Daily Current Affairs- 2 January

Today's Current Affairs 2nd January 2023

INTERNATIONAL

Elon Musk becomes first ever person to lose $200 billion after Twitter takeover

• Tesla and Twitter CEO Elon Musk became the first person to lose $200 billion from his net worth. Elon Musk has seen a drop of up to $137 billion in his wealth after a recent drop in Tesla Shares. The shares of his electric car company are down nearly 65 percent. Elon Musk became the richest person in the world for the first time in January 2021 with a net worth of more than $185 billion.
• However, he was replaced by Bernard Arnault, the chief executive of luxury brand Louis Vuitton’s parent company LVMH as the world’s richest man.
• Elon Musk has applied a move-fast-and-break-things approach such as firing staff then asking them to come back and applying content policies haphazardly to justify banning the accounts of some prominent journalists who cover him.
• Commenting on Croatia’s Schengen accession and the adoption of the euro, the President of the EU Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, expressed her warm welcome for the citizens of Croatia in the borderless zone, pointing out that border controls between Croatia and the rest of the Schengen Area will now become part of the past.

Croatia's big day: Balkan nation adopts euro and joins Schengen zone

• Starting from this Sunday, January 1, 2023, Croatia will officially become a Schengen Area Member Country and will also adopt the euro as its currency after years of intensive preparations and work.
• In honour of Croatia meeting these two milestones, the European Union Commission has released a statement congratulating the country and highlighting the importance of this date for both Croatia and Europe.
• It further points out that with Croatia joining the Schengen Area, now the zone consists of 27 Member States, 23 of which are also EU countries. The Eurozone, in the meantime, now consists of 19 EU Member States and 347 million EU citizens that will share it as their common currency.

Dhaka Lit Fest to feature speakers from five continents

• The 10th edition of Dhaka Lit Fest (DLF), the largest international literary festival in Bangladesh, which was postponed three years in a row owing to the Covid-19 pandemic, is scheduled for January 5-8, 2023. The Bangla Academy in Dhaka’s historic grounds will serve as the venue for the event.
• In a press release on Friday, Sadaf Saaz, Ahsan Akbar, and Kazi Anis Ahmed—the festival’s three directors—confirmed the information.
• The Dhaka Lit Fest has long been a well-liked annual occasion on Bangladesh’s winter calendar. The eighth Dhaka Lit Fest, which was most recently held in 2019, attracted almost 30,000 attendees.
• Over the course of the four days, there will be a variety of discussions and dialogues as well as film screenings, art displays, musical performances, and cultural performances.
• Out of the more than 200 speakers scheduled to attend the 2023 edition, the DLF directors have released their initial roster of 25 speakers.

 NATIONAL

Ministry of Rural Development launches Prajjwala Challenge

• The Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana-National Rural Livelihood Mission (DAY-NRLM) has launched the Prajjwala Challenge. The Prajjwala Challenge has been launched to invite ideas, solutions, and actions that can transform rural development.
• It will provide a platform where ideas are invited from individuals, social enterprises, start-ups, the private sector, civil society, community-based organizations, academic institutions, incubation centers, investors, etc having the potential to transform the rural economy.
• The Prajjwala Challenge was launched by the Secretary of, the Ministry of Rural Development, Shri Shailesh Kumar Singh in New Delhi.
• The mission aims to look forward to ideas and solutions around Innovation technology solutions, inclusive growth, value chain interventions, enhanced women entrepreneurship, and cost-effective solutions.

Kolkata: India's first underwater metro worth over Rs 8000 crores to be operational by 2023

• India’s first underwater metro service, The Kolkata Metro Rail Corporation (KMRC) said that the East-West Metro Corridor project, is expected to be completed by December 2023. With this, another feather is being added to the crown of Kolkata Metro, the first metro railway in the country. Kolkata Metro, which started its journey in 1984, is being expanded to cover the whole city and its outskirts. The underwater metro, which will be running through the Hoogly river will connect the twin cities of Howrah and Kolkata.
• Kolkata Metro Railway Corporation has taken up the difficult take of making the tunnel with the help of German machines and the best experts. Work inside the tunnel is still in progress.
• As far as the cost of construction of the underground metro is concerned, it costs about Rs 120 crore per kilometre to build the tunnel but the manufacturing cost of the tunnel underwater, which is deep in the Hooghly river costs increased to around 157 crores by per kilometre.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah inaugurated Mega Dairy in Karnataka

