DAILY GK BULLETS | JAN 11 & 12 | S.W.A.G

1. Lionel Messi wins FIFA world player award for 5th time

• Lionel Messi has won the FIFA world player of the year award for a record fifth time.
• Messi ended Cristiano Ronaldo’s two-year hold on the Ballon d’Or trophy, soccer’s top individual honour.
• The Barcelona forward regained the prize after his club won five major titles last year, leaving Ronaldo’s Real Madrid with nothing.
• Ronaldo ended up in second place, with Barcelona striker Neymar in third.
• United States World Cup-winning captain Carli Lloyd has won the FIFA women’s world player of the year award for 2015.

2015 winners • FIFA Ballon d’Or: Lionel Messi • FIFA Women’s World Player of the Year: Carli Lloyd • FIFA Puskas Award: Wendell Lira • FIFA World Coach of the Year (Men’s): Luis Enrique • FIFA World Coach of the Year (Women’s): Jill Ellis • FIFA FIFPro World XI: Neuer, Silva, Marcelo, Ramos, Alves, Iniesta, Modric, Pogba, Messi, Neymar, Ronaldo • FIFA Fair Play Award: All football organisations supporting refugees



2. China's Wanda buys 'Batman' trilogy production house

• Wanda Group said on Tuesday it is buying Hollywood’s Legendary Entertainment, the maker of films such as Batman, for $3.5 billion in the first Chinese acquisition of a major U.S. film company.
• Wanda, whose chairman, Wang Jianlin, is one of China’s richest businesspeople, has expanded rapidly into the film industry. It bought the U.S. cinema chain AMC in 2012 and is developing an $8 billion studio complex in eastern China.

3. Flipkart appoints Binny Bansal as new CEO 

• In a top management rejig, e-commerce firm Flipkart on 11 Jan 2016 has appointed Binny Bansal as the Chief Executive Officer and Sachin Bansal as the Executive Chairman. 
• In his role as the Executive Chairman, Sachin will provide strategic direction and mentor the senior leadership as also look for new investment opportunities. 
• While, Binny as the CEO will now be responsible for operationally driving the company and be accountable for Flipkart’s overall performance.

4. International Kite festival starts in Ahmedabad Gujarat 

• Chief Minister Anandiben Patel on 10 January 2016 inaugurated the 28th edition of International Kite Festival at Sabarmati River front in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. 
• The Kite festival of Gujarat marks Uttarayan, the day when winter begins to turn into summer. 
• The five-day annual event saw participation of about 98 foreign kite flyers from 28 different nations and 55 participants from 8 different states and 28 kite flyers from Gujarat. 
• Uttarayan is the sign for farmers that the sun is back and that harvest season is approaching which is called Makara Sankranti.

5. Pravasi Bharatiya Diwas holds in New Delhi 

• The 14th Pravasi Bharatiya Diwas (PBD) was held on 9 January 2016 in New Delhi. 
• The event was inaugurated by the External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and attended by Priti Patel, MoS for Employment, United Kingdom. 
• The day was celebrated by the MEA, across the world, through its missions/posts abroad. 
• The 13th PBD was held in Gujarat marked the 100th year of Mahatma Gandhi’s return to India from South Africa.

6. Nepal elected as UNICEF’s executive board member 

• Nepal has been elected to the UNICEF Executive Board, representing the group of Asia-Pacific countries for the term 2016-2018. 
• Nepal’s Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the UN Durga Prasad Bhattarai, has also been unanimously elected as Vice-President to the Bureau of the Executive Board on 9 Jan 2016.

7. DRDO successfully test fires New Tank Ammunition 

• Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) successfully test fired the new Penetration-Cum Blast (PCB) and Thermobaric (TB) Ammunition tank at Chandipur, Odisha. 
• This was specially designed for Arjun Main Battle Tank (MBT). 
• The trials were conducted jointly with Army and were aimed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the ammunitions on derelict tank fitted with instrumentation to measure the shocks, blast pressure and temperature at various locations and on advanced imaging systems. 
• The ammunitions was developed by Pune based DRDO laboratories Armament Research and Development Establishment (ARDE) and High Energy Materials Research Laboratory (HEMRL).

