The Daily Brief – 15th January 2017

The Daily Briefs are a comprehensive update of current affairs for the day. To know more about them, read this. If you’d like to receive updates for current affairs every day, you’ll need to subscribe here, and all the previous Briefs can be accessed at the archives here. Also, do consider enrolling to our mock tests!

• 69th Army Day is being observed today (15th January 2017). The day marks the taking over of the Indian Army by the first Indian Commander-in-Chief, Field Marshal KM Cariappa, on January 15, 1948. He took over the reins of the Army from Lieutenant General Sir Francis Butcher, the last British Commander-in-Chief and became the first Commander-in-Chief of the independent India.

  

• In Madhya Pradesh, Indore district witnessed inauguration of first of its kind scheme of the country. Digital Dakiya, which aims at encouraging cashless transactions. Digital Dakiya or Digital Postman will visit different places to teach and encourage people about cashless transactions and its benefits. State Finance Minister Jayant Malliya has inaugurated the scheme at Indore.
• The two-day annual camel festival has begun with much fanfare in the presence of foreigners and domestic tourists. District Collector Ved Prakash flagged off a procession from Junagarh which culminated at Karni Singh Stadium in Bikaner, Rajasthan.
• Rajeev Singh, Member (Finance) in Prasar Bharati Board, will take charge as interim CEO of the public broadcaster after S C Panda retires in February.
• National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), the umbrella organisation for all retail payment systems in the country has declared Rs. 54.90 crore worth of prize money to over 3.42 lakh winners of NITI Aayog’s Lucky Draw Schemes for consumers and merchants. The two schemes are – Lucky Grahak Yojana (LGY) and Digi-Dhan Vyapar Yojana (DVY).
• Shatrughan Sinha, who completed close to five decades in the film industry, was presented the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 62nd Jio Filmfare Awards 2017.
• Former Punjab Chief Minister Surjit Singh Barnala, who took over reins of the state in the difficult period when militancy was at its peak in the mid-80s, died in Chandigarh on 14th January 2017 at the age of 91.
• At the glittering Filmfare awards, “Dangal” swept away three of four major awards —  Best Film, Aamir Khan won Best Actor and Nitesh Tiwari won Best Director award while Alia Bhatt won the Filmfare Best Actor Award (Female) for her performance in “Udta Punjab”.
• Jammu and Kashmir has recorded highest electoral enrolment during special summary revision of electoral rolls – 2017. About 2 lakh new voters have been enrolled during the special summary revision which includes about 87 thousand men and over 1 lakh females.
• Securities and Exchange Board of India, SEBI, has decided to lower broker fees by 25 per cent to 15 rupees per transaction of one crore rupees as part of calibration of various other fees collected by the regulator from different market intermediaries.