Weekly Important Current Affairs

1. 
   
   The world’s first high-speed train in areas with extremely low temperature started operation in China 01 December 2012.This train move with a speed of 350 Kmph in the areas of minus 40 degrees temperature. This is the fastest train world in this areas.
   
   
2. The brainstorming session (Chintan Shivir) of Congress will be held in Jaipur between January 18 and 20 to discuss political and economic situations and seek new ideas ahead of the next Lok Sabha elections.
   
   
3. Hip-hop singer Dr. Dre was topped Forbes list of 25 highest-paid musicians in 2012.
   
   
4. Pop Singer Katy Perry was honored with Billboard’s “Woman of the Year 2012” (The Star of the Women) award in New York.
   
   
5. Grandmasters M R Lalith Babu and Sergei Tiviakov scored final round victories to reach the top of the table with 9.5 points in the Apollo Engineering College Commonwealth Chess Championships in Chennai on 01 December 2012.
   
   
6. Obama administration was  appointed a visually-challenged Indian-American Sachin Dev Pavithran to a key administrative post in an independent US agency devoted for people with disabilities. Mr. Pavithran is the Program Director of the Utah Assistive Technology Program at Utah State University’s Center for Persons with Disabilities, a position he has held since 2011.
   
   
7. Ravindra Jadeja became first Indian and only eighth batsman in the first-class cricket history of world to score three triple-centuries in the unbeaten 320 runs against Railways in the Ranji Trophy Group A match on 2 December 2012 in Rajkot.
   
   
8. Software engineers as well as neuroscientists at University of Waterloo, Canada claimed that they have developed a closest model of the functioning human brain, known as Spaun which is advanced enough for passing the basic IQ tests. This is the virtual brain which functions on the supercomputer and comprises of a digital eye, which can be used for visual input.
   
   
9. Railways with Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited (RINL) to setup a wheel factory at Raebareli  in the Congress president’s(Sonia Gandhi’s) constituency.Pawan Kumar Bansal, the Railway Minister will proposed Rs 500 crore for this project in the 2013-14 Railway Budget.
   
   
10. IOC suspends IOA, Indian athletes can't compete in Olympics.
    
    
11. Anna Ushenina of Ukraine 02 December 2012 won the women’s World Championship crown, defeating Antoaneta Stefanova of Bulgaria in the first set of tie-break games.The Ukrainian won $60000 for her efforts in the championship and gets to play the next World championship against Yifan Hou of China next year as part of the new cycle in the women’s World championship.
    
    
12. Cochin International Airport is set to become the first airport in the country to use solar power for running its utility grid system.
    
    
13. On 3 December 2012 KPMG released a “Indian Fraud Survey 2012″, according to this survey  Corporate frauds in India have increased in the past two years . The report indicated that computer-related and e-commerce frauds were the major concerns especially in the coming few years.
    
    
14. Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan had  given the prestigious Medal of Honour by the Prince of Morocco(Moulay Rachid ) while attending the 12th Marrakech International Film Festival on 3 December 2012.
15. Senior Indian Police Service officer Ranjit Sinha on 03 December 2012 took over as the new Central Bureau of Investigation director .A 1974-batch Bihar cadre officer, Sinha, who is also holding charge as director general Indo-Tibetan Border Police, succeeds A P Singh who retired on November 30.
    
    
16. South Africa retained their status as the top-ranked team in the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) Test Championship table following their 309-run victory over Australia on 03 December 2012 in the third and final Test in Perth, which gave them a 1-0 series win.
    
    
17. Air India beat Bharat Petroleum 3-1 to emerge champion in the 23rd Lal Bahadur Shastri hockey tournament at the Shivaji Stadium New Delhi on 4 December 2012.
    
    
18. Besse Cooper, the woman listed as the world’s oldest person was died on 4 December 2012 in a Georgia nursing home at the  age of 116. Meanwhile, a Chinese woman, Yao Defen, was certified as the tallest in the world was also died.
    
    
19. After  Successful working of  Curiosity landed in Gale Crater, Mars on  6 August 2012,NASA  was announced plans to send a new robotic explorer to the the Red Planet, Mars in 2020. The announcement comes a day after Nasa released the results of the first soil tested by the Curiosity rover, which found traces of compounds like water and oxygen that are necessary for life.
    
    
20. Bangalore ranks better than New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata amongst Indian cities in overall global quality of living index, according to a Mercer 2012 Quality of Living Survey.
    
    
21. India now stopped the $25 million aid to Maldives  due to displeasure of India over the termination of the $500 million GMR project by Maldives.
    
    
22. The Reserve Bank of India signed a bilateral swap arrangement (BSA) with the Bank of Japan to swap their local currencies for an amount of $15 billion for a three year period on 4 December 2012.The BSA will effect from 5 December 2012.
    
    
23. Kobe Bryant, 34, achieved the title of youngest ever player to reach the milestone of 30000 career points in NBA (basketball) on 5 December 2012. He achieved the milestone when he took Los Angeles Lakers towards the 103-87 victory over New Orleans Homets.
    
24. Suresh Vaswani, the former co-CEO of Wipro was appointed as the President of Dell Services, the computer-maker, on 6 December 2012. He replaced Steve Schuckenbrock, the former president of Dell Services.
    
25. Parathasarathi Shome Appointed as advisor to finance minister of india