8. Indian-origin girl tops Mensa test in UK 

• A 11-year-old Indian-origin girl in the UK has achieved the top possible score of 162 on a IQ test of Mensa, becoming one of the youngest brainiest students in the country. 
• Mumbai-born Kashmea Wahi achieved the top score of 162 out of 162, putting her in the league of scientists Albert Einstein and Steven Hawking and in the top 1 per cent of the country’s brightest. 
• The Cattell III B Mensa test is a well-known international evaluation process and Kashmea stumbled upon it while browsing her iPad.

9. ICC announces MoneyGram as Event Partner 

• The ICC and MoneyGram International, a leading global provider of money transfer services, on 11 Jan 2016 announced an eight-year deal which confirms MoneyGram as an event partner for ICC events from 2016-2023. 
• In the current eight-year cycle, the alliance promises to reach greater heights, as the ICC will stage an impressive 17 tournaments, including six majors — two ICC World Twenty20 tournaments, two editions of the ICC Champions Trophy and two ICC Cricket World Cups.

10. 11th World Hindi Day observes on 10 January 

• The 11th World Hindi Day was celebrated on 10 January 2016. 
• The day was first observed on 10 January 2006. 
• Objective of this day is to promote use of Hindi language abroad.

11. Leonardo DiCaprio wins Golden Globe Award 

• Leonardo DiCaprio won the Golden Globe award for best dramatic actor in The Revenant on 11 Jan 2016. 
• The Revenant earned Globes for best motion picture and best director for Alejandro Inarritu. 

Best Picture (Drama)                                        The Revenant
Best Picture (Musical or Comedy)                    The Martian 
Best Actress (Drama)                                       Brie Larson (Room) 
Best Actor (Drama)                                           Leonardo DiCaprio (The Revenant) 
Best Actress (Musical or Comedy)                   Jennifer Lawrence (Joy) 
Best Actor (Musical or Comedy)                       Matt Damon (The Martian) 
Best Actress in a Supporting Role                    Kate Winslet (Steve Jobs) 
Best Actor in a Supporting Role                       Sylvester Stallone (Creed) 
Best Director                                                    Alejandro Iñárritu (The Revenant) 
Best Screenplay                                              Aaron Sorkin (Steve Jobs) 
Best Picture – Animated                                  Inside Out 
Best Picture – Foreign Language                    Hungary (Son of Saul) 
Best Original Song                                          Writing’s On The Wall (Spectre)

12. Balkrishna Garg conferred with 2015 Harikrishna Devsare Baalsahitya Award 

• Veteran poet Balkrishna Garg was honoured with the second edition of Harikrishna Devsare Baalsahitya Award 2015 for his collection of poems for children titled ‘Baal Geet’. 
• Apart from Mr. Garg, Yogendra Kumar and Hem Bhatnagar were also felicitated for their contributions to childrens literature.

13. Wawrinka wins 2016 Chennai Open title 

• World No. 4 Stanislas Wawrinka from Switzerland on 10 Jan 2016 has won the 2016 Chennai Open title of tennis. 
• In the summit clash at Nungambakkam tennis stadium in Chennai, he defeated the Aljaz Bedene from Slovenia by 6-3, 6-4 score. 
• This was his third consecutive ATP Chennai Open title for Wawrinka (won in 2014, 2015 and 2016) and overall fourth, first won it in 2011.
•  The Chennai Open is a professional tennis tournament played on outdoor hard courts. It is currently part of the ATP World Tour 250 series of the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) World Tour.

