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• Kenyan security forces have killed all the Somali militants who stormed an upscale Nairobi hotel compound, taking at least 21 lives and forcing hundreds of people into terrifying escapes, the government.


• The bloody bodies of five attackers were broadcast across social media as President Uhuru Kenyatta announced the end of a 20-hour overnight siege that echoed a 2013 assault that killed 67 people in the Westgate shopping centre in the same district.

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• The London-based, Times Higher Education (THE) released the Emerging Economies University Rankings 2019 report which shows that India has improved its ranking and secured a higher position with 49 institutions making it to the list.


• According to this year’s report 25 Indian institutions figure in the top 200 institutes, a rise from 17 last year.
  
• The report stated that the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangaluru retains the highest spot for India (14th), followed by the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (27th). Last year India had 42 institutions in the overall list.


• China remains the most represented nation with 72 institutions in total and claiming four of the table’s top five positions with Tsinghua University topping the chart.


• Nearly 450 universities from 43 countries, across four continents were compared this year.

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• UK Members of Parliament rejected a deal reached by Prime Minister Theresa May with the European Union on the terms of Britain's exit from the bloc.


• Theresa May sustained the heaviest parliamentary defeat of any British Prime Minister in the democratic era after the deal was rejected by a majority of 230.

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• The head of the elite Revolutionary Guards said Iran will keep military forces in Syria, defying Israeli threats that they might be targeted if they do not leave the country.


• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israeli forces would continue to attack Iranians in Syria and warned them “to get out of there fast, because they will continue with their resolute policy”.

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• The Union Minister for Commerce & Industry and Civil Aviation, Shri Suresh Prabhu inaugurated the Global Aviation Summit (GAS) 2019 which is being organised by Ministry of Civil Aviation in association with Airport Authority of India (AAI) and Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) in Mumbai.


• The Vision 2040 for aviation sector and the Air Cargo Policy was launched during the summit.


• The domestic aviation market in India has been growing at 20 percent annually for the last four years and this growth has been the highest in the world.

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• Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the project “Development of Spiritual Circuit: Sree Padmanabha Swamy Temple – Aranmula-Sabarimala” at the cost of Rs. 92.22 crores under Swadesh Darshan Scheme of Tourism Ministry in Kerala. He also dedicated the 13-km Kollam bypass on NH 66 in Kerala to the nation.


• The Sree Padmanaaswamy Temple is one of the 108 Divyadesams of Lord Vishnu and majority of the work under this project has been carried out at this temple.


• Under the Project, the ministry of tourism has developed and rejuvenated the temple along with its surroundings keeping in mind the factors of heritage and socio-cultural aspects.


• Ministry of tourism has sanctioned 7 projects in Kerala under the Swadesh Darshan and PRASHAD schemes for an approximate amount of Rs 550 crores.

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• “Jai Kisan Rin Mukti Yojana” scheme was launched by Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shri. Kamal Nath. It is Rs 50,000 crore farm loan waiver scheme for farmers. The loan waiver forms could be submitted till February 5 and farmers would start getting the benefits from February 22.


• On January 5th 2019, the state cabinet decided to waive crop loans of 55 lakh small and marginal farmers in the state.The eligibility cut-off date has been extended to December 12, 2018 from March 31, 2018.


• Only those farmers who have not registered themselves to pay GST and income tax can avail benefits under this schemes.


• Earlier former Chief Minister Shri. Shivraj Singh Chouhan also launched similar scheme named ‘Bhavantar Yojana’.

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• The 55-day long Kumbh Mela 2019 commenced with the Shahi Snan of Akharas at Sangam- the confluence of Ganga, Yamuna and the mystical Saraswati -at Prayagraj in Uttar Pradesh.


• ”Chalo Kumbh Chale” was the slogan used by the devotees commencing the mela.


• An area of 20 lakh sq.ft area, was designated for the street art projects under an initiative by Kumbh Mela Authority called ”Paint my city.”


• The whole kumbh area is divided into 20 sectors and 9 zones for keen vigil by sector and zonal magistrates.


• For the first time at the Kumbh Mela, a transgender ashram, known as the Kinnar Akhara, led by rights activist Lakshmi Narayan Tripathi from Mumbai, joined the first bathing day.


