Daily GK Update- 8th July, 2022

NATIONAL UPDATES:

 

1. PT Usha, Ilaiyaraaja among four nominated to Rajya Sabha: The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has nominated four noted personalities from the southern states to the Rajya Sabha. The move is being seen as the BJP’s attempt to make inroads into South India — the party’s final frontier that it still has to conquer. Sports icon PT Usha, music maestro Ilaiyaraaja, spiritual leader Veerendra Heggade, and screenwriter KV Vijayendra Prasad were the four picks of the BJP for the Rajya Sabha. The four Rajya Sabha picks:

a)      PT Usha: Popularly known as the ‘Payyoli Express’, PT Usha is one of India’s most iconic sportspersons. She has represented the country and won medals at various international sporting events, including the World Junior Invitational Meet, Asia Championships, and Asian Games. She is a recipient of the Arjuna award and the Padma Shri.

b)      Ilaiyaraaja: Born in a Dalit household in a village in the Madurai district of Tamil Nadu, Ilaiyaraaja is regarded as one of India’s greatest music composers. In a career spanning more than five decades, he has composed over 7,000 songs for more than 1000 movies and performed in more than 20,000 concerts across the globe. In 2018, he received the Padma Vibhushan. He has also been awarded the Padma Bhushan.

c)       Veerendra Heggade: Veerendra Heggade has served as the Dharmadhikari of the Dharmasthala Temple in Karnataka since the age of 20. He has been a devoted philanthropist for more than five decades. He has led various transformative initiatives for rural development and the promotion of self-employment.

d)      KV Vijayendra Prasad: Born in Kovvur in Andhra Pradesh, KV Vijayendra Prasad has written the story for many prominent Telugu and Hindi movies. He is the father of SS Rajamouli, one of the country’s most famous film directors.

 

2. Smriti Irani, Jyotiraditya Scindia get additional charges of Minority Affairs, Ministry of Steel: Union Ministers Smriti Irani and Jyotiraditya Scindia have been assigned additional charges of Minority Affairs and Ministry of Steel respectively after two Union Ministers Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and Ram Chandra Prasad Singh resigned from the Union Council of Ministers, with immediate effect. Post their resignations, the President of India Ram Nath Kovind, as advised by PM Modi, accepted the resignations of Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and Ram Chandra Prasad Singh from Union Council of Ministers. This is the first time two sitting ministers are out of both Houses of Parliament.

 

3. Rashtriya Raksha University, DroneAcharya tie up to set Remote Pilot Training Centre: Rashtriya Raksha University at Gandhinagar has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with DroneAcharya Aerial Innovations Private Limited for setting up a Remote Pilot Training Centre for imparting drone flying skills. This training will be imparted to the Police and security force personnel and citizens at RRU Campus near Gandhinagar. According to official sources, this initiative is in accordance with the mission of the University to identify, prepare and sustain statecraft of national strategic and security culture among the security, police and civilian society. Following this MoU, the Rashtriya Raksha University will set up a Remote Pilot Training Centre under the Public-Private Partnership model. The training is primarily designed for personnel of Armed Forces, Paramilitary and Police Force, but also offers programmes for citizens willing to acquire the skill.

 

4. Parshottam Rupala inaugurates India’s first ever Animal Health Summit: Union Minister of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying, Parshottam Rupala inaugurating First India Animal Health Summit 2022, he called for greater use of Ayurveda for ensuring better animal health. First India Animal Health Summit 2022 was held at NASC Complex, New Delhi understanding the significance of animal health towards the broader objective of the country’s food and nutrition security, rural incomes and prosperity and overall economic development.

About the ‘India Animal Health Summit 2022’: ‘India Animal Health Summit 2022’ organized by Indian Chamber of Food and Agriculture (ICFA) and the Agriculture Today Group. The two-day event will host a plethora of panel discussions ranging from topics such as Animal Health policy initiatives to Business environment & investment opportunities in the Animal Health sector. The deliberations evolved will later be documented and presented to authorities.

