January Current Affairs

• Argentine President Javier Milei sent a letter to BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) leaders to convey the decision not to join the BRICS
• The National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) plans to take the Amul model of milk cooperatives to Kenya
• Stakeholder agreement


  Agreement signed to establish a joint venture entity in Sri Lanka
• NDDB and GCMMF (Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation) will jointly hold a majority stake of 51% in the Sri Lanka venture
• This marks the first instance of taking the Amul model to foreign shores, emphasizing NDDB's commitment to international expansion and sharing successful cooperative dairy practices
• Jagdeep Dhankhar has been appointed as the ex-officio Chancellor of Pondicherry University
• The modification in Statute 1(1) of the Pondicherry University Act of 1985 led to Dhankhar's appointment
• Penguin Random House India has announced that the former governor of the Reserve Bank of India, Raghuram Rajan, and fellow economist Rohit Lamba's new book titled 'Breaking the Mould: Reimagining India's Economic Future,' will be released
• Rajan's earlier books included Fault Lines: How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the World Economy which had also won Financial Times Business Book of the Year Award
• Global Family Day 2024 is observed on the 1st of January 2024
• Global Family Day


  Also known as World Peace Day, observed to encourage the idea of peace and unity in the world
• The United Nations General Assembly declared the International Decade for the Culture of Peace and Nonviolence for the Children of the World on the first day of the new millennium, in 1997
• Linda Grover and other initiatives included the publication of publications like "One Day in Peace - January 1, 2000"
• Chaudhary Charan Singh Haryana Agricultural University's Vice Chancellor Prof. B.R. Kamboj has been honoured with the prestigious M.S. Swaminathan Award
• Thawar Chand Gehlot, the Governor of Karnataka, presented him with this award
• The award ceremony took place at the International Conference on 'One Health One World,' held at Rajmata Vijayaraje Scindia Agricultural University at Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh
• Pakistan has successfully conducted the flight test of the indigenously developed rocket system known as Fatah-II
• Fatah-II


  A guided multi-launch rocket system developed by Pakistan, capable of hitting targets with high precision up to a range of 400 kilometres
• In October 2023, Pakistan successfully conducted a training launch of the Ghauri Weapon System
• In August 2021, Pakistan conducted a successful test of an indigenously developed Fatah-1 guided multi-launch rocket system (MLRS)
• Australian batter David Warner has announced his retirement from One Day Internationals (ODIs)
• Warner is Australia's sixth-highest run scorer in the ODI format and is only second to former captain Ricky Ponting's tally for most Centuries for Australia in ODIs
• Dommaraju Gukesh has secured his spot at the prestigious Candidates tournament, which will take place in Toronto from April 2 to 25, 2024
• Gukesh became the third Indian to make the Candidates tournament, joining R Praggnanandhaa and Vidit Gujrathi
• Koneru Humpy and Rameshbabu Vaishali will represent the country in the Women's Candidates tournament
• Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar will inaugurate the Startup Expo in Kathua
• Twenty-five startups from Northern States will showcase their products at the expo
• Six women Entrepreneurs will also participate in the startup expo
• The theme of the expo is Emerging Startup Trends in North India
• Union Science and Technology Minister Dr Jitendra Singh said a lot of development took place in the field of startups in the last nine years
• The number of Startups in the country has grown to over one lakh from about 350 in 2014
• IIT Madras is targeting incubating at least 100 start-ups across various sectors next year, in 2024
• IITM has been ranked No.1 in the 'Overall' Category for the fifth consecutive year in India Ranking 2023 released by NIRF, Ministry of Education
• The Institute has also been ranked No.1 in the 'Engineering Institutions' category in the same Rankings for eight consecutive years – from 2016 to 2023
• India will become the largest metallurgical coal importer in the world by 2026
• Rise in India's metallurgical coal imports will be aided by growing industrialization, higher steel consumption and limited availability of coking coal
• Russian and United States (US) space agencies have agreed to keep working together to deliver crews to the International Space Station (ISS) until at least 2025
• The aim is to "guarantee the presence of at least one representative of Roscosmos on the Russian segment and the presence of at least one representative of NASA on the American segment"
• Arvind Panagariya, the former Vice Chairman of National Institution for Transforming India (NITI Aayog) , has been named as the head of the 16th Finance Commission
• Ritvik Ranjanam Pandey will hold the post of secretary to the commission