World News -Foreign Diplomacy-TechNews-Artificial_Intelligence-BurningIssues

1. Walmart to open new store in India after 2-year gap  i. After a gap of two years, US retail major Walmart will open a new cash and carry store in Agra as it returns focus on India.  ii. The company, which opened its last store in Bhopal towards the end of 2012, has said it will focus on cash and carry business in India in the absence of clarity on FDI in multi-brand retail trade. iii. "Walmart is committed to India and we are focused on our growth plans... We have recently received all internal approvals for opening a new store in Agra, our second one in the city," Walmart spokesperson told PTI. 2. Jyotsna Suri elected as the President of the FICCI i. Jyotsna Suri, Chairperson of Bharat Hotels, on 20 December 2014 was elected as the President of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI). ii. Suri succeeded Sidharth Birla. iii. Alok B Shriram, deputy managing director of DCM Shriram Industries Ltd, assumed the charge of the presid...

1. Walmart to open new store in India after 2-year gap  i. After a gap of two years, US retail major Walmart will open a new cash and carry store in Agra as it returns focus on India.  ii. The company, which opened its last store in Bhopal towards the end of 2012, has said it will focus on cash and carry business in India in the absence of clarity on FDI in multi-brand retail trade. iii. "Walmart is committed to India and we are focused on our growth plans... We have recently received all internal approvals for opening a new store in Agra, our second one in the city," Walmart spokesperson told PTI. 2. Jyotsna Suri elected as the President of the FICCI i. Jyotsna Suri, Chairperson of Bharat Hotels, on 20 December 2014 was elected as the President of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI). ii. Suri succeeded Sidharth Birla. iii. Alok B Shriram, deputy managing director of DCM Shriram Industries Ltd, assumed the charge of the presid...

1. Walmart to open new store in India after 2-year gap  i. After a gap of two years, US retail major Walmart will open a new cash and carry store in Agra as it returns focus on India.  ii. The company, which opened its last store in Bhopal towards the end of 2012, has said it will focus on cash and carry business in India in the absence of clarity on FDI in multi-brand retail trade. iii. "Walmart is committed to India and we are focused on our growth plans... We have recently received all internal approvals for opening a new store in Agra, our second one in the city," Walmart spokesperson told PTI. 2. Jyotsna Suri elected as the President of the FICCI i. Jyotsna Suri, Chairperson of Bharat Hotels, on 20 December 2014 was elected as the President of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI). ii. Suri succeeded Sidharth Birla. iii. Alok B Shriram, deputy managing director of DCM Shriram Industries Ltd, assumed the charge of the presid...

1. Walmart to open new store in India after 2-year gap  i. After a gap of two years, US retail major Walmart will open a new cash and carry store in Agra as it returns focus on India.  ii. The company, which opened its last store in Bhopal towards the end of 2012, has said it will focus on cash and carry business in India in the absence of clarity on FDI in multi-brand retail trade. iii. "Walmart is committed to India and we are focused on our growth plans... We have recently received all internal approvals for opening a new store in Agra, our second one in the city," Walmart spokesperson told PTI. 2. Jyotsna Suri elected as the President of the FICCI i. Jyotsna Suri, Chairperson of Bharat Hotels, on 20 December 2014 was elected as the President of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI). ii. Suri succeeded Sidharth Birla. iii. Alok B Shriram, deputy managing director of DCM Shriram Industries Ltd, assumed the charge of the presid...

The United Nations (UN) on 18 December 2014 sent a team of international experts to help Bangladesh in cleaning up the Sundarbans oil spill. The team belonging to the United Nations Disaster Assessment and Coordination (UNDAC) was sent on a request from Bangladesh government. The UN team will help Bangladesh government in the ground work and will also conduct an assessment and advise on recovery and risk reduction measures. The team comprises of experts from Britain, European Union, France and the United States. Besides, the UN asked Dhaka to impose a complete ban on the movement of commercial vessels through the Sundarbans.

1. ISRO successfully launches GSLV Mark-III i. ISRO successfully carries out human crew module experiment; module safely splashes down into Bay of Bengal off Andaman and Nicobar Islands. ii. Also known as LVM3/CARE, this suborbital experimental mission was intended to test the vehicle performance during the critical atmospheric phase of its flight and this carried passive (non functional) cryogenic upper stage. iii. With today’s successful launch, the vehicle has moved a step closer to its first development flight with the functional C25 cryogenic stage. 2. 26/11 trial: Pak court grants bail to Lakhvi i. LeT operations commander Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, one the seven Pakistani nationals accused of planning and abetting the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, was granted bail on Thursday by the Anti-Terrorism Court. ii. The seven accused — Lakhvi, Abdul Wajid, Mazhar Iqbal, Hamad Amin Sadiq, Shahid Jameel Riaz, Jamil Ahmed and Younis Anjum — are facing trial at the Adiala Jail in Raw...

1. NASA’s Kepler mission discovers ‘super-Earth’ i. NASA’s planet-hunting Kepler spacecraft, which is carrying out a new mission has made its first exoplanet discovery — a ‘super-Earth’ located 180 light-years from Earth. ii. This led to the discovery of a planet, HIP 116454b, which is 2.5 times the diameter of Earth and follows a close, nine-day orbit around a star that is smaller and cooler than our Sun, making the planet too hot for life as we know it. iii. The discovery was confirmed with measurements taken by the HARPS-North spectrograph of the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo in the Canary Islands, which captured the wobble of the star caused by the planet’s gravitational tug as it orbits. 2. Lakhvi booked again; to remain in jail i. Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi will remain in jail for at least three more months with Pakistani authorities on Friday slapping stringent provisions under public security against the key accused in the 2008 Mumbai attack, a day after a court gave him b...

1. Suicide bomb, gunfight at Afghan bank, civilians inside. i. Taliban militants detonated a suicide bomb and stormed a bank in southern Afghanistan . ii. The attackers forced their way inside after the bomb exploded at the entrance of the Kabul Bank branch in Lashkar Gah killing at least six people, the capital of the insurgency-racked province of Helmand. iii. A Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility for the attack on Kabul Bank, an institution that nearly collapsed in 2010 in a $900 million fraud case that underlined endemic corruption in Afghanistan.  2. Lok Sabha passed NCT of Delhi Laws (Special Provisions) Amendment Bill, 2014. i. The Lok Sabha passed the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi Laws (Special Provisions) Amendment Bill, 2014. The bill was presented in Lok Sabha by the Union Urban Development Minister Venkaiah Naidu. ii. The Bill seeks to amend the National Capital Territory of Delhi Laws (Special Provisions) Second Act, 2011 as the deadlines...