• Union Home and Cooperation Minister Amit Shah inaugurated Mega Dairy at Mandya in Karnataka. The mega dairy inaugurated at a cost of Rs 260 crore would process 10 lakh liters of milk per day and the will have the capacity to increase it upto 14 lakh liters per day. 10 lakh liters of milk is processed, prosperity reaches the homes of lakhs of farmers. There are 15,210 village level cooperative dairies in Karnataka, in which about 26.22 lakh farmers deliver their milk daily and through 16 district level dairies, Rs 28 crore is deposited into the accounts of 26 lakh farmers every day.
• Around 66,000 kg milk used to be processed daily in Karnataka in 1975 while today over 82 lakh kg milk is processed daily and 80% of the total turnover goes to the farmer.

 SPORTS

Bengal gets 10th GM, India 78th in Koustav Chatterjee

• Nineteen-year-old Kolkata-based chess player, Koustav Chatterjee became India’s 78th Grandmaster. He is also the tenth GM from West Bengal. Koustav earned his first GM norm in October 2021 at a Grandmasters’ chess tournament in Bangladesh. He got his second GM norm at the Asian championship in the first week of November 2022. He crossed FIDE rating 2500 in August. Koustav is in the joint-lead with GM Abhijeet Gupta at the National Senior Chess Championship with a score of 8/10 after 10 rounds.
• GrandMaster is the highest title apart from World Champion awarded to Chess players International Chess Federation FIDE. India’s 1st Chess GrandMaster was won by Viswanathan Anand at the age of 14 in 1988.

 BANKING AND ECONOMY

RBI launches Utkarsh 2.0 for the Period 2023-2025

• The Reserve Bank of India’s Medium-term Strategy Framework for the period 2023-2025 – ‘Utkarsh 2.0’ – was launched by Shri Shaktikanta Das, Governor, RBI. The first strategy framework (Utkarsh 2022) covering the period 2019-2022 was launched in July 2019. It became a medium-term strategy document guiding the Bank’s progress towards realisation of the identified milestones. Utkarsh 2.0 would allow the central bank to both react and act proactively to confront socio-economic challenges.
• Utkarsh 2.0 harnesses the strengths of Utkarsh 2022 by retaining the six Vision statements as well as Core Purpose, Values, and Mission statement. Collectively, they create a strategic guiding path.
• The desired outputs are proposed to be realised in terms of strategies calibrated through milestones. The Reserve Bank of India attaches high importance to its medium-term strategy and monitors its implementation and progress through a Sub-committee of its Central Board.

 Gross GST collection in Dec up 15% to Rs 1.49L cr

• According to a government announcement, India’s goods and services tax receipts increased 15% year over year in December to Rs 1.49 lakh crore ($18.07 billion), suggesting robust economic activity throughout the holiday season. In November, revenue from goods and services taxes totaled Rs. 1.46 lakh crore.
• The total amount of GST revenue collected in December 2022 was Rs 1,49,507 crore, of which the CGST portion was Rs 26,711 crore, the SGST portion was Rs 33,357 crore, the IGST portion was Rs 78,434 crore (including Rs 40,263 crore from the collection of GST on goods imported), and the Cess portion was Rs 11,005 crore (including Rs 850 crore collected on import of goods).
• The government made a regular settlement of Rs 36,669 crore to CGST and Rs 31,094 crore to SGST from IGST.
• After monthly payments in the month of December 2022, the combined income for the Centre and the States is Rs 63,380 crore for the CGST and Rs 64,451 crore for the SGST.

SBI Card collaborates with Punjab & Sind Bank to launch co-brand credit cards

• Public sector bank Punjab and Sind Bank (PSB) has partnered with SBI Card to launch co-brand credit cards for the bank’s customers. PSB has also entered the credit card market as a new product segment in its portfolio as a result of this collaboration. Three card variants—the PSB SBI Card ELITE, PSB SBI Card PRIME, and PSB SimplySAVE SBI Card—have been launched by both partners. This collaboration also marks the entry of PSB into ‘credit cards’ as a new product segment under the bank’s portfolio.
• The joining price for the PSB SBI Card ELITE is Rs 4,999 plus taxes, the PSB SBI Card PRIME is Rs 2,999 plus taxes, and the PSB SimplySAVE SBI Card is Rs 499 plus taxes. The PSB SBI Cards ELITE and PRIME will be offered on the VISA platform, while the PSB SimplySAVE SBI Card will be offered on the RuPay network.