Feb 2010 Current affairs

FEBRUARY CURRENT AFFAIRS:

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visits Saudi Arabia in Feb 2010. He was the first Indian PM in 28 years to visit the gulf country. Saudi Arabia is India’s largest supplier of crude oil ( 23 %) followed by Iran ( 17 %) and Nigeria ( 11 %).



Government set up a panel under the Chairmanship of former Justice B N Srikrishna which would consider the demand for splitting Andhra Pradesh.

Kirit Parikh committee was set up to review petro pricing regime and it submitted its recommendation. Its major recommendation was to deregulate the prices of petrol & diesel as per market prices, reduce the subsidy on LPG.

11th South Asian Games 2010 was held at Dhaka, Bangladesh from 29 Jan to 8 Feb. originally scheduled to take place in 2009, but due to general elections in Bangladesh, the games were held in 2010. This was the third time that the Dhaka hosted the Games, thus becoming the first city to hold the games three times. 8 countries participated in the games in 23 different sports, including T20 cricket, which was introduced for the first time in SAG. The 8 countries included are Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. 1The logo of the games was ‘Kutumb’, a flying doel, which is the national bird of Bangladesh. The mascot of the games featured a magpie robin, which was holding the torch to begin the games. The final medal tally include : India - 1st place with 90 G 55 S 29 B Total 174, Pakistan- 2nd place with 19 G 25 S 36 B Total 80, Bangladesh- 3rd place with 18 G 23 S 56 B Total 97.

2010 Winter Olympic Games were held at Vancouver, Canada. The logo of the games was Ilnaaq meaning Friend in Inuktut. There were 86 events in 7 sports. The games were held from 12 Feb to 28 Feb.

IOC (International Olympic Committee) has approved ICC (International Cricket Council) bid to join the Olympic Games 2020. The first time cricket was included in the Olympic Games was in Paris Olympic 1900.

11th World Hockey Cup 2010 was held in Delhi, India. This was 2nd World Hockey Cup (WHC) which India is hosting. India also hosted the WHC in 1982 at Mumbai. 12 countries participated in the tournament. WHC is held in the years between two summer Olympics. First WHC was held at Barcelona in 1971. Pakistan has won the cup four times, Netherland three times, Germany two times, India & Australia once each. India won the WHC in 1975.

Commonwealth Shooting Championship was held in New Delhi in Feb 2010. India stood at first place with 35 Gold 25 Silver and 14 Bronze. England stood at 2nd place with 4 gold and Wales stood at 3rd place.

Agni-III ballistic missile with a range of 3500 Km was successfully launched from Wheeler Island, Orissa.

Amitabh Bachan became the brand ambassador of Gujarat state.

Government revises base year for the calculation of National Income from 1999-2000 to 2004-2005.

Sachin Tendulkar became first player in the world to score a double century in ODI (One day International). He scored 200 (Not out) against South Africa.

M H Hussain, famous painter accepted citizenship of Qatar.

‘Bo’ language of Andaman became extinct. Its last speaker died.

Uttarakhand became first state in the country to ban the cultivation of Bt Brinjal (Country’s first Genetically Modified food crop). Bt Brinjal is a genetically modified crop which has a special gene- Cry1AC, inserted to make it poisonous to pests. Bt Brinjal is developed in India by Mahyco Company. GM foods are derived from organisms whose DNA has been modified through genetic engineering.

China was ranked 1st in the wind power capacity in the world. India is at 5th place with 10925 MW capacities. The five top nations in the order of wind power capacity are China, US, Spain, Germany & India.

China celebrated 2010 as Year of Tiger.

India has a road network of 33 lakhs km and is second largest in the world. It included 200 km of expressway, 70548 km of national highways, 131899 km of state highways, 467763 km of major district roads and 26.5 lakhs km of rural & other roads. The Golden Quadrilateral joining four metro cities of Delhi, Chennai, Mumbai and Kolkatta, has a length of 5846 km.

Vancouver city, Canada named as the World’s most livable city as per survey conducted by Economics Intelligence Unit. Delhi is ranked at 113th place and Mumbai at 117th place.

‘1000 faces for 1000 tigers’ campaign was launched in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The campaign aims to help double the number of wild tigers in Malaysia by 2022.

World Cancer Day – 04 Feb