Daily GK Updates – 20th Sep , 2020

NATIONAL UPDATES:

 

1. Indian Railways observes “Swachhta Pakhwara”: Indian Railways is observing “Swachhta Pakhwara” from 16th to 30th September 2020. During the inaugural day of Pakhwara, Swachhta pledge was administered to Railway employees at all Zonal Railway HQs, Divisional Offices and other establishments. During the Pakhwara, intensive cleaning and sanitization of stations, trains, tracks, colonies and other railway establishments is being carried out with special focus on plastic waste management. Railway Board through Northern Railway, in partnership with United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), organised a webinar on “Swachhata and Environment”. The Webinar was held to flag off the “Swachhata Pakhwada” beginning from September 16 and ending on September 30, 2020. Following issues were highlighted during the session:

(1) Steps taken by Indian Railways for proper solid waste management, saving of water and conservation of energy etc

(2) Convergence of IR initiatives with Swachh Bharat Mission

(3) Green Rating of Railway Stations

(4) Combating plastic waste

(5) Perspectives on circular economy

 

2. Eight Indian beaches recommended for ‘Blue Flag’ eco-label: In a first-of-its-kind initiative, eight beaches of India have been recommended for the Blue flag certification. The selection of the beaches was made by an independent national jury composed of eminent environmentalists and scientists. This announcement was made by the Union Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC), Prakash Javadekar on 18 September during a virtual event.

What is Blue Flag certification?

The Blue Flag certificate is an internationally recognized eco-label given by ‘Foundation for Environment Education, Denmark’. Blue Flag beaches are considered the benchmark for clean and hygienic beaches in the world. The eight beaches selected for Blue flag certification are:

(1) Shivrajpur in Gujarat

(2) Ghoghla in Daman & Diu

(3) Kasarkod in Karnataka

(4) Padubidri beach in Karnataka

(5) Kappad in Kerala

(6) Rushikonda in Andhra Pradesh

(7) The golden beach of Odisha

(8) Radhanagar beach in Andaman and Nicobar

India Launches its own eco-label ‘BEAMS’: During the event, Union Minister Javadekar also announced the launch of India’s own eco-label ‘Beach Environment and Aesthetics Management Services’ (BEAMS). This initiative has been launched under its Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) project. The project will be implemented by the Society of Integrated Coastal Management (SICOM), under MoEFCC. BEAMS program aims to mitigate pollution in coastal waters, promote sustainable development of beach facilities,  maintain high standards of cleanliness, hygiene & safety for beachgoers in accordance with coastal environment & regulations.

 

3. President inaugurates Visitor’s Conference on Implementation of NEP 2020: The President of India, Shri Ram Nath Kovind virtually inaugurated the Visitor’s conference on Implementation of National Education Policy 2020 in Higher Education. During the session, President stated that the National Education Policy aims to reorient the education system towards meeting the needs of the 21st century by achieving the twin objectives of inclusion and excellence. It also sets the vision of developing an equitable and vibrant knowledge society by providing quality education to all.  During the conference, various sessions on Multidiscipline and Holistic Education, Research & Innovation in Higher Education, Digital Transformation in Higher Education, Internationalisation and Global Rankings, Equity, Inclusion and Capacity Building for Outreach and Excellence were organized to take New Education Policy forward.

 

4. Anil Dhasmana becomes new chief of NTRO: Former Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) chief, Anil Dhasmana has been appointed as the chief of the National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO). Dhasmana succeeds former Intelligence Bureau officer Satish Jha, who demitted office. Dhasmana, a 1981 batch IPS officer, is a Pakistan expert and was the lead planner of the Balakot airstrikes in February 2019. He had stepped down a few months later when his extended term due to the general elections ended in June 2019.

About the National Technical Research Organisation: The National Technical Research Organisation is a technical intelligence agency under the National Security Advisor in the Prime Minister’s Office, India. It was set up in 2004. It also includes National Institute of Cryptology Research and Development, which is first of its kind in Asia.

 

5. Madhya Pradesh Govt. launches Poshan Sarkar program: Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shri Shivraj Singh Chouhan launched a ‘Poshan Sarkar’ program to ensure participation and leadership of local bodies-Gram Panchayats and Urban Bodies in the nutrition campaign. The main objective of the Poshan Sarkar programme is to eliminate the malnutrition by helping the Gram Panchayat and the Urban Bodies in the nutrition campaign. Various activities will be organized under this. Under the programme, nutrition resolution will be passed in all Gram Panchayats/ Nagar Panchayats /Urban Bodies.

 

INTERNATIONAL UPDATES:

 

1. India ranked 116th in the World Bank’s Human Capital Index: World Bank released the report titled “The Human Capital Index 2020 Update: Human Capital in the Time of COVID-19”. The Human Capital Index (HCI) 2020 is a collaboration between the Human Development Practice Group and the Development Economics Group of the World Bank. India has been ranked at the 116th position (with 0.49 score) among 174 countries in the Human Capital Index 2020.

Top 3 Human Capital Index 2020:

 

Rank	Country	Score
1	Singapore 0.88	0.88
2	Hongkong and China	0.81
3	Japan	0.8

 

About Human Capital Index 2020: The 2020 Human Capital Index update includes health and education data for 174 countries covering 98% of the world’s population up to March 2020.It provided a pre-pandemic baseline on the health and education of children.Measuring the human capital that a child born today can expect to attain by her 18th birthday, the HCI highlights how current health and educationoutcomes shape the productivity of the next generation of workers.