 

5. NSUT: Artificial Intelligence Center of Excellence inaugurated: At Netaji Subhash Institute of Technology (NSUT), an artificial intelligence centre was inaugurated. In his remarks at the Center’s opening, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said universities must abandon conventional thinking and adopt an innovative approach if they are to advance the nation. According to Manish Sisodia, universities today take pride in having a Center of Excellence in Artificial Intelligence. It exhibits the lofty thinking of the young people leading the university and acting pro-actively.

Key Points: According to Mr. Manish Sisodia, in order to keep up with the speed of the quickly developing, technologically advanced nations, we must think ahead of our time, and universities are the best place to do this. Graphical processing units, workstations, data storage, and communication systems are available at the Centre of Excellence. According to the government, the centre now has a cutting-edge supercomputing system that includes a DGX A100 with 324 GB RAM and 8 GPUs, 100TB of storage, a smart rack, and high-speed switches, among other cutting-edge tools.

 

INTERNATIONAL UPDATES:

 

1. Boris Johnson resigns as United Kingdom Prime Minister: United Kingdom Prime Minister, Boris Johnson has announced his resignation as Conservative Party leader after he was abandoned by his close allies in the wake of a series of scandals that rocked his government, triggering a leadership election for a new Tory leader who will go on to become his successor. Johnson will remain in charge at 10 Downing Street until the process of electing a new leader is completed – expected by the time of the Conservative Party conference scheduled for October.

Reason Boris Johnson resigning: Johnson’s resignation comes after he weathered numerous scandals during a tumultuous three years in power in which he brazenly bent and sometimes broke the rules of British politics. He survived a no-confidence vote last month. But recent revelations that Johnson knew about sexual misconduct allegations against a lawmaker before he promoted the man to a senior position in his government led to Johnson’s resignation.

Next Prime Minister could be: Already the list of likely contenders is long and growing, from recently resigned Treasury chief Rishi Sunak, his successor in that job Nadhim Zahawi, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, Attorney General Suella Braverman and Defense Secretary Ben Wallace.

 

2. Gita Gopinath becomes 1st woman to feature on IMF’s ‘wall of former chief economists’: India-born Gita Gopinath became the first woman and second Indian to feature on the ‘wall of former chief economists’ of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The first Indian to achieve the honour was Raghuram Rajan who was Chief Economist and Director of Research of IMF between 2003 and 2006. Gopinath was appointed as IMF Chief Economist in October 2018 and was later promoted as the IMF’s First Deputy Managing Director in December last year.

Some interesting facts about Gita Gopinath:

a)      Gopinath had served as the first female chief economist of the Washington-based global lender for three years.

b)      Gopinath’s research has been published in many top economics journals.

c)       Prior to her appointment as IMF Chief Economist, she was the John Zwaanstra Professor of International Studies and Economics in the economics department of Harvard University.

d)      Before joining the faculty of Harvard University in 2005, she was an assistant professor of economics at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business.

 

OTHER UPDATES:

 

BANKING AND FINANCE

 

1. To conduct fieldwork of inflation anticipation survey, RBI chooses Hansa Research Group: In order to undertake field research for the July 2022 cycle of the consumer confidence and inflation anticipation surveys, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) announced that it had chosen to partner with the Mumbai-based Hansa Research Group. This follows press releases announcing the launch of the consumer confidence survey (CCS) and inflation expectation survey of households (IESH), both dated June 30, 2022. Key Points:

a)      The Inflation Expectations Survey of Households (IESH) has been regularly conducted by the Reserve Bank of India.

b)      The survey aims to gather subjective opinions from households in 19 cities, including Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Chandigarh, Chennai, Delhi, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Jammu, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai, Nagpur, Patna, Raipur, Ranchi, and Thiruvananthapuram, about price changes and inflation based on their individual consumption baskets.

c)       The survey asks for qualitative responses from households regarding price changes (general prices as well as prices of particular product groups) in the three-month and one-year futures as well as quantitative responses regarding inflation rates for the present, the next three months, and the next year. The survey’s findings offer helpful information for monetary policy.

d)      With regard to their opinions on the state of the economy as a whole, the job situation, the price level, and their own household income and spending, households are asked to provide detailed comments in the Consumer Confidence Survey. Regular surveys are done in 19 cities.

