Current Affairs in Short: 10 January 2022

Prof Chandrashekhar Patil, noted Kannada writer and activist, passes away

• Professor Chandrashekhar Patil, a noted Kannada writer, and activist passed away in Bengaluru on January 10, 2022. The 82-years old writer was also popularly known as Champa.

• Patil was suffering from an age-related illness for the past two years. Champa, the proponent of Kannada medium education, was one of the prominent ‘Bandaya Sahithi’ in the Kannada Literary School of Thought.

• Chandrashekhar Patil, being a Bandaya writer, was an important voice in the public discourse of Karnataka for over half a century.

• Patil’s street play Jagadambeya was against the imposition of Emergency by the then Prime Minister of India Indira Gandhi. He also played a significant role during the Gokak Agitation in the 1980s.

Prime Minister Modi to inaugurate 11 new medical colleges in Tamil Nadu

• PM Modi will inaugurate 11 new Government Medical Colleges across Tamil Nadu as well as the new Campus of the Central Institute of Classical Tamil in Chennai on January 12, 2022.

• The medical colleges in Tamil Nadu have been established at an estimated cost of Rs. 4,000 crores. Out of the amount, Rs. 2,145 crores have been provided by the Central Government and the rest by the Tamil Nadu Government.

• The districts in Tamil Nadu in which the medical colleges are being established are Namakkal, Virudhunagar, Tiruppur, The Nilgiris, Thiruvallar, Dindigul, among others.

• As per the PMO, the new campus of the Central Institute of Classical Tamil in Chennai is in line with PM Modi’s vision of protecting and preserving the Indian heritage and promoting classical languages.

First-ever Start Up India Innovation week begins from January 10, 2022

• The first-every Start-Up Indian Innovation Week is being organized by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade from January 10 to January 16, 2022.

• The week-long virtual celebration aims at commemorating the 75^th year of India’s Independence ‘Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav’ and has been designed to showcase the depth and spread of entrepreneurship in India.

• The week-long event was launched by the Union Minister for Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal. India has been emerging as a global innovation hub, boasting the third-largest startup ecosystem in the world.

• Prime Minister Modi, on January 15, will interact with the Startups and will address the Startup India Innovation week.

Former RBI Governor Urjit Patel appointed as Vice-President of AIIB

• The Former Governor of Reserve Bank of India Urjit Patel has been appointed as a Vice-President of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. It is a Beijing-based multilateral development bank.

• Patel will succeed the outgoing Vice-President of AIIB DJ Pandian. He was in charge of sovereign and non-sovereign lending of the AIIB in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific Islands.

• 58 years old Urjit Patil will join the new position on February 1, 2022, and will be one of the five Vice-Presidents of the AIIB with a tenure of three years.

• Patel had taken over as the Governor of Reserve Bank of India succeeding Raghuram Rajan in 2016 and had served the position till December 2018.

Noida ranked ‘Cleanest Medium City’ in India

• Noida has bagged the Cleanest Medium City in Swachh Survekshan 2021. It is an annual survey of hygiene, cleanliness, and sanitation in India.

• The high rank achieved by Noida in Swachh Survekshan Survey 2021 is a miraculous victory as in the 2018 survey, the city was ranked at 324th.

• Noida has also achieved a 5-star garbage-free city rating which is a higher achievement from having received a 3-star garbage-free city rating in 2020.