Current Affairs Month Wise - National Affairs :January 2012

Mayawati to launch her campaign from Feb onwards
• After allowing her rivals to vent of their anger, U.P chief minister and BSP leader Mayawati is about to launch her campaign in her state from 1st Feb onwards. On the same day, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi will join her son Rahul Gandhi, who so far, has been leading the state will his young ambitious powers.
  
  Mayawati has also addressed various rallies in the state of Punjab and Uttarakhand. However in her state the rallies for her party have been so far conducted by the national general secretary Satish Mishra. Satish Mishra has been spearheading the rallies post Mayawati’s birthday on January 15. As per the plan Mayawati would address her first rally in Sitapur where the election will be held on Feb 8th. In her first set of rallies Mayawati will cover eight districts. Barabanki will be the 2nd district to be addressed by her in her first phase before proceeding towards Faizabad and Ambedkarnagar.

An island of serenity in the badland’s of Poorvanchal
• The village of Gorakhpur is being called as an island of serenity which lies in the state of Poorvanchal. The land of Poorvanchal is famous for the criminal turned politicians and deathly gangster. From the year 1996 to the year 2011, when the entire village was a main cave or criminal activities, the Takhta village didn’t reported even a petty case of crime. Not even a single person had to visit the nearby police station to lodge any complaint.
  
  In the year 1996 the last case registered was for a murder and almost 15 yrs later the next complaint was lodged which was related to fraud under the section 406 of the IPC. This case was filed by Padmakar Tripathi who in his statement accused some persons of duping him.

Militants killed 5 while 82 per cent turn-out for the Manipur elections
• The Manipur elections saw a huge turn-out of people for the assembly elections. There was approximately 82 percent turn-out of people. The Chief electoral commissioner said that 17.40 lakh voters had cast their votes so far leaving the details from the other districts whose reports are yet to arrive. 
  
  Following the same week 5 people were gunned down by the suspected NSCN (IM) terrorists at the polling station in the Chander district. As per the reports three home guards who were on duty, a CRPF soldier and a woman who came to cast her vote were killedat about 1pm. 
  
  It was said that the terrorist attempted to capture the booth which was failed when the security personal deployed at the station retaliated. One of the terrorist was injured and nabbed by the forces.

Indian government rein in growth forecast keeping steady rates
• The central bank of India asked the government to cut down on the advance expenditure of important state elections so that it can beat down inflation thereby boosting a flagging economy.
  
  Reserve Bank governor D. Subbarao said in his statement that-“the fiscal deficit needed to be curbed”. The R.B.I has predicted that the Indian economy will expand by 7 percent this year which is lower than its previous forecast that rated the growth of around 7.6 percent. Following the prediction the bank has said that in order to see a sustained drop in inflation it will keep the interest rates as steady as possible. 
  
  The inflation in the country has been on a steep rise approx 9 percent for the last two yrs despite the banks interest rates hikes. Though the R.B.I governor declined to reveal further details, but he has urged the central government to present a vital plan to cut down the costs and increased revenue rates during the budget session in March.

Late but heavy winter snow in the Himalayan region
• The snowfall that was expected around Christmas and the New Year came too late in the Himalayan region. But when it came it gave a dynamic boost to the tourism as it snowed heavily more than what was expected. 
  
  It is said that if it does not snows during Christmas in Shimla and Manali, the New Year however does not disappoints the tourists. And that is what exactly didn’t happened. Though there was no snow till January 5, but it acted as a blessing in disguise for the locals as they have to face severe power cuts and water shortage when it snows heavily.
  
  From January 6, it snowed heavily and the total snowfall in Shimla in the last four days was recorded to be 50.1cm. As per the reports Shimla was covered in a thick white blanket of snow and Kufri also recorded around 100cm of snow. 
  
  A Shimla based hotelier, Mohinder Kumar Seth said that he never expected so much snowfall in Shimla and that all the hotels are jam packed with tourist from Delhi, Punjab and Haryana. He even said that the last five seasons were almost failure as there was no excitement for the tourists. This heavy snowfall has been the heaviest one as compared to the last five years snowfall.