The Daily Brief – 8th January, 2017

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The Daily Briefs are a comprehensive update of current affairs for the day. To know more about them, read this. If you’d like to receive updates for current affairs every day, you’ll need to subscribe here, and all the previous Briefs can be accessed at the archives here. Also, do consider enrolling to our mock tests!

  • Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and visiting Portugal PM Antonio Costa have signed 8 MOUs.
  • The Supreme Court has upheld the ban imposed by Hyderabad High Court on cockfighting in the states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
  • The 9th edition of Jaipur International Film Festival (JIFF) began in Jaipur on 7th January 2017 in the presence of renowned film makers. It started with tributes to actor Om Puri who passed away this morning.

    Jeanette Epps
  • NASA astronaut Jeanette Epps is set to become the first African-American crew member to board the International Space Station where she flies to the orbital post in May 2018.
  • Novak Djokovic has won the Qatar Open Tennis title by beating Andy Murray.
  • Sania Mirza today won the year-opening Brisbane International title with partner American Bethanie Mettek-Sands after defeating Russian pair of Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina.
  • Rio Olympics 800-metre gold medallist David Rudisha has been named the International Event Ambassador for the 14th Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon to be held in January.
  • MIT researchers developed a 3-D version of Graphene. Graphene is one of the strongest materials known to man, but so far because of its extreme thinness it was not able for practical use. This version is lightweight, only 5% as dense as steel but is 10 times stronger. This development could lead production of more lighter, stronger materials.
  • US president-elect Donald Trump has named retired senator Dan Coats as his National Intelligence Director. He is former senator from the state Indiana who had served on the Senate Intelligence Committee.
  • Former human rights lawyer Nana Akufo-Addo (72) was sworn in as new president of Ghana. He had won the December 2016 elections by defeating incumbent President John Dramani Mahama. Mr Akufo-Addo’s inauguration represents the latest peaceful handover of power in Ghana. Ghana, the western African country is major cocoa and gold exporter. At present it is facing economic crisis and is half-way through a three-year aid programme of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to fix an economy dogged by high public debt and inflation.

Today’s Quiz

  1. Who is currently serving as the Prime Minister of Portugal?





2. Who is set to become the first African-American crew member to board the International Space Station





3. Who won the Qatar Open this year?





4. Who won the Brisbane International title this year?





5. Who has been sworn in as the new President of Ghana?









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