22nd August 2014 - Daily Current Affairs updates

22nd August 2014 - Daily Current Affairs updates


National Affairs

• Month-long Madras Week celebrations - to mark the city's 375th birthday begin today .
• Organized by the Directorate of Film Festivals of the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting at Siri Fort Auditorium in New Delhi, the three-day long North-East Film Festival (first edition) begins today. 
• Opening film is 'Khawnglung Run’ by Mapuia Chawngthu
• The Assam and Nagaland governments, in the presence of Union MoS for Home Kiren Rijiju, mutually agreed to resolve the border row amicably and to form a joint mechanism to work out a solution to the problem.
• Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s comment describing the 2012 Delhi gang-rape as “one small incident of rape in Delhi” that hit Indian tourism has been picked up for strong condemnation on social media. "I regret words used was construed as insensitive, not my intention" he later apologized.
• The Supreme Court today asked the Centre to decide by September 9 on the status of Leader of Opposition (to represent the Lokpal Selection committee) and made it clear that the Lokpal legislation could not be put into cold storage.
• The week-long Srinagar Book Fair organized by the National Book Trust (NBT) will kick start tomorrow with an aim to promote book reading habits among the people and revive the intellectual culture in Kashmir Valley.

Deaths

• Kannada literature's best known figure, Jnanpith and Padma award winner U R Ananthamurthy died in Bangalore today evening after a prolonged illness.  
• Some of his famous works are 

1. Samskara
2. Bhava
3. Bharathi Pura and 
4. Avasthe.

Business & Economy

• Union finance ministry today increased import duty on sugar to prevent flow of import entering the contry. The duty on raw and refined sugar has been increased from 15% at present to 25% by a notification dated 21 August.
• Government will initially spend Rs 69,524 crore on various IT and telecom projects under the 'Digital India' programme'. 
• Arvind Lifestyle Brands, a subsidiary of Arvind, a leading integrated textile player, on Friday, announced a tie-up with Gap Inc. of the U.S. to open Gap stores in India (first stores are expected to open in Mumbai and Delhi in mid-2015).
• Undisclosed income to the tune of Rs. 90,000 crore was detected during 2013-14 in various searches and surveys conducted by the Income Tax department, a top official from the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) said today.

Sports

• Flying Singh Milkha Singh, spinner Bishan Singh Bedi, singer Honey Singh and actress-turned-politician Gul Panag are among the celebrities who have put their names to an online petition to protest the International Basketball Federation’s (FIBA) refusal to allow Sikh players from playing in international fixtures because of their turbans.