 

2. SBI General Insurance appoints Paritosh Tripathi as MD & CEO: Private non-life insurer SBI General Insurance had appointed Paritosh Tripathi as managing director and chief executive officer, effective July 5. He succeeds P.C. Kandpal, who has been posted as Deputy Managing Director (DMD)-(P&RE) at the Corporate Center, State Bank of India (SBI).

Career and Experience of Paritosh Tripathi: Mr. Tripathi has more than 32 years of banking experience and has worked in various departments including MSME, mid-corporate segment, international banking and bancassurance. Before joining SBI General Insurance, he was general manager operations, internal banking group with SBI and was also on the board of Sterling Bank, Nigeria and SBI Canada. From 2017 to 2020, he was head – bancassurance, firstly with SBI Mutual Fund, and then with SBI General Insurance. He was the CEO of SBI DIFC branch in Dubai.

 

BUSINESS AND ECONOMY

 

1. Google launched Startup School India, targets 10,000 startups in small cities: Tech Giant, Google launched the Startup School India initiative, which aims to gather relevant information on startup building into a systematic curriculum to help 10,000 startups in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities. The nine-week virtual programme will involve fireside chats between Google leaders and collaborators from across the startup ecosystem. Key points of the programme:

a)      Startup School is a series of guided online trainings designed to equip early-stage startup founders with the tools, products, and knowledge that growing companies need.

b)      The curriculum will feature instructional modules on subjects like shaping an effective product strategy, deep dives on product user value, roadmapping and product requirements document development, building apps for next billion users in markets like India, driving user acquisition and many more.

c)       With close to 70,000 startups, India is the third largest birthing ground for startups in the world. And as more Indian founders lead their companies successfully to IPOs or unicorn status, it has set off a virtuous cycle wherein their success has ignited aspirations among young Indians across the length and breadth of the country.

Note: Google CEO: Sundar Pichai; Google Founded: 4 September 1998; Google Headquarters: Mountain View, California, United States.

 

AWARDS AND HONOURS

 

1. Polish government honoured maharajas for helping refugees during WW II: The Polish government has honoured the maharajas of Jamnagar and Kolhapur and others who sheltered Polish refugees fleeing the Soviet Union invasion of Poland during World War II. Honouring the invite, the Indian government sent a delegation of former royals, including Yuvraj Sambhaji Raje and Sanyogitaraje Chhatrapati of Kolhapur and representatives of Jamnagar royalty, to Poland. Poland’s deputy PM Piotr Glinski also participated in the Warsaw event. Recalling their memories of living in India, Polish residents showcased pictures of the Indian kings’ generosity.

In 1939, Germany attacked Poland from the West and the Soviet Union from the East. During the occupation, the Soviet authorities forced hundreds of thousands of Poles to migrate deeper into Soviet territory, including Siberia. At least 5,000 Polish citizens had then fled the country and sought refuge in Kolhapur. They stayed in Valiwade village near Kolhapur city for many years, where a little Poland of sorts came up, equipped with a school, a hospital and even a fire brigade.

 

OBITUARIES

 

1. Freedom fighter Gandhian P Gopinath Nair passes away: Freedom fighter P. Gopinathan Nair has passed away at the age of 100. He was known for following Gandhian ideology in his life and was honoured with the Padma award. He had participated in the freedom struggle. He had taken part in the Quit India Movement of 1942 and had worked alongside Vinoba Bhave to promote Bhoodan and Gramdan movements. The Government of India awarded him the fourth highest civilian honour of Padma Shri in 2016 for his contributions to society.

 

2. Former Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe passes away after being shot: Shinzo Abe, Former Japan’s Prime Minister, who was shot at during an election campaign in western Japan’s Nara city, has passed away. The Nara fire department had earlier said that the 67-year-old Abe was in cardiopulmonary arrest before he was taken to the hospital. They said that he had been wounded on the right side of the neck and the left clavicle. Abe, the country’s longest-serving prime minister until he resigned in 2020, was flown to hospital by helicopter after the attack. It was the first assassination of a sitting or former Japanese premier since the days of prewar militarism in the 1930s.

Police said a 41-year-old man suspected of carrying out the shooting had been arrested. Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai (NHK) Japanese public broadcaster quoted the suspect, identified as Tetsuya Yamagami, as telling police he was dissatisfied with Abe and wanted to kill him.