between the US and other member countries over selecting the head of the world's largest development-finance institution.


• His Resignation will take effect from February 1. Kim, 58, has been in this position for over six years now. He was not due to leave until 2022, after he was re-elected for a second five-year term in 2017.

• Coimbatore city traffic police launched a mobile application ‘Police-E-Eye’ for the public to report on traffic violations to police and to keep a check on the same.


• The app was developed by Aveon Infotech Pvt. Ltd under its Corporate Social Responsibility.


• The violations so filed can be photographed which will be sent to the police along with the location, time and date with the help of GPS.