Daily GK Updates – 12th Jan, 2021

NATIONAL UPDATES:

 

1. Preeti Pant Panel to study adverse findings of NFHS-5: The Health and Family Welfare Ministry has recently formed a technical expert group to study the adverse findings from the National Family Health Survey-5. The Ministry has set up the technical committee of medicine and nutrition experts under the leadership of Joint Secretary Preeti Pant.

About National Family Health Survey-5: The expert group also includes State programme officers from Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Karnataka. The committee will examine the findings of the National Family Health Survey-5 as well as suggest policies and courses of action to improve on indicators related to anaemia, malnutrition, C-section, and stunting. The newly formed technical expert group will conduct meetings regularly and will provide its recommendations soon. As of now, no meeting has been held and no date has been finalized for the first meeting.

National Family Health Survey-5: The factsheet of the 1st phase of National Family Health Survey-5 was released in December 2020. The sheet covered 22 States/UTs and provided information on 131 indicators like family welfare, population, nutrition, reproductive and child health, etc. Before the National Family Health Survey-5, four surveys have been conducted in the years 1992–93, 1998–99, 2005–06, and 2015–16. All the NFHS rounds were conducted by the International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS), Mumbai.

 

2. Japan commits Rs 2,113 cr support for COVID relief efforts: The Government of Japan has committed Official Development Assistance loan of 30 billion Japanese Yen which is approximately Rs 2113 crore rupees for a programme loan to support India’s efforts at providing social assistance to the poor and vulnerable households, severely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. India and Japan have had a long and fruitful history of bilateral development cooperation since 1958. In the last few years, the economic cooperation between India and Japan has strengthened and grown into a strategic partnership.

Note: Japan Capital: Tokyo; Japan Currency: Japanese yen; Japan Prime minister: Yoshihide Suga.

 

3. West Bengal CM Inaugurates 26th Kolkata International Film Festival: West Bengal CM, Mamata Banerjee has inaugurated the 26th Kolkata International Film Festival (KIFF). The inaugural ceremony was also virtually attended by Bollywood superstar and West Bengal’s brand ambassador Shah Rukh Khan from Mumbai. Legendary filmmaker Satyajit Ray’s classic ‘Apur Sansar’ will be the inaugural film of the festival in which 131 movies from 45 countries will be screened till January 13.

Films will be screened at Rabindra Sadan, Nandan, Sisir Mancha and Rabindra Okakura Bhavan in Salt Lake. Six films by Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini and movies on sitarist Ravi Shankar, singer Hemanta Mukherjee and flicks of comedian Bhanu Bandyopadhyay will be screened.

Note: Chief Minister of West Bengal: Mamata Banerjee; Governor: Jagdeep Dhankhar.

 

4. “Modi India Calling – 2021” Book Released: A coffee table book named “Modi India Calling – 2021” has been released on the occasion of 16th Pravasi Bharatiya Divas. The book contains various photographs of Prime Minister Narendra Modi captured during his “107 overseas and bilateral visits”. The book is the idea of BJP leader Vijay Jolly and it was released by Adesh Gupta, the Delhi BJP president. The book has been published by Maneesh Media and has 450 pages containing thousands of photographs of the PM Modi. Jolly has also said that he wishes to form a similar book on Rahul Gandhi and Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal.

 

5. National Youth Day: 12th January: National Youth Day is celebrated in India every year on 12 January to commemorate the birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda. The day was declared by the Government of India in 1984 while the event was first celebrated in 1985.  The main aim behind this is to make sure that the students across the country can be encouraged to learn about the life, the ideas and philosophy of Swami Vivekananda and apply them in their lives. In 2021, we are observing 158th birth anniversary of Swami Vivekanand (12 January 1863). The theme for National Youth Day 2021 is ‘Channelizing Youth Power for Nation Building‘.

Note: Swami Vivekananda founded the Ramakrishna Math and Mission on 1 May 1897. In 1898, he established Belur Math.

 

INTERNATIONAL UPDATES:

 

1. Joe Biden names two Indian-Americans in US National Security Council: US President-elect Joe Biden named Indian-American Sumona Guha as senior director for South Asia and Tarun Chhabra as senior director for Technology and National Security.  Guha was co-chair of the South Asia foreign policy working group on the Biden-Harris campaign and serves on the transition’s State Department Agency Review Team. During the Obama-Biden Administration, Chhabra served on the National Security Council staff as director for Strategic Planning and director for Human Rights and National Security Issues, and at the Pentagon as a speechwriter to the Secretary of Defence.

About Sumona Guha:  Guha is a graduate of Johns Hopkins and Georgetown University. Named as senior director for Technology and National Security, Chhabra is a senior fellow at the Centre for Security and Emerging Technology at Georgetown University.