Note: World Bank President: David Robert Malpass; World Bank Headquarters: Washington, D.C., United States.

 

2. Barack Obama announces his memoir ‘A Promised Land’: Former US President, Barack Obama has announced his first presidential memoir titled “A Promised Land.” The 768-page book will be published in November 2020 by Penguin Random House and is scheduled to be released on November 17, 2020, in 25 languages. A Promised Land is the first of two volumes of the book. This volume tells about his early political life, his presidential campaign in 2008, and ending with the death of Osama bin Laden in 2011.

 

OTHER UPDATES:

 

SPORTS

 

1. ITF Renames Fed Cup as Billie Jean King Cup: The International Tennis Federation (ITF) has renamed the Fed Cup, an annual team competition in women tennis, as the “Billie Jean King Cup.” Billie Jean King was a pioneer in women’s tennis who helped the United States win the inaugural event. The Billie Jean King Cup is the world’s largest annual women’s international team sports competition in terms of the number of nations that compete.

Note: Headquarters of ITF: London, United Kingdom; President of ITF: David Haggerty

 

BANKING AND FINANCE

 

1. Canara Bank introduces i-Lead 2.0 to boost customer services: Public sector lender Canara Bank has launched lead management system (LMS) – i-Lead 2.0 (Inspiring Leads System version 2.0). The system has been launched to provide its services to customers irrespective of where they reside. Through lead management system (LMS), customers can enquire and get services rendered through simple modes such as internet banking, mobile banking, call centre, SMS and missed call. This new initiative is being introduced with the motive of building and sustaining business relationships with both new customers to bank and existing customers to bank.

Note: CEO of Canara Bank: L V Prabhakar; Headquarters: Bengaluru.

 

2. KVGB Launches Special Gold Loan Scheme Vikas Laghu Suvarna for Pandemic: The Karnataka Vikas Grameena Bank (KVGB) has launched a special gold loan scheme titled ‘Vikas Laghu Suvarna’ with a reduced interest rate of 7.25 percent. KVGB is offering the product at a reduced rate mainly due to the pandemic so as to provide easy and affordable credit to customers at a cheaper cost. Under the new gold loan scheme, the customer will get 80% of the market value of the gold, subjected to a maximum of Rs 3,200/gram. A customer can avail up to a maximum loan of Rs 15 lakh, which will be repayable within a period of maximum 6 months

Note: The Karnataka Vikas Grameena Bank is an Indian Regional Rural Bank sponsored by Canara Bank. Its headquarters is based at Dharwad.

Chairman: P Gopi Krishna.

 

3. Govt to infuse ₹20,000 cr into PSBs via recap bonds: State-run banks are poised to get ₹20,000 crore through recapitalization bonds this financial year, at a time the coronavirus crisis threatens to bump up bad loans across the banking system. Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman tabled the first batch of supplementary demand for grants in the Parliament, reflecting additional expenses sought by various ministries beyond the budget allocations. The government has sought the Parliament’s nod for additional cash expenditure of Rs 1.67 lakh crore, less than 1 percent of GDP, in the first supplementary demand for grants for FY21 tabled in the Parliament.

 

BUSINESS AND ECONOMY

 

1. Fitch Ratings Projects Indian economy to contract 10.5% in FY21: In its September update of Global Economic Outlook (GEO), the US-based Fitch Ratings has sharply lowered the forecast for the gross domestic product (GDP) growth of India for the current fiscal 2020-21 (FY21) and now expects the GDP to contract 10.5 percent. Earlier in June Global Economic Outlook, the rating agency has estimated 5 percent contraction for FY21. The downward revision comes after India’s GDP shrank by 23.9% year-on-year in the April-June quarter, the worst performance in nearly four decades. The rating agency has also revised its forecast for global GDP and expects it to fall by 4.4 percent in 2020, which is a modest upward revision from the 4.6 percent contraction expected earlier.

 

AWARDS AND HONOURS

 

1. Margaret Atwood awarded 2020 Dayton Literary Peace Prize: Margaret Atwood has won the 2020 Dayton Literary Peace Prize’s lifetime achievement award. The award celebrates literature’s power to foster peace, social justice and global understanding. The Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award is named for the late U.S. diplomat who brokered the 1995 Bosnian peace accords reached in the Ohio city. Margaret Atwood is a prolific writer of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, essays and comic books. In the recent years, she has drawn a new round of acclaim for “The Handmaid’s Tale”, her bestselling 1985 novel of a dystopian future in which women are subjugated after a theocratic group overthrow the US government.

 

OBITUARIES

 

1. Famous US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg passes away: Liberal and legal icon, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (87 years) passed away due to complications of metastatic pancreatic cancer in Washington, DC, US. She was an American jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. She was appointed a jurist in 1993 by President Bill Clinton and served until her death in 2020. Ginsburg was the second woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court.

 

2. Tamil Director Babu Sivan passes away: Tamil filmmaker Babu Sivan (54 years) passed away at Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital in Chennai due to multiple organ failure. He started his career with assisting director Dharani and made his directorial debut in 2009 with movie Vettaikaaran starring Vijay and Anushka Shetty. It was one of the highest grossing Tamil films of that year. Later, he also directed daily soap opera Rasaathi.