Weekly Current Affairs Feb'2019: Week II

National Events

The government of India has announced the Great Indian Bustard (GIB) as the mascot for the 13th Conference of Parties (COP) of the UN Convention on the conservation of migratory species (CMS) to be held in Gujarat next year. The mascot for the event, Great Indian Bustard has been fondly named as ‘Gibi’.
The Union Cabinet has approved setting up of a unified authority for regulating all financial services in international financial services centres (IFSCs) in the country. The first IFSC in India was set up at GIFT City in Gandhinagar, Gujarat.
India is now the second largest consumer and importer of the LPG in the world. The import of LPG grew by 12.5 per cent over the past five years to 12 million metric tons (13 million tons) in 2018-19. India now stands at the second position when it comes to the import of LPG surpassing Japan.
India celebrated the 30th Road Safety Week from 04th February (Monday) to the 10th February (Sunday).

Abu Dhabi has included Hindi as the third official language to be used in its courts, alongside Arabic and English. It is part of the efforts of Abu Dhabi to improve access to justice.

The Sarthi Sandesh Vahini vehicles were flagged off by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. The Uttar Pradesh state family welfare department has initiated the Sarthi Sandesh Vahini mission to spread awareness regarding family planning in urban and rural areas.
The government of Meghalaya has decided to rename the Dikkibandi stadium after P A Sangma.
Kerala organized ASCEND 2019 to position Kerala as a hotspot for attracting investments from India and abroad and setting up enterprises in a hassle-free manner.
PM Narendra Modi launched DD Arunprabha – a dedicated 24×7 Satellite channel for Arunachal Pradesh.
PM Narendra Modi laid Foundation Stone for the Sela Tunnel Project in Arunachal Pradesh across Sela Pass
The government of Assam has announced a new scheme called Arundhati to provide gold at free of cost to the brides.
Under the scheme, the government of Assam aims to provide 1 Tola Gold, at about Rs 38K as on today, to brides belonging to all such communities of Assam where it is customary to provide gold at the time of the wedding. The scheme is limited for economically weaker sections, whose annual income is below Rs 5 lakh. The government has set aside Rs 300 cr has been for the implementation of the Arundhati Scheme.

India’s communication satellite GSAT-31 was successfully launched from the Spaceport in French Guiana. GSAT-31 was launched from the launch vehicle Ariane 5 VA-247

The Union Cabinet has approved the abolition of institutions of Ombudsman for income tax and indirect which was set up in 2003 to deal with grievances of public related to the settlement of complaints relating to income tax.
The six-member monetary policy committee (MPC) headed by RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das has lowered the repo rate by 25 basis points to 6.25
The Reserve Bank has come out with a new policy for overseas borrowings. The RBI has rationalized the earlier policy in consultation with the Government of India. The new policy allows all eligible borrowers to raise External Commercial Borrowings (ECB) up to $750 million or equivalent per financial year under the automatic route replacing the existing sector wise limits.
The data from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) shows that the Foreign Exchange Reserves of India increased by $2.063 billion to $400.24 billion in the week to February 1.

Father Franois Laborde a 92-year-old priest from Bengal was conferred with Légion d’Honneur (Legion of Honour) in recognition of his work for specially-abled and destitute children. Father Laborde has his roots in France and is the citizen of India now.
The State Bank of India’s UK head Sanjiv Chadha has been honoured with the ‘Freedom of the City of London’ award in recognition of his contribution to promoting the bilateral relations.

The seventh annual World Government Summit is being held in Dubai (UAE). The World Government Summit is a forum dedicated to shaping the future of governments.
The second edition of the Asia LPG Summit was held at New Delhi. The two-day summit with the theme ‘LPG – Energy for Life’ showed how India’s successful Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana can become a viable model for other countries to replicate particularly those striving to provide clean cooking fuel to its people.
India Foundation, in collaboration with the Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India and Government of Assam, organized the 2nd ASEAN-India Youth Summit on the theme “Connectivity is the pathway to shared prosperity.” The Youth Summit was organised in Guwahati, Assam

India and Norway signed a letter of Intent for establishing the India-Norway Marine Pollution Initiative. The letter of intent was signed by the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change, Government of India together with the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Government e Marketplace (GeM) and Competition Commission of India (CCI) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to enable a fair and competitive environment in the e-Marketplace.

The annual multinational maritime exercise Cutlass Express was held in the vicinity of Djibouti, Mozambique and Seychelles. It was sponsored by U.S. Africa Command (USAFRICOM) and conducted by Naval Forces Africa (NAVAF). The Indian Navy was represented in the exercise through INS Trikand.

The book “Law, Justice and Judicial Power – Justice P N Bhagwati’s Approach” written by Mool Chand Sharma was launched by the Chief Justice of India, Shri Justice Ranjan Gogoi.

The International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation is observed on February 6 every year.
February 10, 2019, was celebrated as the first World Pulses Day.