• The Kumbh Mela is the largest human congregation in the world, with the participation of over 130 million pilgrims.

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• The Centre constituted a seven-member Group of Ministers (GoM) to look into Goods and Services Tax (GST)-related issues of the real estate sector.


• Nitin Patel, the Deputy Chief Minister of Gujarat, would head the GoM which would analyse the tax rate of GST on the under-construction residential properties for boosting the realty segment.


• Among the issues concerning the sector, a major subject is the GST rate on under-construction residential properties. There have been demand from many quarters to slash the rate on the segment to 5 per cent from the current 12 per cent.

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• Union Water Resources Minister Nitin Gadkari inaugurated the three-day long 9th International Micro irrigation conference at Aurangabad, Maharashtra. The conference would conclude on January 18, 2019.


• Aim of the conference was to share experiences in the use of new technologies and best management practices in drip, micro-sprinkler, and other localized irrigation systems.


• The Theme of the conference was: “Micro Irrigation and Modern Agriculture”.


• The conference was organized by Ministry of Water Resources and River Development.


• 740 delegates including 100 foreign delegates from 56 countries are participating in the conference.

• As per the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2018, one out of every four Class 8 students in rural India is unable to read.


• The report was made after the survey conducted by an autonomous unit of education-NGO Pratham.


• The survey covered around 3.5 lakh households and 546,527 children between the ages of three and 16 across 596 rural districts.


• Moreover, over one in two Class 8 students cannot solve a problem that involves basic division.


• Only a little more than half of all children enrolled in Class 5 can read a Class 2 level text.


• This improvement can be seen due to an improved performance by Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Kerala, Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram.


• The proportion of children not enrolled in school has fallen below 3% to 2.8% for the first time ever in India.


• Also the percentage of girls in the 15-16 age group who were not enrolled in school dropped from 20% in 2008 to 13.5%.


• The number of schools with a serviceable girls’ toilet doubled between 2010 and 2018 with two-thirds of all girls’ schools in rural India having toilets.


• Additionally, the number of students seeking admission in private schools in rural India has dropped which gives impetus to the government schools to flourish.

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• Finance Ministry asked the public sector banks to bring down the government’s equity to at least 52 per cent in the first phase. To align with the best corporate practices.


• Dilution of government stake will help banks to meet 25 per cent public float norms of market regulator SEBI.


• This would also encourage the banks to follow the prudential lending norms.

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• India has decided to purchase $5 billion worth of oil and gas from the US per annum and $18 billion worth of defence equipment. India-US bilateral trade has increased from $119 billion to $140 billion in past two years.


• The US export to India has gone up by at least 30 per cent.


• Orders of 300 air planes of $40 billion have been placed by commercial Indian airlines.


• The United States is India’s largest trading partner.

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• Reserve Bank of India will inject Rs 10,000 crore into the system through the purchase of government securities to increase liquidity.


• The purchase will be made through Open Market Operations (OMOs).


• The eligible participants should submit their offers in electronic format on the RBI Core Banking Solution (E-Kuber) system.


• The RBI plans to inject liquidity of Rs 50,000 crore under OMOs.

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• 12 year old Tamil Nadu boy D Gukesh became the youngest Grand master in India and second in the world.


• He achieved this feat by beating D K Sharma at 17th Delhi International Open Chess tournament in Delhi.


• D Gukesh became India’s 59th Grand Master.


• Sergey Karjakin of Ukraine is the world’s youngest Grand master.


• This was D Gukesh’s third Grand master norm. His first GM norm was during the Bangkok Open in 2018.

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• Croatian tennis player, Ivo Karlovic became the oldest man to win a match at the Australian Open at the age of 40 years as he defeated Poland’s Hubert Hurkacz, a man 18 years his junior, to reach the second round.


• The victory over Hubert Hurkacz made Karlovic the oldest victor at the tournament since Australian icon Ken Rosewall reached the third round of the 1978 tournament at the age of 44.


• Karlovic who is currently world number 73, also became the oldest winner at any Grand Slam since a 40-year-old Jimmy Connors beat Jaime Oncins to reach the second round of the 1992 US Open.

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• Arsenal goalkeeper Petr Cech announced his retirement after having a career spanning 20 years in football.


• He has a record 202 clean sheets in his 15 seasons in the Premier League since joining Chelsea in 2004 from French club Rennes.


