These current affairs today are a part of our daily current affairs. We cover a wide range of topics from state, national, and international news that are relevant and important for competitive exams. Our team prepares today’s current affairs after going through many newspapers, such as The Hindu, Indian Express, PIB, PRS, etc.
Scroll down for current affairs for 29 January 2024.
RBI allows LIC to acquire up to 9.99% stake in HDFC Bank
- The Reserve Bank of India said it’s okay for Life Insurance Corp. of India to buy as much as 9.99 percent of HDFC Bank. LIC already has 5.19 percent of the bank, according to the bank’s info from December 31. The RBI told LIC about this in a letter dated January 25.
- The letter says LIC can get up to 9.99 percent of HDFC Bank Limited’s shares or voting rights, as per the bank’s notice.
HDFC Bank:
Founded: August 1994 (via the merger between HDFC-HDFC bank)
Headquarters: Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
Chairman: Atanu Chakraborty
CEO: Sashidhar Jagdishan
Life Insurance Corporation:
Founded: 1 September 1956
Chairperson: Siddharth Mohanty
Binny Bansal Quits Flipkart
- One of the co-founders of Flipkart, Binny Bansal, has left the board of the company. He started Flipkart with Sachin Bansal sixteen years ago, and now he’s stepping down.
- Binny decided to leave after selling his remaining shares in the company a few months ago. He’s starting a new venture in e-commerce called OppDoor.
- This new business will help other e-commerce companies grow globally by offering them different services.
- Initially, OppDoor will focus on helping e-commerce companies in the United States, Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Germany, Singapore, Japan, and Australia. Binny Bansal is also an investor and is part of the board of PhonePe, a big payments company.
Flipkart :
Founded: 2007
Founder: Sachin Bansal, Binny Bansal
Headquarters: Bangalore, Karnataka, India (operational HQ), Singapore (legal domicile)
CEO: Kalyan Krishnamurthi
India, Saudi Arabia will conduct first joint military exercise
- India and Saudi Arabia have planned a military exercise together, and it will be good for both countries. The exercise, named ‘SADA TANSEEQ,’ will happen in Rajasthan.
- The goal is to improve how the two armies work together and share their best ways of doing things. They want to be better at working together and understanding each other.
- The main focus will be on dealing with terrorism under the rules of the United Nations. During the exercise, the soldiers will work on plans, operations, practice drills, and get chances to talk with each other.
Zomato Payments gets approval from RBI to operate as payment aggregator
- Zomato Payment Pvt Ltd (ZPPL), a company owned entirely by Zomato Limited, got the green light from the Reserve Bank of India to work as an online payment helper. They now have a certificate that lets them be a payment helper and issue prepaid payment cards.
- Zomato set up ZPPL in August 2021 by getting 10,000 shares at Rs 10 each, totaling Rs 1,00,000. Zomato had mentioned earlier that they made ZPPL as a whole-owned company to apply for the payment helper approval.
- Payment helpers make it easy for online stores and sellers to take different types of payments, like credit cards, UPI, and wallet payments, without the sellers needing a complicated payment system. They’re like middlemen, making payments smoother.
- Last year, Zomato also started a UPI service with ICICI Bank. This lets users make payments to both stores and other people easily.
Zomato:
Founded: July 2008
Founders: Deepinder Goyal, Pankaj Chaddah
Headquarters: Gurugram, Haryana, India
CEO & MD: Deepinder Goyal
India-France map a defence industrial deal; Tata, Airbus sign helicopter deal
- India and France have revealed big plans to work together on important military equipment. They’ve also decided to keep track of what’s happening in space and, after talks between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and French President Emmanuel Macron, Tata Group and Airbus will work together to build H125 helicopters.
- During their discussions, the two countries signed nine agreements covering various areas, like defense and space, launching satellites, boosting healthcare, and scientific research. These deals include the plan for military equipment and the Tata-Airbus partnership. They also announced that India’s Unified Payment Interface (UPI) is now working at the Eiffel Tower.
- The French president started his two-day visit in Jaipur and was the main guest at India’s Republic Day celebrations in Delhi.
- As part of the deal, Airbus Helicopters will team up with the Tata Group to set up a Final Assembly Line (FAL) in India for making H125 helicopters. These helicopters will be produced in India and sent to neighboring countries as well.
France:
Capital: Paris
President: Emmanuel Macron
Prime Minister: Gabriel Attal
Currency: Euro
Ola founder Bhavish’s Krutrim becomes first $1 billion Indian AI startup
- Krutrim, an AI startup started by entrepreneur Bhavish Aggarwal, is now worth a billion dollars after getting $50 million in funding from investors, including Matrix Partners India. It’s the first Indian AI startup to reach this high value, just a month after unveiling a big language model.
- Krutrim, which means “artificial” in Sanskrit, is not just into AI models. It’s also working on data centers and plans to make servers and supercomputers for the AI world.
- In India, many startups and academic groups are racing to create big language models in Indian languages, called Indic LLMs. This trend started after OpenAI’s ChatGPT came out over a year ago. Countries want to have their own AI systems instead of depending on tech from the US or China.