14. SC stays Centre’s notification on Jallikattu 

• The Supreme Court on 12 Jan 2016 issued an interim stay on the Centre’s January 2016 notification allowing Jallikattu and bullock cart races. 
• The Bench of Justices Dipak Misra and N.V. Ramana prima facie agreed with the arguments made by a batch of petitioners, led by Animal Welfare Board of India, that Jallikattu is “inherently cruel” and bulls cannot be used or tortured as performing animals for human festivity. 
• A stay on the January 7 notification means that the 2014 SC judgment banning jallikattu will continue to prevail during Pongal starting on January 15.

15. SEBI lowers MF exposure limits 

• The capital markets regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has lowered the exposure cap for such investments by mutual funds. 
• The SEBI Board has decided to amend the mutual fund regulations so that single issuer limit is reduced to 10 per cent of the net asset value (NAV) of the scheme, which can be increased to 12 per cent of the NAV but only after an approval from the trustees. 
• The sector-specific exposure limit has also been reduced from the current 30 per cent of the NAV to 25 per cent.
• The new norms would mitigate risks arising on account of high levels of exposure in the wake of events pertaining to credit downgrades and put mutual funds in a better position to handle adverse credit events.

16. Airbus Group appoints Ashish Saraf as its VP 

• Airbus Group on 11 January 2016 announced the appointment of Ashish Saraf as Vice-President – Industry Development, Strategic Partnerships and Offsets. 
• Saraf will look over the Group’s existing Make in India initiatives and conceive new ones for all the businesses of Airbus Group India with the aim to increase their industrial footprint in the country.

17. RINL signs MoU with Andhra Pradesh 

• Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited (RINL), the corporate entity of Visakhapatnam Steel Plant, on 11 January 2016 signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Andhra Pradesh government. 
• The MoU envisages investment of around 38500 crore rupees to take up various projects at Visakhapatnam. 
• The deal was signed during the 22nd CII Partnership Summit & 1st Sunrise AP Investment Meet’ currently under way in Visakhapatnam.

18. Kullu folk dance in Guinness Book 

• The Nati folk dance of Kullu district of Himachal Pradesh in second week of January 2016 was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest folk dance in the world. 
• Nati entered in the book as the largest folk dance in terms of participants’ number. 
• Total 9892 women participated in this folk dance in their traditional colourful Kulluvi on 26 October 2015 during International Dussehra festival.

19. Telangana becomes first State to make gender education compulsory 

• Telangana has become the first State in the country to introduce compulsory gender education at the graduate level. 
• In this regard, state government has introduced bilingual textbook titled ‘Towards a World of Equals’ on a pilot basis in engineering colleges. 
• These engineering colleges are affiliated to the Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University (JNTU-Hyderabad).

20. CIRB Hisar becomes second institute to clone buffalo 

• Scientists at the Central Institute for Research on Buffaloes (CIRB) in Hisar, Haryana have successfully produced a cloned buffalo offspring named ‘Cirb Gaurav’. 
• CIRB scientists have achieved this feat under the project entitled- Cloning for conservation and multiplication of superior buffalo germplasm. 
• With this achievement, CIRB becomes the India’s second and world’s third institute to produce cloned buffalo. 
• Karnal (Haryana) based National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI) was the India’s first institute to produce a cloned calf.

21. Ravindra Kalia passes away 

• Noted Hindi writer and journalist Ravindra Kalia passed away in New Delhi after suffering from liver cirrhosis. He was 78. 
• He was known for his works like Ghalib Chutti Sharab and Nau Saal Chotti Patni. He had served as Director of Bharatiya Jnanpith.

22. David Bowie passes away 

• British Singer David Bowie passed away. 
• The 69-year-old singer was battling cancer for 18 months. 
• He just released his 25th album, Blackstar, Jan. 8, which was his birthday.

23. Maria Teresa de Filippis, first female Formula One driver, passes away 

• Maria Teresa de Filippis, the first woman to compete in a world championship Formula One grand prix, passed away on 8 January 2016 in Italy. 
• She was 89.

24. Sr journalist Sham Rao Harnur passes away in Hyderabad

• Senior journalist and former Bureau Managerof Press Trust of India (PTI) in Hyderabad Sham Rao Harnur passed away here today after a brief illness. He was 87.