Daily Current Affairs - 2nd October 2014

1. Modi launches 'My Clean India' campaign

Ø Making an appeal for a non-political movement driven by patriotism, Mission on the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.

Ø PM Narendra Modi flagged off the mission at Valmiki Basti in Delhi

Ø He also invited nine people – Goa Governor Mridula Sinha, Shashi Tharoor, cricket star Sachin Tendulkar, actors Salman Khan, Priyanka Chopra and Kamal Haasan, industrialist Anil Ambani, yoga practitioner Baba Ramdev, and the crew of the TV serial Tarak Mehta ka Ulta Chashma – to join him in his cleanliness mission

                          

2.  India contributes $1 million to UN women’s body

• External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj handed over the cheque as India’s contribution to the core voluntary budget of UN Women to Under-Secretary Generaland Executive Director of UN Women, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka
• India’s existing total contribution to $5 million to the UN body.
• India is one of the founding members of the Executive Board of the UN Women, and is presently serving on the UN Women’s Executive Board.

3. First offshore wind power project to come up in Gujarat

• The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) signed a MoU to form a joint venture company for setting up a 100 MW offshore wind power project off the Gujarat coast.

• The MoU was signed between MNRE, National Institute of Wind Energy and a consortium of partners consisting of NTPC, Power Grid Corp, Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency, Power Finance Corp, Power Trading Corp and Gujarat Power Corporation Ltd.

4. Mallya re-appointed as USL chairman

• Shareholders of United Spirits Ltd (USL), controlled by Diageo Plc., have approved the re-appointment of Vijay Mallya as Chairman of the company

• also, Mr. Mallya remains United Breweries (Holdings) Ltd’s (UBHL) nominated director

5. Amazon to set up data centre in India

• Amazon, which offers cloud services under Amazon Web Services (AWS), is looking to aggressively expand its foothold in the Indian market, which has players like Google and IBM also offering similar services.

• Amazon founder and chief - Jeff Bezos 

• software giant Microsoft had said it will set up three data centres in India

6. Chetan Bhagat New Novel Released  " Half GirlFriend " on 1st October

• The novel is based on love story

7. Centre clears Jet CEO’s appointment

• Jet Airways (India) said it had received approval from the Ministry of Civil Aviation for the appointment of Cramer Ball as its Chief Executive Officer (CEO).

•  He will lead an extensive three-year business plan to turnaround the airline

8. NATO's New head Jens Stoltenberg takes over

• He is Former  Norwegian Prime Minister

•  He is the 13th  Secretary-General of NATO in the trans-Atlantic organisation’s 65-year existence.