Daily GK Updates - 8th Oct, 2020

 

NATIONAL UPDATES:

 

1. GoI launches online startup platform ‘Startup India Showcase’: The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) has launched an online discovery platform for startups called “Startup India Showcase”. The main aim of this website is to make a repository of India’s most promising startups that have proved their capabilities, from across sectors such as fintech, enterprise tech, social impact, health tech, and edutech, among others.

About “Startup India Showcase”: The startups mentioned on the website will be handpicked by experts and will go through multiple screening and evaluation rounds. The listed firms will also be considered by the government and corporate buyers as potential suppliers of goods or services. Each startup has its own profile page, with detailed information about its product and innovation, as well as video and PDF links. The platform will also act as an online networking portal, by mentioning LinkedIn and Twitter pages of the founders.

Note: Minister of Commerce and Industry: Piyush Goyal.

 

2. Smriti Irani launches first ever Brand & Logo for Indian Cotton: Union Minister of Textiles, Smriti Irani has launched the first-ever Brand and Logo for Indian Cotton on Second World Cotton Day through video conferencing. Now India’s premium cotton would be known as ‘Kasturi Cotton’ in the world cotton trade. The Kasturi Cotton brand will represent Whiteness, Brightness, Softness, Purity, Luster, Uniqueness and Indianness.

Important Facts of Indian Cotton: India is the second-largest cotton producer and the largest consumer of cotton in the world. It produces about six million tonnes of cotton every year which is about 23 per cent of the world cotton. India produces about 51 per cent of the total organic cotton production of the world, which demonstrates India’s effort towards sustainability. Note: Chairman-Cum-Managing Director of Cotton Corporation of India: Pradeep Kumar Agarwal; Cotton Corporation of India Headquarters: Mumbai, Maharashtra; Cotton Corporation of India Founded: 31 July 1970.

 

3. Gujarat govt to launch ‘Digital Seva Setu’ programme: The state government of Gujarat has announced a ‘Digital Seva Setu’ programme to ensure optimum utilisation of technology for public welfare in rural areas. The program has been initiated under the Centre’s BharatNet Project.

‘Digital Seva Setu’ program: Under the ‘Digital Seva Setu’ program, public welfare services will be made available in all the 14,000-gram panchayats in the state by connecting village panchayats through an optical fibre network. Each village panchayat will get e-gram office so that villagers will not have to go all the way to taluka or district-level offices. All the gram panchayats will be connected to the state data centre at Gandhinagar. Initially, 20 services will be offered to villagers under the programme like ration cards, affidavits and certificates for widows, residence, caste, senior citizen, language-based minority, a religious minority, nomad-denotified, and income certificates at their doorstep.

Note: Gujarat Chief Minister: Vijay Rupani; Gujarat Governor: Acharya Devvrat.

 

4. C-DAC to commission India’s fastest Supercomputer ‘PARAM Siddhi – AI’: The Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) will be commissioning India’s largest HPC-AI supercomputer ‘PARAM Siddhi – AI’. This initiative will place India among the top countries in global AI supercomputing research and innovation. The initiative was headed by Abhishek Das, Scientist and Program Director (HPC-AI Infrastructure Development) at C-DAC, who conceived the idea and designed the architecture for the largest HPC-AI infrastructure in India.

About ‘PARAM Siddhi – AI’: This high-performance computing-Artificial Intelligence (HPC-AI) supercomputer is a machine with 210 AI Petaflops (6.5 Petaflops Peak DP). It is built on the NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD reference architecture comprising of 42 NVIDIA DGX A100 systems, connected with NVIDIA Mellanox HDR InfiniBand networking along with C-DAC’s indigenously developed HPC-AI engine, Software Frameworks, Cloud Platform.

Note: C-DAC Director General: Hemant Darbari; C-DAC Established: 1988; C-DAC Headquarters: Pune, Maharashtra.

 

5. Piyush Goyal Declares the Results of the First National Startup Awards 2020: The Union Minister of Railways and Commerce & Industry Shri Piyush Goyal announced the Results of the first ever National Startup Awards 2020 on 6th October 2020. The award has been introduced by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) to recognize and reward outstanding Startups and ecosystem enablers that are building innovative products or solutions and scalable enterprises, with high potential of employment generation or wealth creation, demonstrating measurable social impact. The first edition of the Awards had applications from 12 sectors, which were further sub-classified into a total of 35 categories. These 12 sectors are Agriculture, Education, Enterprise Technology, Energy, Finance, Food, Health, Industry 4.0, Space, Security, Tourism and Urban Services. A total of 1641 applications were received from startups from 23 States and 4 Union Territories.