- In Europe, investors are putting money into Mistral AI in France, which is valued at $2 billion and started just last year. The United Arab Emirates is proud of its Falcon model, supported by a research institute from the Abu Dhabi government.
Ola:
Founded: 3 December 2010
Founders: Bhavish Aggarwal, Ankit Bhati
Headquarters: Bangalore, Karnataka, India
CEO: Bhavish Aggarwal
CTO: Ankit Bhati
Maersk launches new methanol-powered container ship
- AP Moller-Maersk just introduced Ane Maersk, the biggest ship globally that runs on a type of eco-friendly hydrogen. They named it after Ane Maersk Mc-Kinney Uggla, who is the Chair of the Parent Company AP Moller Holding.
- This ship can carry eight times more containers than another ship called Laura Maersk, which became the world’s first methanol dual-fuel container ship in September 2023.
- Ane Maersk will start its first journey on February 9th from a shipyard in South Korea to China, then to Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Morocco, the UK, France, Belgium, and Germany.
- Maersk has ordered 24 container ships with engines that can use two kinds of fuel. Among them, 11 will be the same size as Ane Maersk, 6 will be bigger, and 6 will be a bit smaller.
Maersk:
Founded: 16 April 1904
Founders: Arnold Peter Møller, Peter Mærsk Møller
Headquarters: Copenhagen, Denmark
CEO: Vincent Clerc
FM Nirmala Sitharaman will present her sixth straight budget, equalling PM Morarji Desai
- M Nirmala Sitharaman, who will present the Interim Budget statement on February 1, 2024, will become the second finance minister to deliver her sixth consecutive budget, matching the record set by former PM Morarji Desai.
- Sitharaman, the first full-time female finance minister in the country, has already presented five complete budgets since July 2019. The upcoming budget will be an interim or vote-on-account budget, exceeding the records of predecessors like Manmohan Singh, Arun Jaitley, P Chidambaram, and Yashwant Sinha, who each presented five budgets in a row.
- Morarji Desai, during his time as finance minister, presented five annual budgets and one interim budget from 1959 to 1964.
- The interim budget for 2024-25, to be presented by Sitharaman on February 1, will function as a vote-on-account, granting the government the authority to allocate specific funds until a new government takes office after the general elections in April-May.
- Once approved by Parliament, a vote-on-account allows the government to withdraw funds from the Consolidated Fund of India on a pro-rata basis to cover expenses from April to July.
- Sitharaman is the third finance minister since the Modi government came to power in 2014. Initially, Arun Jaitley took charge and presented five consecutive budgets from 2014-15 to 2018-19. In 2017, Jaitley departed from the colonial-era tradition of presenting the budget on the last working day of February, moving it to the 1st of the month.
- Due to Jaitley’s health issues, Piyush Goyal, with additional charge of the ministry, presented the interim budget for 2019-20 on February 1, 2019. Goyal increased the standard deduction for salaried taxpayers by Rs 10,000 to Rs 50,000 and raised the tax rebate for taxpayers with an annual taxable income not exceeding Rs 5 lakh from Rs 2,500 to Rs 12,500.
Budaun CBG plant will produce 14 Metric tonnes of biogas everyday
- HPCL has officially opened its Compressed Biogas (CBG) Plant in Badaun. The facility can process 100 MTPD of rice straw, producing 14 MTPD of CBG and 65 MTPD of solid manure.
- With an investment of approximately Rs. 133 crore, HPCL’s CBG plant in Badaun covers around 50 acres.
- This inauguration aligns with the Indian Government’s push to decrease reliance on imported fossil fuels.
- Following the National Biofuel Policy 2018, this initiative supports the government’s target of reducing import dependence by 10%, particularly focusing on second-generation (2G) bio-refineries and Compressed Bio-Gas Plants.
Uttar Pradesh:
Capital: Lucknow
Governor: Anandiben Patel
Chief minister: Yogi Adityanath
Rohan Bopanna becomes the winner of maiden men’s doubles Grand Slam title at Australian Open
- Rohan Bopanna made history in Melbourne by winning the Australian Open men’s doubles title with his partner Matthew Ebden at the Rod Laver Arena. They beat Italy’s Simone Bolelli and Andrea Vavassori in the final.
- This victory makes Bopanna, who is 43 years and 329 days old, the oldest man ever to win a Grand Slam title in the Open era. It also puts him in the prestigious group of Indians who have succeeded at the Australian Open.
- It’s Bopanna’s second Grand Slam title; he won the French Open mixed doubles in 2018. Plus, he is now the World No. 1 in men’s doubles. While he was playing in Melbourne, the Indian government also honored him with the Padma Shri.
Australian Open 2024
Edition: 112th
Category: Grand Slam
Prize money: $86,500,000
Location: Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Champions:
Men’s singles: Novak Djokovic
Women’s singles: Aryna Sabalenka
Men’s doubles: Rohan Bopanna / Matthew Ebden
Women’s doubles: Hsieh Su-wei / Elise Mertens
Mixed doubles: Hsieh Su-wei / Jan Zieliński
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