1. Zee Jaipur Litt. Festival
    1. Books: More Important
    2. Books: Less important
    3. Movies in News
  2. Places in News
    1. Gujarat
    2. Kerala
    3. Uttar Pradesh
    4. Andhra Pradesh
    5. Other States

Zee Jaipur Literature Festival

8th edition of this festival, held at Jaipur’s Diggi Palace.

Three Awards at Jaipur festival:
DSC Prize for South Asian Literature ($50,000)
Ojas Art Award Bhajju Shyam (Gond artist) won 1st Prize – 51,000 rupees.
Khushwant Singh Memorial Prize for Poetry Poet Arundhathi Subramaniam  for her collection When God is a traveler [icon type=”shopping-cart”]

 

Books: More Important
Amish Tripathi
Ashok Srinivasan His first short-story collection “Book of Common Signs” won Hindu Prize 2014 at Lit-For-Life-2015 festival.
Dalai lama Freedom in exile [icon type=”shopping-cart”]
Javier Moro
Newspaper Kiran B. Vadodaria became President of Indian newspaper society.
Pablo Neruda This Nobel winner Poet was allegedly poisoned 40 years ago by military dicatorship of Chile. Now Government opening new investigation.
Perumal Murugan
Prabhu Nath Dwivedi Won the Sahitya Akademi Award for Sanskrit, 2014. Short-story collection Kanakalochanaha.
Pranab Mukherjee The Dramatic Decade: The Indira Gandhi Years [icon type=”shopping-cart”]
Ramachandra Guha MAKERS OF MODERN ASIA [icon type=”shopping-cart”]
Robert Galbraith
Shashi Tharoor India Shastra: Reflections on the Nation in Our Time [icon type=”shopping-cart”]
The Hindu Malini Parthasarathy became the new editor
Vinod Mehta

Current Affairs Books Authors & Awards

Books: Less important for Exams
Aatish Taseer The Way Things Were
Amy Poehler Yes please (Fiction)
Atul Gawande Being Mortal
Bahar Dutt first book: Wars – Dispatches from a Vanishing World
Chitra Viraraghavan The Americans
Christel Devadawson Out of line (Cartoons of Indian politics)
Dilip Hiro Indians in a globalizing world
Esther Freud Mr Mac and Me;
Habib Rehman Borders to Boardroom. (he is the brain behind ITC hotelchain)
Kamla Mankeka Breaking News: A Woman in a Man’s World;
Margaret Atwood Stone Mattress- 9 short stories
Nickunj Malik Tale Spin
Oxford dictionary Included Indian words like Keema and Papad.
Rainder Singh Your dreams are mine now- love story from Delhi university.
Sandip Roy Don’t let him know. (Novel)
Somnath Batabyal The Price You Pay
Venkat Dhulipala Creating a new Medina (about the partition)

Movies in News

Movie Poster Imitation Game

Unbroken
  • Biopic about Olympic long runner Louis “Louie” Zamperini who was taken as a prisoner of war by the Japanese army during WW2.
  • Director: Angelina Jolie.
Imitation Game
  • Biopic of Alan Turing- the father of computer science, who decrypted Nazi Enigma code machine during WW2, but later committed suicide after being charged for homosexuality.
  • Director: Morten Tyldum, Hero: Benedict Cumberbatch- famous for playing Sherlock Homes in a TV series.
Lunchbox Directed by Anurag Kashyap, Nominated at British Academy Film Awards (BAFTA) in London.
On A Quest Biopic movie on Swami Chinmayananda- a freedom fighter and founder of Chinmaya Mission in Madurai.
The Theory Of Everything On life of noted physicist Stephen Hawking, played by Eddie Redmayne, director James Marsh.
Hawaizada
  • Based on of Shivkar Bapuji Talpade- designer of India’s first unmanned plane “Marutsakha”- before Wright brothers in USA.
  • Hero: Ayushman Khurana.

Places in News

Places in news type questions are generally associated with StatePSC Class-1, Class-2, Upper and lower subordinate exams. But even if you’re not appearing in such exams, you should keep a habit of noting down such events about your home state for UPSC-Bank interview.

Gujarat

  • ICICI converted Akodara village into Digital village.
  • Coast guard vessel ICGS Rajratan destroyed a paki terrorist boat near Porbandar.
  • 7th Vibrant Gujarat summit held at Gandhinagar
  • 18th national e-governance conference @Gandhinagar
  • Vadfest in Vadora- music, dance, cultural performances, to this city as cultural capital of Gujarat.
  • Anand’s Sojitra taluk’s Madhrol village. HRD minister Smriti Irani has adopted this village under Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojana, and gave free tablets and wifi to schools during her visit in Jan, 2015.
  • Gujarat becomes first state in the country to allow direct recruitment of Police inspectors.
  • Asiatic lion survey is conducted in Gir, Gujarat every five years. This time from 2nd to 5th May, 2015

Kerala

  • Malappurama: International summit on history of Islamic medicine.
  • Thiruvanthapuram: 35th national games will be held from 31st Jan. to 14 Feb. motto “Clean and Green National Games 2015“. Theme song “Get Set Play” by Hariharan. Official Mascot “Great Hornbill” named Ammu.
  • Kerala Plans to become fully organic famring state by 2016.
  • Kerala’s Idduki district becomes first in India to be linked with National Optic Fibre Network (NOFN) for rural broadband
  • Census for Waterfowls began in January 2015.
  • State cabinet cleared Plachimada Coca Cola Victims Relief bill for villagers but union Government is opposed, terming this bill as unconstitutional.