 

6. Indian Air Force Day: 8th October: Indian Air Force Day is celebrated every year by the Indian Air Force on 8th of October. This year Indian Air Force celebrated its 88th anniversary. Indian Air Force was officially established on 8 October 1932 by the British Empire as the Royal Indian Air Force. The name was changed to Indian Air Force in 1950.

Note: Chiefs of Air Staff: Rakesh Kumar Singh Bhadauria.

 

INTERNATIONAL UPDATES:

 

1. Russia successfully test-fires Tsirkon hypersonic missile: Russia successfully test-fired a Tsirkon hypersonic cruise missile in the Arctic. The Missile was fired from the Admiral Gorshkov frigate in the White Sea, Russian Arctic. The missile covered a distance of 450 km with the maximum altitude of its trajectory at 28 km. The flight lasted 4.5 minutes and the missile reached a hypersonic speed of over Mach 8. The Missile is a scramjet-powered manoeuvring anti-ship hypersonic cruise missile.

Note: Russia President: Vladimir Putin; Russia Capital: Moscow; Russia Currency: Russian Ruble.

 

2. Kuwait Prime Minister Sabah Al Khalid Al Sabah Resigns: The Kuwaiti government, headed by Prime Minister(PM) Sabah Al Khalid Al Sabah submitted its resignation to Emir Nawaf Al Ahmed Al Jaber Al Sabah in anticipation of the upcoming general elections that are due to be held in November 2020.  He took charge as the PM in 2019.

About Sabah Al Khalid Al Sabah: He started his career in 1978, joining the ministry of foreign affairs, where he worked at various capacities, including being a member of Kuwait’s permanent mission to the United Nations (1983-1989).

Note: The emir named Sheikh Meshaal Al-Ahmed Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, currently the deputy head of the National Guard, as the crown prince of Kuwait.

Kuwait Capital: Kuwait City; Kuwait Currency: Kuwaiti dinar.

 

OTHER UPDATES:

 

BANKING AND FINANCE

 

1. FM launches Indian Bank’s business mentoring programme ‘MSME Prerana’: Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman has launched ”MSME Prerana”, an online business mentoring programme for MSMEs by state-run Indian Bank. The programme, to be made available in local languages, is aimed at empowering entrepreneurs through skill development and capacity building workshops.

Important points of the Initiative: Indian Bank has taken an out-of-the-box initiative in launching MSME Prerana which will handhold the entrepreneurs through a mentoring program. The initiative is in collaboration with Poornatha & Co, a firm that designs entrepreneurial development programs in vernacular languages using online web-based interactive sessions and case studies. MSME Prerana will bridge the gap in business skills as well as communication & Human Resource (HR) by providing inputs in simple terms and in the local vernacular.

Note: On April 1, 2020, Allahabad Bank amalgamated with Indian Bank; Indian Bank MD and CEO: Padmaja Chunduru; The tagline of Indian Bank: Your Own Bank.

 

2. SEBI introduces ‘very high risk category’ in risk-o-meter tool for mutual fund schemes: Market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has introduced a new “very high risk” category on its Mutual Funds (MF) riskometer tool, to warn investors, investing in mutual fund schemes. Currently the mutual fund (MF) risk-o-meter has five categories – low, moderately low, moderate, moderately high and high. It indicates the scheme’s risk level. The revamped 6 categories Risk-o-meter will come into effect from 01 January 2021. It will be evaluated on a monthly basis and the mutual fund houses will have to disclose the risk-o-meter along with portfolio disclosure for all their schemes on their respective website and on the industry body Amfi website within 10 days from the close of each month.

 

3. Axis Bank tie-up with Vistara to launch co-branded forex card: Axis Bank in partnership with India’s full-service carrier, Vistara launched a Co-Branded Forex Card, ‘Axis Bank Club Vistara Forex Card’ to cater to the needs of international travellers. This is the 1st-ever collaboration by a bank and an Indian airline for a co-branded forex card.

Benefits of ‘Axis Bank Club Vistara Forex Card’: The multi-currency forex card enables customers to travel to international destinations in a cashless and hassle-free manner. The card has the option to load up to 16 currencies on a single card and has locked­in. exchange rates, also known as Fixed Exchange Rates. Cardholders on spending every USD 5 (or equivalent value), can accrue 3 CV points. Customers on signing up are awarded 500 CV Points as a Welcome Bonus.

