24th December 2019 Current affairs

1. Former world champion Saikhom Mirabai Chanu bagged the gold medal in the women’s 49kg weightlifting category at the 6th Qatar International Cup in Doha on December 20, 2019. 

2. Eight countries in West Africa have decided to change the name of their common currency to ‘Eco’. These countries also decided to leave the current currency ‘CFA franc’. Benin, Burkina Faso, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo in West Africa are currently using this currency.  

3. Rakhi Halder is a Commonwealth gold medalist, who has set a national record by performing best in snatch and overall weight. She made this record by lifting a total of 218 kg with 95 kg in snatch and 123 kg in clean and jerk. 

4. Presidential election results in Afghanistan have been released. Ashraf Ghani regained the post of President by defeating rival candidate Abdullah Abdullah. Gani received 9, 23,868 votes which is 50.64% of total votes. 

5. Harsh Vardhan Shringla has been appointed as the next Foreign Secretary of India. He will take over from January 29, 2020. Harsh Vardhan will replace Vijay Gokhale. 

6. China has decided to lower import tariffs on over 850 products including frozen pork from January 2020. The lowered tariffs are expected to help ease the pressure on the country’s depleted pork supply. 

7. MS Dhoni has been named the captain of Cricket Australia’s ODI team of the decade. Indian skipper Virat Kohli and opener Rohit Sharma were also named in the ODI team. 

8. Virat Kohli was named the captain of Cricket Australia’s Test team of the decade. The Indian skipper was the sole Indian to feature in CA’s all-time test side of the decade. 

9. JMM Chief Hemant Soren will be elected as the leader of the JMM-Congress-RJD alliance in Jharkhand. The opposition alliance staged a grand victory in the Jharkhand Assembly polls 2019 by bagging 47 seats in the 81-member state assembly on the result day-December 23, 2019.  

10. A partial solar eclipse will be visible across India and several other countries on December 26, 2019. This event will be an annular solar eclipse, which happens when the moon covers the sun’s centre, leaving the sun’s visible outer edges to form a “ring of fire” or annulus – around the moon.