February 16: India is getting for the budget season starting in the last week of February 2016.The finance minister & other government departments are keen in preparing the financial outlay for the coming year.Every day, there is news on the economic numbers, inflation, manufacturing, exports etc.,More on this front can be seen in our Latest Current Affairs capsule update for February 16.
National News:
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley launched a website called the Non-Tax Receipt Portal (NTRP) that intends to collect over 2 lakh crore annually in non-Tax receipts such as dividends, interest receipts,royalty, licence fee, sale of forms & RTI application fees.
Kolkata Police will launch a mobile application to make it easy for investigating Officers to immediately fetch the past records of Criminals.
The Index of Industrial Production (IIP) for the month of December 2015 shrank 1.3% & Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased to 5.69% in January.The data was released by the Central Statistics Office of the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation.
The 24th National Homoeopathic Congress Homeo-Vision 2016 was inaugurated by the Minister of State for AYUSH (Independent Charge) & Health and Family Welfare, Shri Shripad Yesso Naik in Nagpur.
The Mahamagam festival has begun in Kumbakonam ,Tamil Nadu where thousands of take a holy dip in the Mahamagam tank.The festival is held once every 12 years.
Sahitya Akademi’s 6 day event – Festival of Letters was inaugurated by the well known writer Manoj Das in New Delhi.This year focus of the festival is on tribal, oral and North-Eastern literature.
International News:
The Hindu Marriage Bill was passed by Pakistan’s Sindh Assembly today.It is the first state in the country to allow the minority community to register their marriages.
The Ministry of Railways signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Government of Sweden to promote efficiency and sustainability and achieve concrete results with regard to bilateral trade, investment and technology transfer.
Bank of Japan has announced a negative interest rate policy, which is a first in history.
New Appointments:
Yogesh Tyagi was appointed as the new Vice Chancellor of Delhi University (DU) by President Pranab Mukherjee.
UK Sinha will continue as the chairman of Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) till March 01, 2017.
Justice Dhirendra Hiralal Waghela was sworn-in as the Chief Justice of the Bombay High Court.The swearing in ceremony was held at Raj Bhavan in Mumbai.
Awards & Honours:
Noted Odia writer Shakuntala Baliarsingh was been nominated for this year’s Kendriya Sahitya Academy Puraskar.
Asif Kapadia has won the Bafta for his poignant documentary “Amy” on late British singer Amy Winehouse at the British Film Awards.He had previously won for sports documentary “Senna” in 2012 & Irrfan Khan-starrer “The Warrior” in 2003.
Taylor Swift won the Album of The Year award at the 2016 Grammy Awards for her 2014 album ‘1989’.
Science & Technology:
Apple will soon open its 1st technology centre in India at Hyderabad, at a cost of $25 million.The centre will help in developeing maps for in its iPhones and Mac systems.
Google’s “Project Loon”, began its tests in Sri Lanka.The project aims to provide high speed internet services through balloons.
Samsung started rolling out the Android 6.0 Marsh Mallow operating system to its Galaxy devices, beginning with the Galaxy S6 & S6 Edge smartphones.
Sports News:
The National Woman Sports Meet began at Patna, Bihar.It will end on February 17, 2016 that will see 22 states participating in this event.
Oinam Bembem, captain of the Indian women’s football team bid farewell to her career after India won the Gold medal in Woman’s football at the 12th South Asian Games.
Dominic Thiem defeated Spain`s Nicolas Almagro to win the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) Buenos Aires tournament.
Banking & Economy:
mRUPEE, a subsidiary of Tata Teleservices has tied up with Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) to provide an additional payment gateway.It will enable customers to pay for their tickets booked through the IRCTC website.
Information Technology sector is the highest paying sector in India with a median gross hourly salary of Rs 346.42, according to Monster Salary Index (MSI).The manufacturing sector gets paid the least at Rs 254.04.
Quikr launched a new app ‘Quikr Scanner’, that lets users check the condition and quality of pre-owned mobile phones listed on its platform.