Note: Vistara Headquarters: Gurgaon, Haryana; Vistara CEO: Leslie Thng.

Axis Bank Headquarters: Mumbai, Maharashtra; Axis Bank MD and CEO: Amitabh Chaudhry.

 

4. GoI appoints M Rajeshwar Rao as the RBI Deputy Governor: The Centre has appointed M Rajeshwar Rao as the new deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of India on 7th October 2020. Prior to this, M Rajeshwar Rao was an executive director at RBI. He succeeds NS Vishwanathan as the central bank’s fourth deputy governor. NS Vishwanathan resigned from the post in March 2020 before the completion of his term in June, citing health reasons.

The Central Bank has four Deputy Governors. Other three Deputy Governors of RBI: M. D. Patra; B. P. Kanungo and M. K. Jain

Note: RBI 25th Governor: Shaktikant Das; Headquarters: Mumbai; Founded: 1 April 1935, Kolkata.

 

AWARDS AND HONOURS

 

1. Nobel Prize in Literature 2020 announced: The Nobel Prize in Literature for 2020 is awarded to the American poet Louise Glück “for her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal”. The Nobel Prize in Literature is awarded by The Swedish Academy, Stockholm, Sweden.

About Louise Gluck: The American poet Louise Glück was born in 1943 in New York and lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Apart from her writing, she is a professor of English at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut. She made her debut in 1968 with Firstborn and was soon acclaimed as one of the most prominent poets in American contemporary literature. She has received several prestigious awards, among them the Pulitzer Prize (1993) and the National Book Award (2014).

 

2. Noted Odia Poet Nityananda Nayak to receive Sarala Puraskar: Noted Odia poet, Nityanand Nayak will be conferred the prestigious Sarala Puraskar for his poetry work ‘Setebelaku Nathiba’, published in 2017. The poet will be felicitated with a cash award of `5 lakh and a citation. Two other eminent personalities from the State – Ranjit Kumar Nag and Shyamsundar Pattanaik – will be felicitated for their contribution to fields of music and art respectively. While Nag will be awarded the Ila Panda Sangeet Samman, Pattanaik would be felicitated with Ila Panda Chitrakala Samman. The awards comprise a cash award of `1,50,000 and a citation.

About Sarala Puraskar: Sarala Puraskar is recognised as the foremost literary award of Odisha. The annual Sarala Puraskar, instituted by eminent Odia industrialist Bansidhar Panda and Ila Panda in 1979, has been continuously awarded by Indian Metals Public Charitable Trust (IMPaCT).  The list of awardees was announced by Sarala Puraskar Committee.

 

DEFENSE

 

1. Indian Coast Guard launches L&T built Offshore Patrol Vessel ‘Vigraha’: The Indian Coast Guard launched the Offshore Patrol vessel ‘Vigraha’ at a private shipyard in Kattupalli, north of Chennai on 6th October 2020. ICGS ‘Vigraha’ is the seventh and last in the series of seven vessels that was designed and built exclusively for the Coast Guard by Larsen and Toubro (L&T) Shipbuilding as a part of the ‘Make in India’ initiative. Vigraha is likely to be inducted into the Indian Coast Guard in March 2021, after completion of extensive trials and testing of the on-board equipment and machinery and once inducted, the vessel would serve the East Region, from Visakhapatnam. The other ships of this vessel are ICGS ”Vikram”, ICGS ”Vijaya”, ICGS ”Veera”, ICGS ”Varaha”, ICGS ”Varad”, ICGS ”Vajra”

 

OBITUARIES

 

1. Former CBI Director Ashwani Kumar passes away: Former CBI Director Ashwani Kumar (70 years) passed away at his residence in Shimla. He served as the Governor of Manipur and Nagaland (2013-2014). The reason for his death is suicide as per the local police and his body is being send for post-mortem. He joined Indian Police Force in 1973. He was also inducted in the newly created SPG. He was appointed the DGP of Himachal in 2006 and 2008, he became the first police officer from the state to become the director of CBI.

 

2. TNPL Spinner Prasanth Rajesh Passes Away: Tamil Nadu Premier League (TNPL) spinner Prasanth Rajesh (MP Rajesh) has passed away due to a heart attack. He was 35. MP Rajesh was a leg-spinner. He made his debut in TNPL in 2018. Delhi Capitals spinner Ravichandran Ashwin, expressed disbelief on the death of his close friend with whom he had shared the stage during his time at TNPL.