National Political News:
1. Tragedy struck a group of college students on the Murud-Janjina beach, Raigarh as 13 of them got drowned and 12 are missing out of a group of 155. These students had gone for a swim in the sea and were swept away by strong under currents.
2. Supreme Court orders the sale of assets of Pearl Agrotech Corporation Ltd. (PACL) to enable SEBI to refund the investors duped by it in Ponzi schemes. Former CJI R.M. Lodhato head the committee appointed to monitor the said sale of assets for enablementof the market regulator SEBI to do the needful. SEBI had previously directed Pearl Green Forest Ltd. (PGF) to refund investors mainly from Punjab and Haryana.
3. Snow avalanche strikes at a border outpost in Siachen glacier area, J&K. The military outpost is at a height of 22,000 ft. with temperature of –30°C being common place. 10 soldiers are presumed to have lost their lives in the incident.
4. International fleet review of Indian Navy is on at Vizag. President Mukherjee, PM Modi and Defence minister Parrikar attend the same. 100 warships are in attendance with participation from 50 navies across the world including China and US. On show are submarines, frigates, aircraft carriers, destroyers and other naval vessels.
5. Assault on a Tanzanian student in Bangalore rakes up a racist storm. The attacker had misplaced her as a Sudanese student who was involved in a hit and run car accident in Bangalore.
International Political News:
1. The Race for the US White House (American Presidency) 2016 has begun with the first primary of Iowa going to the polls. Hillary Clinton a Democratic Party contestant polled 50% of the votes to edge out her Party rival Bernie Sanders who managed 49% of the votes. Ted Cruz of the Republicans got 28% against Donald Trumps 24%. The race now moves on to the primaries of New Hampshire and South Carolina. America has a different way of conducting presidential elections from India. The first step to be crossed by the contestant is to win their own party nominationsin contests across various states of America.
2. A UN Panel has ruled that Wikileaks founder Julian Assange be freed by the authorities in UK where he is currently holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy as a fugitive seeking asylum and passage to Ecuador. He is arraigned on 2 cases of sexual assault in Sweden and is wanted there. America wants to try him as per its own law for procurement and leakage of sensitive information vital to its interests. Assange has previously released 500,000 US Military files in 2006 on Afghanistan and Iraq. This data had been clandestinely procured by him.
3. A 6.4 magnitude Earthquake on Richter scale rocks Taiwan before dawn causing widespread damage to its high rise buildings in which 14 people are dead and 100 missing.
4. The lunar New Year celebrations extending to a week are on in China. This is the most important family holiday when business and industry in China comes to a standstill.
Business News:
1. A top venture fund of Silicon Valley Sequoia has closed a $920 million fund, capital of which is to be used to fund Indian companies-especially startups in India. Sequoia’s total assets in Indian industry funding shall rise to over $3 billion.
2. Government announces antidumping duty for import of steel as Tata Steel the Indian flagship in the sector reports a quarterly loss of Rs. 2127 crores on the back of subdued demand.
3. Oil prices in International markets rise above $30 a barrel. The FII’s continue to be net sellers in the Indian Markets.
4. The Nikkei services PMI index for India is at a 19 month high of 54.3 in January as compared to 53.6 in month of December 2015.
Science and Technology:
1. Space X of Elon Musk announces a Mars mission to be launched in 2025.
2. Scientists in London have developed in new method to combat cancer/tumor cells by addicting them to drugs. The technique is called “mitopriming”. BH3 is a addictive promising new cancer drug developed to kill family of proteins BCL-2 which function to keep cancer cells alive.
3. The Dutch police is training eagles to capture unwanted drones in the sky especially over airports and unwanted areas.
4. Illicit nuclear weapons testing can now be detected across the globe by a software. A global seismic sensing network operated by the Preparatory Commission for Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) has been developed by Erik Sudderth, Assistant Professor at Brown University in US. 149 certified seismic monitoring stations around the globe, compile the data of seismic waveform whether natural or artificially created on a 24×7 analysis basis.
5. An Indian Firm Bharat Biotech based in Hyderabad has made a major breakthrough in developing a vaccine for dreaded Zika virus. It has submitted samples to the government for approval.
6. Earth was created in a head on collision between planetary embryo called Thela which collided with a larger Earth 4.5 billion years ago when Earth was just 100 million years old. UCLA lead scientific team shows it to be a head on assault resulting in formation of a single planet and a piece breaking of now known as moon. Study of moon rocks from Apollo Missions and those found in Hawai and Arizona show no difference and are a testimony to that theory.
Sports:
1. Kiwis in Auckland beat Aussies by 159 runs in 1st ODI cricket match. New Zealand made 307 for 8 whereas Aussies could muster 148 runs in 25 overs. Trent Bolt and Matt Henry the Kiwis quickies bowled out the Aussies.
2. The 12th South Asian games with 2600 athletes from 8 countries in a 12 day event get to a flying start in Shillong. PM Modi performs the opening ceremony at the Indira Gandhi Athletics stadium. India clinch 14 gold and 5 silver medals in wrestling events and 3 gold medals in swimming on the opening day.
3. The IPL cricket auctions are on with Shane Watson commanding the highest premium at Rs. 9.5 crores. New uncapped player PawanNegi surprisingly fetches Rs. 8.5 crores.
