Daily Current Affairs- 11 January

Today's Current Affairs 11th January 2023

SPORTS

South Africa All-Rounder Cricketer Dwaine Pretorius Announces International Retirement

• Cricket South Africa (CSA) has confirmed that Proteas all-rounder Dwaine Pretorius has retired from international cricket with immediate effect. Since making his international debut in 2016, the 33-year-old has represented South Africa across all three formats in 30 T20 Internationals (T20I), 27 One-Day Internationals (ODI) and three Tests. He has also featured in two World Cups. Pretorius showed his prowess both with the bat and ball in the international arena, aggregating 1895 runs and scalping 77 wickets across formats.
• Announcing his retirement, the 33-year-old expressed his desire to play more franchise cricket around the world ‘to have a better balance in my career and family life.’ The all-rounder will be seen in the IPL this year as he is part of the Chennai SuperKings squad.

Suryakumar Yadav becomes fastest batter to notch up 1500 T20I runs in terms of balls taken

• Suryakumar Yadav has become the fastest player to reach 1,500 runs in T20 International cricket in terms of balls faced. The took only 843 balls to reach this landmark. In 45 matches and 43 innings, Suryakumar has scored 1,578 runs at an average of 46.41. He has three centuries and 13 half-centuries in the format, with the best individual score of 117.
• However, he is the third-fastest batter to reach the 1,500-run mark in terms of innings. The fastest batters to reach this landmark are Indian batter Virat Kohli, KL Rahul, Australian veteran Aaron Finch and Pakistan skipper Babar Azam, who all took 39 innings to score 1,500 runs in T20 International cricket. Pakistan wicketkeeper-batter Mohammed Rizwan reached the milestone in 42 innings and Suryakumar did so in 43 innings.

 OBITURY

Rahman Rahi, Valley's only Jnanpith awardee, dies at 98

• Professor Rehman Rahi, renowned poet and Kashmir’s first Jnanpith awardee took his last breath in the early hours on Monday at his residence in the Nowshera area of Kashmir. At the time of his death, the globally acclaimed poet was 98 years old. He is survived by four children.
• Born on May 6, 1925, Rahi wrote several collections of poems and translated the works of some of the celebrated poets in other languages into Kashmiri.
• He had started his career as a clerk in a government department in 1948 after which he continued his education and completed MA in Persian and English in 1950s and 60s. He was an academic at Kashmir University for most part of his life.
• Rahi had received the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1961 for his poetry collection Nawroz-i-Saba and got the Padma Shri in 2000.
• He received the highest literary honour of the country — Jnanpith award — in 2007 for his collection ‘Siyah Rood Jaeren Manz’ (In Black Drizzle).

Father of laparoscopic surgery passed away at 88

• Padma Awardee Dr Tehemton Erach Udwadia, an Indian Surgeon and Gastroenterologist, who was known as the ‘father of laparoscopic surgery in India’ passed away, at the age of 88. He was born on 15th July 1934 in the Bombay Presidency, British India (now Mumbai, Maharashtra, India).
• Tehemton E Udwadia pursued medicine and started his career as a research fellow at the King Edward Memorial Hospital and Seth Gordhandas Sunderdas Medical College in 1958 and stayed till 1962.
• In 1993, he found the Indian Association of Gastrointestinal Endo-Surgeons and he served as its President from 1993 to 1998.
• He was the 1st surgeon in India to introduce laparoscopy in surgery in 1972, and the 1st to perform laparoscopic surgery in the developing world in 1990.

 AWARDS & RECOGNITION

Golden Globes 2023: SS Rajamouli’s RRR wins Best Original Song for ‘Naatu Naatu’

• Composer MM Keeravani, along with singers Kaala Bhairava and Rahul Sipligunj, has won the Golden Globe for Best Original Song, for the track “Naatu Naatu,” from epic drama “RRR“. “Naatu Naatu,” a dance number featuring stars Jr NTR and Ram Charan, was competing against Taylor Swift’s “Carolina” from Where the Crawdads Sing, “Ciao Papa” from Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, Lady Gaga’s “Hold My Hand” from Top Gun: Maverick, and “Lift Me Up” from Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, performed by Rihanna.
• The historical epic has also been nominated in the Best Non-English Language Film category at the 80th Golden Globes. In the ‘best picture–non English segment’, “RRR” will face off with Korean romantic mystery film “Decision To Leave”, German anti-war drama “All Quiet on the Western Front”, Argentine historical drama “Argentina, 1985”, and French-Dutch coming-of-age drama “Close”.

