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• US President Donald Trump has offered three years of deportation protections for some immigrants in exchange for $5.7 billion in border wall funding in a bid to end the partial government shutdown.


• Trump's proposal also includes millions of dollars for humanitarian aid and drug detection technology. However, Democrats rejected it and called on Trump to open the government.

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• US President Donald Trump has said that Mexico is "doing nothing" to stop a new caravan of migrants which has been "fully formed" and is approaching the southern border.


• He further said that it takes a "lot of Border Agents to stop migrants if there is no border wall". Trump has demanded $5.7 billion in border wall funding.

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• Incumbent President Ashraf Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah formally entered the Presidential race for the July 20 elections.


• On the one hand, Ghani`s running mates are Afghanistan`s intelligence agency`s ex-chief Amarullah Saleh and the incumbent Vice President (VP) Mohammad Sarwar Danish.

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• The stage is set for the 15th edition of the Pravasi Bhartiya Divas that is being held for the first time in Varanasi.


• The three-day event from 21st to 23 January will be marked with scores of sessions, seminal talks by experts and luminaries in their fields, cultural programmes and visits of the NRIs to renowned places of Kashi, Sarnath and Ganga Ghats among others.


• External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj along with UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath inaugurated the Youth PBD.

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• In a big blow to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's efforts to wipe out corruption from India, absconding Punjab National Bank (PNB) fraud accused Mehul Choksi, who is wanted by investigating agencies for loan fraud, has given up his Indian citizenship by surrendering his passport to the Antiguan government.


• It is to be noted that Choksi had been living in Antigua for over a year now. On December 25, 2018, Choksi had told a court that he cannot return to India to face probe for loan fraud because his 'poor health' will not allow him to undertake a 41-hour long journey from Antigua to India.

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• In a bid to boost people-to-people ties and cultural exchanges, Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen inaugurated a Danish Cultural Institute in New Delhi.


• Headquartered in Denmark, the Danish Cultural Institute has been engaged in fostering mutual understanding between people and cultures since 1940.

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• Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman inaugurated the Tamil Nadu Defence Industrial Corridor in the Tiruchirapalli district of Tamil Nadu, with various private and public sector industries announcing an investment of around Rs 3100 crores.


• This will be the country’s second defence industrial corridor after the first one was launched in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh August last year.

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• The Uttar Pradesh Cabinet approved the proposal to rename the Mughalsarai tehsil after Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay, co-founder of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh. The proposal for renaming the Mughalsarai railway station to Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay junction was initiated in August 2018.


• Many places in Uttar Pradesh have got new names under the government of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. In 2018, the state cabinet decided to rename Allahabad city Prayagraj, and Faizabad district was renamed Ayodhya district. The Indian Air Force airport in Gorakhpur was renamed after Maha Yogi Gorakhnath.

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• Prices of the 10-year government bond fell further after Reserve Bank of India governor Shaktikanta Das flagged concerns over higher core inflation. Rising crude oil prices and worries over a wider fiscal deficit also weighed on sentiment.


• While food inflation has turned negative since October 2018, and fuel inflation has been highly volatile, inflation excluding food and fuel remains sticky at close to 6%".

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• India’s electronic imports fell for the second consecutive month in December. The decline can be attributed partly to the import duty hikes announced by the government in September. But that’s not the only factor driving imports southwards.


• The near-term slowdown in electronic imports can be indicative of slower consumption demand.

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• Shares of Larsen & Toubro Ltd opened over 3% lower after market regulator Securities Exchange Board of India denied the company permission for its first ever share buyback plan.


• However, the scrip pared all the losses and was trading 0.4% higher.

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• MS Dhoni was the top performer for India as he scored his third consecutive half century to guide the visitors to a historic ODI series win over Australia in Melbourne.


• Former Australia skipper Allan Border was quite impressed by Dhoni’s performance and he went on to claim that the veteran was ‘back with a vengeance’.

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• Former Pakistan captain Wasim Akram has said that India fast bowler Jasprit Bumrah has the best and the most effective yorker among the fast bowlers playing international cricket now.


• "Bumrah has an exceptional action, very different from other fast bowlers and yet he gets the ball to swing and also move off the deck at good pace".

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• Anurag Thakur, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and party's chief whip in the Lok Sabha, was bestowed with Sansad Ratna Award for distinguished performance as a parliamentarian.


• He is the first MP from the BJP, besides being the only Member of Parliament from north India, to have been awarded the Jury Committee Special Award.

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• Andry Rajoelina was sworn in as Madagascar's president on Saturday at Mahamasina stadium in the Madagascan capital city of Antananarivo.


• Rajoelina said in his national address during the inauguration ceremony that From now on, Malagasy people will always be victorious every time in economy, in social sector, in cultural sector".

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• The Council for Leather Exports (CLE) said P R Aqeel Ahmed has been appointed as its new chairman.


• The new vice-chairman will be Sanjay Leekha.


• The council is a trade promotion orgnisation of leather and leather products industry.

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• ISRO announced that two unmanned space missions to be launched in the year 2020 and 2021.


• Country’s first manned space flight Gaganyaan will send three humans into space for seven days by December 2021,which will carry humanoids not animals.


• Inorder to boost the Space Mission in India,the Union Cabinet had approved Rs 10,000 crore budget for the proposed human spaceflight mission.


• ISRO would launch a one month ‘Young Scientists programme to provide them with practical experience in building satellites.


• ISRO will develop an incubation center at Tripura and four more will be created at Trichy, Nagpur, Rourkela, and Indore.

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• Tony Mendez, a CIA agent who was portrayed by Ben Affleck in the 2012 Oscar-winning film 'Argo', has passed away at the age of 78.


• Mendez was best known for smuggling six American diplomats out of Iran during the 1979-81 hostage crisis. Mendez had Parkinson's disease, which he had been diagnosed with more than 10 years ago.