Uttar Pradesh

  • Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav’s statement that he had watched Aamir Khan-starrer PK after downloading it from the Internet has led to yet another controversy over the movie with a social activist filing a police complaint accusing him of violating anti-piracy laws.
  • State Government planning to launch high speed metro rail to connect Lucknow to Kanpur.
  • Lucknow: Annual convention of presiding officers of legislative bodies in India.

Andhra Pradesh

  • Visaka Utsav at Visakhapatanam.
  • Hyderabad Police: Operation Smile to reunit runaway children with their families.
  • Andhra Pradesh Government will shift to “Zero based budgeting” system from next year.
  • India’s first packaging plant to be setup in Vizag. This will help sea-foodexporters through Visakhapatnam port
  • Andhra Pradesh police launched I-CLIK (Instant- Complaint Login Internet Kiosk)- to help public and especially women.
  • American companies interested in selling nuke-technology for the proposed nuke plant at Kovvada in Srikakulam district.
Other States
Karnataka
  • 103rd edition of Indian Science Congress to be held at Mysuru
  • Survey for Socio-economic status of minorities in the state.
  • Banglore: National Ayush Expo from January 21 to 25.
  • State Government to give admissions under right to education admission via “online-application” for 2015-16.
  • Humpi Utsav-2015 organized from Jan9 to 12.
Assam
  • Assam has world’s highest number of internally displaced people by conflict
  • 19th Youth festival held here.
Bihar CM gave Rs.50000 award to Shail Devi, an elderly woman who had saved minorities during a mob-attack in Azizpur village in Muzaffarpur.
Delhi
  • Kiran Bedi and Shazia Ilmi joins BJP ahead of state assembly elections.
  • 2015’s India Art Fair organized at Delhi
Goa Goa CIC has ordered that Archbishop is a public authority and falls under RTI act 2005.
Haryana
  • State Government planning to introduce Bhagwad Gita in school syllabus and make Yoga compulsory in all educational institutions.
  • Will also launch Haryana Premier League to promote gatka, bullock-cart racing, kabbadi and other village games.
  • Gurgaon traffic police launched Pink-Autos exclusively for women
  •  29th  Surajkund International Crafts Mela-2015 in Faridabad.
Lakshadweep Transport minister Gadkari gave them new ship for passenger transport- called “MV Corals.”
Maharashtra
  • PETA founder Ingrid Newkirk protesting against use of Horses in victoria carriages.
  • Maharashtra CM Fadnavi is nominated by Modi to attend World Economic forum at Davos.
  • Dr.Amedkar stayed at No.10, King Henry’s road while studying at the London School of Economics. Maha.Government will buy that house.
Odisha
  • Tribal group: Dongria Kondh.
Puducherry 3D-Manufacturing facility will be setup.
Punjab
  • Akali Dal launched “Nasha Mukt Bharat”.
  • Punjab bans the sale of loose cigarettes and tobacco
Rajsthan Zee jaipur literature festival from 21-25th January.
Tamilnadu
  • Mudumalai Tiger reserve- large number of vulture deaths due to  Diclofenac.
  • Kuttralanatha Swamy temple: restoration of 400 years old mural painting failed because cheap paints used by signboard artists.
  • Resistance against setting up tiger sanctuary in Kanyakumari district, because it’ll affect Kani tribals’ livelihood.
Telangana
  • “She taxis” driven by women drivers from January 26, to prevent recurrence of Uber-rape cases.
  • Self-cleaning e-toilets to be installed at Tirupati.
  • Farmers demanding Telangana be declared a “Millet State”.
Tripura Tribal rights: in the late 90s, Reang (Bru) tribals fled from Mizoram to Tripura, due to ethnic violence. Government gives each person 1 soap, 1 t-shirt and 1 pant for the whole year- saying if we give more facilities they’ll only stay in relief camps instead of going back to settle in Mizoram. SC reprimanded Government for this mindset.
Uttarakhand
  • Char-dham project to construct new national highways connecting the four shrines of Kedarnath, Badrinath, Gangotri, and Yamunotri.
  • RTI act introduced in school syllabus.
Uttarakhand According to 2014’s Tiger status report, this state is No. 2 in tiger population
W.Bengal
  • January 10, Swamy Vivekandad’s b’day will be declared Khel Dibas.
  • India’s highest zoo located at Darjeeling: Padmaja Naidu Himalayan Zoological park.
W.Bengal
  • In 70s, Government had launched Bhagabatpur Crocodile Project to increase salt water crocodiles in Sundarban. Now foreign NGO came forward to help.
  • Jadavpur university Vice-Chancellor Abhijit Chakrabarti resigned after ongoing controversy with students.

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