About Tarun Chhabra: Born in Tennessee and raised in Louisiana, Chhabra is a first-generation American and a graduate of Stanford University, Oxford University, and Harvard Law School.

 

2. Indonesian Jetliner crashes into the sea after takeoff: A passenger plane of Indonesia’s Sriwijaya Air carrying 62 people on board crashed into waters off Jakarta. The Boeing 737-500 was on an estimated 90-minute flight from Jakarta to Pontianak, capital of West Kalimantan province on Indonesia’s Borneo island. The Sriwijaya Air disappeared from radars four minutes into its journey to Pontianak in West Kalimantan province. It is thought to have dropped more than 3,000m (10,000ft) in less than a minute.

Note: Capital of Indonesia: Jakarta; The currency of Indonesia: Indonesian rupiah; President of Indonesia: Joko Widodo.

 

3. Twitter deletes new Trump tweets on @POTUS, suspends campaign account: Twitter Inc has deleted new tweets posted by U.S. President Donald Trump on official government account @POTUS and suspended the account of his presidential campaign, after booting his personal account of the platform permanently. @POTUS Twitter account is an official Twitter account of US President Donald Trump. The Account is named President Trump. About POTUS Twitter account:

(1) The POTUS Twitter account is in the news because President Trump used the account to tweet against “Twitter” after the company permanently banned and suspended the @realDonaldTrump of Trump.

(2) Trump tweeted that Twitter has conspired with his rivals and suspended his account to silence him.

(3) Earlier, Twitter released an official statement about the permanent suspension of the @realDonaldTrump Twitter account.

(4) After the tweets by Trump through the @POTUS account, Twitter deleted his tweets.

(5) @POTUS account has 33.4 million followers at present.

 

OTHER UPDATES:

 

BUSINESS AND ECONOMY

 

1. IREDA-NHPC Partnership in Green Energy Projects: NHPC Limited has signed an MOU with the Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency (IREDA) for providing assistance in setting up renewable energy (RE) projects for the next 5 years. The agreement was signed in the presence of Abhay Kumar Singh, NHPC CMD, and IREDA, CMD, Pradip Kumar Das.

Under the agreement: NHPC will help in the knowledge and technology transfer and provide consultancy and research services. NHPC has undertaken an ambitious plan to make a significant impact on the renewable energy landscape of the country. Under the plan, NHPC will develop 7.5 GW of renewable energy projects in the next 3 years. NHPC has already successfully commissioned a renewable capacity of 102.5 MW on an ownership basis and has contracted 2000 MW as an intermediary procurer basis.

About NHPC Limited: NHPC Limited is an Indian Hydropower generation company formed in 1975. It was formed with an aim to plan and promote the efficient development of hydroelectric power in all aspects. Later on, NHPC expanded to include other sources of energy such as Geothermal, Solar, Wind, Tidal, etc.

 

DEFENCE

 

1. Harsh Vardhan launches Coastal Research Vessel Sagar Anveshika: Union Minister for Earth Sciences, Harsh Vardhan has launched Coastal Research Vehicle (CRV) ‘Sagar Anveshika’ at the Chennai Port. The vehicle will be used to carry out environment indexing and bathymetric (mapping underwater features) in both coastal and offshore waters. It will be used for research purposes by the National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT) and has been built by Titagarh Wagons, Kolkata, West Bengal. NIOT already has 6 Research Vessels – Sagar Kanya, Sagar Sampada, Sagar Nidhi, Sagar Manusha, & Sagar Tara. About ‘Sagar Anveshika’:

(1) Anveshika has been built under the Indian Register of Shipping (IRClass) and is a DP (Dynamic Positioning)-Capable vessel.

(2) Anveshika will add to the capacity and capability for exploring the ocean which is a huge source of water, energy, food, minerals.

(3) Utilizing the Research Vehicle, Marine Scientists can travel six kilometres below the sea. The scientists can also stay underwater for more than 16 hours to conduct research activities.

(4) Anveshika will enable scientists to conduct various oceanographic research missions aboard, it houses modern laboratories equipped with the latest instruments.

Note: National Institute of Ocean Technology Director: Dr G A Ramadass; National Institute of Ocean Technology HQ: Chennai, Tamil Nadu.

 

OBITUARIES

 

1. Former Gujarat Chief Minister Madhavsinh Solanki passes away: Veteran Congress leader Madhavsinh Solanki, who served as former External Affairs Minister of India and the Chief Minister of Gujarat, has passed away. He had served as External Affairs Minister of India from June 1991 to March 1992. He had been the Chief Minister of Gujarat for three times between 1976 to 1990. He was the longest-serving chief minister of the state before Narendra Modi.