Current Affairs 28th January 2018

Current Affairs 28th January 2018 - Important Points

• Padma Awards 2018 announced on - 25th January 2018
• India, ASEAN member states release joint statement ‘Delhi Declaration’on- 25th January 2018
• 'Shakti' app for women's safety launched by - Himachal CM

Current Affairs 28th January 2018 - Details

Padma Awards 2018 announced on - 25th January 2018

The Padma Awards, one of the highest civilian awards of the country, were announced on January 25th, 2018 on the occasion of Republic Day every year.

There are three categories of awards:

• For exceptional and distinguished service - Padma Vibhushan
• For distinguished service of high order- Padma Bhushan
• For distinguished service in any field - Padma Shri

The Awards are conferred to people belonging to various disciplines or fields including public affairs,art, social work, science and engineering, medicine,literature, trade and industry, and education, sports and civil service.

The President of India presented these awards at ceremonial functions that are held around the months of March and April every year at Rashtrapati Bhawan. President Ram Nath Kovind has approved conferment of 85 Padma Awards including two duo cases, in which case the award is counted as one this year.

The list comprises 9 Padma Bhushan, 3 Padma Vibhushan and 73 Padma Shri awardees.
14 are women, 16 belong to other categories of foreigners/NRI/PIO/OCI and 3 are posthumous among the contendors.

India, ASEAN member states release joint statement ‘Delhi Declaration’on- 25th January 2018

India hosted the leaders of the ten member states of the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) for two-day ASEAN-India Commemorative Summit that started on January 25th, 2018 in New Delhi, with the theme of ‘Shared Values, Common Destiny’.

The two-day summit commemorated the 25th Anniversary of ASEAN-India Dialogue Relations, saw the highest level of participation by delegates.
Leaders of ten ASEAN nations including Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore,Vietnam, Indonesia, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and Brunei attended the event in the national capital.

The summit comes at a time when India is making a strategic shift in its regional policy, to increase its previous 'Look East' policy to the new 'Act East' policy. It also comes in the China's growing economic and military assertiveness backdrop in the region.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi also held bilateral meetings with the leaders of the Southeast-Asian nations on the sidelines of the summit. The important focus areas of the meetings included security, connectivity and counter-terrorism.

Delhi Declaration of the ASEAN-India Commemorative Summit:

• The leaders, while recognising the achievements made more than the past 25 years through ASEAN-India dialogue relations and to appreciate India’s contribution to the regional peace, security and prosperity agreed to the following points:
• To further strengthen and deepen the ASEAN-India Strategic Partnership for mutual benefit, across the whole spectrum of political security, economic, socio-cultural and development cooperation, in order to build a peaceful, harmonious, caring and sharing community in the region.
• To continue to exert towards the full, effective and timely implementation of the Plan of Action to Implement the ASEAN-India Partnership for Peace, Progress and Shared Prosperity between 2016 to 2020.
• In order to further increase high-level engagement and cooperation within the existing framework of the ASEAN-India Dialogue Partnership and ASEAN-led mechanisms, such as the ASEAN-India Summit and the East Asia Summit (EAS).
• For the continued support and contribution towards ASEAN integration and ASEAN Community building process, towards the realisation of the ASEAN Community Vision 2025.

'Shakti' app for women's safety launched by - Himachal CM

The Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh, Jai Ram Thakur launched the ‘Shakti’ app for women’s safety in the state on January 26th, 2018.

The app comes with a panic button and was developed by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) of the
Himachal Pradesh government. It would be available in both Hindi and English languages and won't be requiring internet connectivity.

Important Highlights

• Shaking the device would trigger the app to send its location through GPS.
• Once triggered, the app would automatically be sending a message to the nearest police control room.
• It would also be starting to record audio and video after 20 seconds.
• In addition to that, the Chief Minister also launched the 'GUDDIYA' helpline number 1515 and the 'Hoshiyar Singh' helpline number 1090.

Main Objective

• The main objective behind the app launch and the helpline is to fight crimes against women in the state.
• The CM's office would monitor Hoshiyar Singh helpline on a 24x7 basis.
• The information gathered through this will then be used by the state government to crackdown on the drug, forest and mining mafias in the state.