Golden Globes Awards 2023 announced, Winners

• The 80th edition of 2023 Golden Globes show, hosted by Jerrod Carmichael, airs live on NBC and Peacock. The 80th Golden Globe Awards is the first edition of the annual spectacle to be on TV since an ethics, finance and diversity scandal involving the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the group behind the awards, led NBC to decide not to air the 2022 ceremony. As in years past, the show will hand out honors in both film and TV categories.

 BOOKS & AUTHOR

Dhoni releases autobiography of Prof. K.K. Abdul Gaffar

• Techno-educationalist, Professor K.K. Abdul Gaffar’s autobiography, ‘Njaan Sakshi’ (me as the witness), was released by cricket legend Mahendra Singh Dhoni. The book was introduced by senior journalist T.A. Shafi. The first copy was received by Marwan Al Mulla, the CEO of Dubai Health Authority (DHA), from M S Dhoni. He also presented copies of the book to dignitaries including actor Tovino Thomas present at the occasion.
• Senior Supreme Court Attorney and son of Kapil Sibal, Akhil Sibal, Former Union Minister Salim Iqbal Sherwani, Uduma MLA, C.H. Kunhambu, Kasaragod MLA, N.A. Nellikkunnu, Mangaluru City South MLA Vedavyas Kamath, participated in the event.
• Incidentally, the book includes the infamous disappearance of P. Rajan, an engineering student from Kozhikode REC, during the emergency period and recalls the pressure put on him on behalf of the government and the police to influence him as a witness in the case.

 BANKING AND ECONOMY

Axis Bank signs up with IISc to set up math and computing centre

• Axis Bank has signed an agreement with the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, to establish a Centre for Mathematics and Computing at the institute. The Axis Bank Centre for Mathematics and Computing is India’s first comprehensive Academic Research Centre on Mathematics and Computing. It will play a vital role in building the nation’s future as many contemporary and futuristic areas such as Artificial Intelligence and Data Science rely on the foundations of mathematics and computing.
• Spread over 1.6 lakh square feet of space, the Centre will have state-of-the-art labs and programmes that will benefit faculty and students from more than twenty departments of IISc. The Centre will host the new IISc B.Tech programme in Mathematics & Computing and the ongoing Interdisciplinary PhD programme in Mathematical Sciences. It is expected that over 500 engineers and scientists will benefit from the Centre every year.
• Mathematics and Computing are at the core of critical disciplines like Computational Fluid Dynamics, Computational Biology, Quantum Computing, Precision Medicine, Digital Health, Climate Science, Materials Genomics, Cybersecurity, AI, ML, and Data Science.

BharatPe receives in-principle nod from RBI for online payment aggregator

• Fintech platform BharatPe said it has received in-principle authorisation from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to operate as an online payment aggregator (PA). The company said that an in-principle nod was awarded to Resilient Payments Private Ltd, a 100 percent subsidiary of Resilient Innovations Private Ltd (BharatPe).
• RBI’s nod comes amid a slew of high profile exits the Sequoia Capital and Tiger Global-backed firm, which has been battling controversies since last year. It is currently fighting a court battle with its former co-founder Ashneer Grover alleging financial misappropriation. Grover was ousted last year in March.
• Payment aggregators are entities that facilitate e-commerce sites and merchants to accept various payment instruments from the customers. The merchants do not need to create a separate payment integration system of their own.
• The payment aggregator framework, introduced formally in March 2020, mandates that only firms approved by the RBI can acquire and offer payment services to merchants. RBI has been strict in its evaluation of entities that have applied for the payment aggregator licence.

RBI issues list of six raters to assess banks' Basel-III capital regulations

• The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) issued the list of six credit rating agencies that banks can use for the purpose of risk weighting banks’ claims for capital adequacy purposes. The six credit rating agencies are Acuite Ratings & Research Limited, Credit Analysis and Research Limited (CARE), CRISIL Ratings Limited, ICRA Limited, India Ratings and Research Private Limited (India Ratings)\ and INFOMERICS Valuation and Rating Pvt Ltd. Banks have to get ratings from these agencies to comply with Basel-III capital regulations.
• The RBI said no fresh ratings shall be obtained from Brickwork Ratings India Private Limited. In October last year, the Securities and Exchange Board of India has cancelled the Certificate of Registration (CoR) granted to Brickwork Ratings India Private Limited as a Credit Rating Agency (CRA) and directed it to wind down its operations within a period of six months.