• He is also the Czech Republic’s most capped player, making 124 appearances after which he also retired from international soccer in 2016.

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• Chairman and Managing Director of Reliance Industries, Mukesh Ambani who is also the Richest Indian, has been featured in the Top “Global Thinkers 2019”ranking released by the prestigious Foreign Policy publishing.


• Alibaba’s founder Jack Ma, Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos and IMF Head Christine Lagarde also featured in the list of few names released by Foreign Policy Publishing.


• The Full list of ‘Global Thinkers 2019’ will be published on 22nd January 2019 at the 10th Anniversary of Global Thinkers listing.


• Mukesh Ambani has replaced Alibaba’s founder Jack Ma to become the Asia’s Richest person with a fortune of 44.3 billion dollar.

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• Software engineer and mountaineer Satyarup Siddhanta, hailing from Haridevpur in South Kolkata, became the first Indian and youngest man to climb the seven highest peaks and volcanic summits across all continents.


• This feat was attained after he conquered Antartica’s highest point, Mount Sidley.


• He achieved the feat at the age of 35 years and 262 days.


• In 2018, Satyarup had scaled the highest volcanic peak in North America, Pico de Orizaba.


• He beat the record of Australia’s Daniel Bull who had done it at the age of 36 years 157 days.

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• A detained Chinese rights lawyer Yu Wensheng has won a Franco-German human rights award for his 'exceptional contribution' to the protection and promotion of human rights.


• Yu Wensheng, who is in pretrial detention on subversion charges, has been held incommunicado by authorities in Jiangsu's Xuzhou city for more than a year. His wife Xu Yan received the Franco-German Prize for Human Rights and the Rule of Law on her husband's behalf from the French and German ambassadors to China.

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• The Boxing Federation of India (BFI) appointed India’s first Commonwealth Games gold medallist in boxing, Mohammed Ali Qamar, as chief coach for the country’s women pugilists.


• The 38-year old became the youngest ever to be appointed in the position.


• He replaced veteran Shiv Singh.


• Prior to this, he has been an assistant coach in the national camp for more than a year.


• Additionally, the Arjuna awardee has coached the Railways Sports Promotion Board’s women’s team for more than three years.


• In addition to this, the BFI also appointed 39-year-old C A Kuttappa as the chief coach for the men’s camp.

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• The International Cricket Council (ICC) appointed former ESPN star sports CEO and former chairman of Singapore based sport hub Manu Sawhney as its new chief executive officer, replacing David Richardson.


• David Richardson, will step down after the World Cup that is to be held in England.


• Manu Sawhney will officially join the organisation In the month of July.Until then Sawhney will work along with outgoing CEO Richardson to ensure a smooth transition of leadership before assuming control.


• The appointment process was led by the apex body’s chairman Shashank Manohar and the Nominations Committee.

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• Indian football team head coach Stephen Constantine has stepped down after the team’s shock 0-1 defeat to Bahrain which led to its exit from the Asian Cup.


• The Anglo-Cypriot coach took over the reins of the team in 2015 for a 2-year tenure. He was given one-year contract extension twice. It was his second stint as India coach after serving as the coach in 2002-05.

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• The SpaceX-CRS-16 Dragon cargo craft departed from the International Space Station and making a remark as the first night splashdown and recovered the Dragon vehicle.


• SpaceX-CRS-16 Dragon is a Commercial Resupply Service mission to the International Space Station launched by NASA.


• The SpaceX-owned commercial cargo craft splashed down in the Pacific Ocean west of Baja California on January 13, 2019, closing out a 39-day mission.


• The cargo delivery included 40 mice sent to the space station to study the effects of micro gravity on the animals’ immune systems, muscles and bones.


• It was the second nighttime splashdown of a Dragon spacecraft, following a return before dawn in July 2017. The returned SpaceX refurbished the spacecraft for another launch, a practice the company followed for five of its resupply missions to the space station.

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• On January 16, 2019,Vishnu Hari Dalmia, one of the major leaders of the Ram Janmabhoomi protest along with Ashok Singhal and Acharya Giriraj Kishore passed away in New Delhi.


• He also served as ‘Prabandh Nyasi’ (managing trustee) of Sri Krishna Janmasthan Mathura.