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The World Economic Forum, held annually at Davos, is a meeting in which world leaders discuss economic matters. This year’s summit will take place on January 21- 24.

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China recently added a significant bullet train to its Fuxing series of bullet trains. The recently added train is capable to ply with a speed up to 350 kilometres per hour. Another great feature of the train is it could run without a driver for operating the train.
The new train would connect the cities of Beijing and Zhangjiakou and is expected to be deployed during the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. Each seat of the train is furnished with a touch screen and a wireless charging port. The train also features 5G connectivity and removable seats to assist Paralympians.

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India recently signed an MoU with Bangladesh for content exchange programme between All India Radio and the national broadcaster of Bangladesh, Bangladesh Betar in New Delhi.
An MoU was also signed between National Film Development Corporation, India and Film Development Corporation, Bangladesh in the presence of Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar and his Bangladesh counterpart. A biopic on the life of the great leader of Bangladesh Sheikh Mujibur Rahman jointly produced by the countries, will be released in March 2020.

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The retail inflation is measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which is released by the National Statistical Office (NSO) under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI).
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) tracks the change in retail prices of a basket of essential goods and services at rural, urban and at national level. This index is measured from the perspective of household consumption. Recently in the month of December 2019, the retail inflation touched 7.35%, against the RBI’s target of 2-6%.

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Brazil recently announced that it would officially open its new research base in Antarctica this week. The original research base of Brazil in Antarctica was destroyed by a fire in 2012. The construction of the new base started in 2015 and it involves a project cost of near $ 100 million.
The station has seventeen laboratories which will support research in several fields. It also possesses a state-of-the-art infrastructure and accommodation facilities for more than 60 people. The new base is on the same place of the previous one and bears the same name of Comandante Ferraz Antarctic Station.

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Arunachal Pradesh inked a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), to prepare a red-list assessment of Orchids. With this agreement, Arunachal Pradesh becomes the first Indian state to prepare such an assessment. The IUCN’s Red List of Threatened Species is a critical indicator of the health of biodiversity of the world.
The Botanical Survey of India recently conducted the first comprehensive census of orchids of India. As per the census, the total number of orchid species in India is 1,256. The highest number of orchid species is recorded from Arunachal Pradesh with 612 species, followed by Sikkim and West Bengal.

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The Uttar Pradesh cabinet recently approved implementation of the commissioner system of policing for its two cities, Lucknow and Noida. The system will give magisterial powers to the top police officers.
After the announcement, IPS officers Sujit Pandey and Alok Singh were named as the commissioners of Lucknow and Noida respectively. A woman police officer of the superintendent-rank has been posted in both Lucknow and Noida to deal with the cases of crime against women. The state cabinet also approved to set up two new police stations in Noida.

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The parent company of Google, Alphabet led by Indian-American Sundar Pichai, touched the milestone of $1 trillion valuation and joined the elite US companies in the list, which includes Apple, Microsoft and Amazon. Apple was the first US company to touch the $1 trillion mark, when it achieved the feat in 2018.
During the month of December last year, the founders of Alphabet Larry Page and Sergey Brin stepped down from their leadership roles and announced the then CEO of Google Sundar Pichai as the CEO of both Google and Alphabet.

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The Deputy Chief of Mission of Russia, Roman Babushkin recently announced that all S-400 air defence missile systems will be delivered to India by the year 2025. He also added that Russia has started the production process of the S-400 missiles, which are to be delivered to India.
S-400 missile is an upgraded version of the S-300 missiles, which were available only to the Russian Defence forces, earlier. The missiles have been deployed in Russian forces since 2007. External Affairs Minister of India, Jai Shankar is set to visit Russia to attend the Russia-Indian-China trilateral meeting, to be held in March 2020.

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The Chief of the leading multinational online retailer Amazon, Jeff Bezos announced that the company would invest in India to create 1 million jobs by 2025. These proposed jobs will be in addition to the 7 lakh jobs which have been already created over the last six years in India, through the investments of Amazon.
Recently the Chief of Amazon attended the two-day meet of the company in New Delhi. He also announced that investments worth $1 billion would be made in India. Amazon has been alleged by small traders, for providing steep discounts to products in their platform and supporting only a particular group of retailers.