Top 5 Current Affairs: 27 December 2017

Jairam Thakur took oath as 14th Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh
BJP MLA Jairam Thakur on 27 December 2017 took oath as the 14th Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh at the historic Ridge Ground in Shimla.

Thakur took the oath of secrecy from Governor Acharya Devvrat along with several other cabinet ministers including Mahendra Singh, Suresh Bhardwaj, Anil Sharma, Sarveen Choudhary, Ram Lal Markand, Vipin Singh Parmar, Virender Kanwar, Vikram Singh, Govind Singh and Rajiv Sahjal.

His swearing in ceremony was attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP president Amit Shah, former deputy Prime Minister LK Advani and several Union ministers and Chief Ministers, including Yogi Adityanath.

Thakur was elected as CM of Himachal Pradesh and BJP legislative party leader on 24 December 2017 following the defeat of BJP's chief ministerial candidate Prem Kumar Dhumal in the 2017 assembly elections. Thakur won the elections from the Mandi seat.

Google Doodle honours Mirza Ghalib on his 220th birthday
Google Doodle on 27 December 2017 honoured the poet Mirza Ghalib on his 220th birth anniversary. Mirza Ghalib was a prominent Urdu and Persian-language poet during the Mughal era.

In the Google Doodle, Ghalib is shown standing on a balcony of a building of his era with a pen and paper. The doodle features the sun and a mosque in his background.

During the last years of the Mughal Empire, Mirza Ghalib was not only an important member of the Mughal court, but also the poet tutor to the emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar's son Prince Fakhr-ud Din Mirza. He also served as the royal historian of the Mughal court.

Mirza Ghalib died in Delhi on 15 February 1869 and his house in Old Delhi has been turned into "Ghalib Memorial", also Known as "Ghalib ki Haveli". It permanently houses Ghalib's exhibitions.

India signs USD 318 million loan Agreement with World Bank for agriculture project in Tamil Nadu
India on 26 December 2017 signed USD 318 million Loan Agreement with the World Bank for Tamil Nadu Irrigated Agriculture Modernization Project to promote climate resilient agriculture technologies, improve water management practices and increase market opportunities for farmers in the state.

The agreement was signed by Sameer Kumar Khare, Joint Secretary in Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance; S. K. Prabhakar, Principal Secretary of Public Works Department, Tamil Nadu and John Blomquist, Program Leader and Acting Country Director of World Bank, India.

Around 500000 farmers, of which a majority are small and marginal, are expected to benefit from Tamil Nadu Irrigated Agriculture Modernization Project. The project will rehabilitate and modernize about 4800 irrigation tanks and 477 check dams that are spread across 66 sub-basins to deliver bulk water to irrigation systems.

Guatemala to move embassy to Jerusalem
Guatemala has decided to move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, following US President Donald Trump’s decision in the holy city. It said that its decision to follow the US in shifting its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem was a "sovereign" matter that should not affect ties with other countries.

Guatemala made this declaration after UNGA (United Nation General Assembly) rejected Trump’s decision to have the United States recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital with two-thirds of the majority.

On the Jerusalem matter, 128 countries voted for status-quo to maintain the international consensus that Jerusalem’s status can only be decided through peace negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians.

India to overtake UK, France to become 5th-largest economy in 2018
As per Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) consultancy’s 2018 World Economic League Table, India is set to overtake Britain and France to become the world's fifth-largest economy in dollar terms in the year 2018.

The World Economic League Table gave an positive view of the global economy, boosted by cheap energy and technology prices.

Despite temporary setbacks, India's economy has still caught up with that of France and the United Kingdom. India’s rise is part of a movement that will see Asian economies increasingly dominate the top 10 largest economies over the next 15 years.