Current Affairs Updates: 29th December 2013

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International Affairs
To prevent the risk of shutdown of the Government in January 2014, US President Barack Obama has signed a two year bipartisan federal budget bill. Both the Senate and the House of Representatives passed the legislation in November. A cross-party budget committee that was set up after 16-day government shutdown in October drafted the bill and Congressman Paul Ryan and Senator Patty Murray crafted the bill. The bill focuses to shave up to 23 billion dollars from the nation’s 642 billion dollars annual budget deficit.
The standing committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC) passed a resolution for China to ease the one child policy of the country. Now people in China can have two children if either parent is an only child. Before this, the rule was a couple may have a second child only if both parents were only children. The legislation also approved to abolish labour camps through re-education. In 1979 in order to curb the rapid population growth, the one-child policy was introduced in China.
United Nations, an intergovernmental organisation will now cut budget and staff due to the pressure from United States and other industrialized powers. Since 1945, this is the first time UN has decided to cut the staff and budget. The decision was taken as the governments of members are suffering from financial crisis.

National Affairs
Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Arvind Kejriwal is the second IIT graduate to become Chief Minister of Delhi. Also he is the youngest Delhi CM in the age of 45. After his Goa counterpart Manohar Parrikar, Kejriwal is the second CM with an IIT background. 45-year-old Kejriwal has studied Mechanical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Khargapur and passed out in 1989 while Parrikar passed out as a metallurgical engineer from IIT, Mumbai. Kejriwal’s ministerial colleagues, Saurabh Bharadwaj and Manish Sisodia also have an engineering background though not form IIT.
India and United States has signed Rs 4,000 crore deal for six more C-130J Super Hercules Special Operations aircraft for the Indian Air Force. The Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has passed this proposal. Both countries inked the deal under which the US Air Force will supply the aircraft to the Indian Air Force through the Foreign Military Sales route. At a cost of around Rs 5,500 crore, the first lot of six aircraft of the IAF had acquired by India.
Guardian, a new safety application has been introduced by Microsoft India, which enables Windows phone users’ friends and family to track them in real time. The application was launched in Hyderabad which is available exclusively for Windows phone users in India. User of Guardian can take help through an international code signal of extreme distress “SOS” alert call button and can also connect to police, security agencies and hospitals easily in times of distress. For this, users need to add the names of friends, family members and security groups to the settings and then the application can be used to alert them in emergency situation via the SOS button.

Awards & Honours
Tyler Armstrong has become the youngest person to reach the summit of Aconcagua which is the highest mountain of America. With his father and Tibetan Sherpa Lhawang Dhondup, the USA based 9-year old boy climbed the mountain in the Argentine Andes. Above 100 people have died in their attempt to conquer Aconcagua that rises 6962 metres above the sea level. Prior this, he climbed Mount Kilimanjaro – Africa’s highest peak in 2012. In 2008, USA’s Matthew Moniz was the youngest person to climb the mountain at the age of 10 before Tyler.
Two Indian Americans, Dr. Karunesh Ganguly of San Francisco and Dr. Hardeep Singh of Houston are among 102 scientists who grabbed the Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers. US President Barack Obama will give the awards at a ceremony in Washington, DC in the coming year. The award is known as the highest US honour for young professionals including scientists, researchers and engineers.

Sports
At the 34th National Archery Championships, Deepika Kumari has clinched her 6th consecutive title at JRD Tata Stadium in Jamshedpur. With this victory, she has made a record of winning the most individual titles at the national meet. Prior it was Dola Banerjee who won five national titles. With seven consecutive individual titles, Archer Krishna Ghatak has made the record of winning most individual national titles between 1975 and 1982.
 
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