Current Affairs - 2019-20

Notes:
The Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi has approved the North East Industrial Development Scheme (NEIDS), 2017 with financial outlay of Rs.3000 crores upto March, 2020. Government will provide necessary allocations for remaining period of scheme after assessment before March 2020. NEIDS is a combination of the incentives covered under the earlier two schemes with a much larger outlay. In order to promote employment in the North East States, Government is incentivising primarily the MSME Sector through this scheme and is also providing specific incentive through it to generate employment. The newly introduced scheme will promote industrialization in the States of the North Eastern Region and will boost employment and income generation. All eligible industrial units which are getting benefits of one or more components of other schemes of the government will also be considered for benefits of other components of this scheme. The overall cap for benefits under all components of incentives will be of Rs 200 crores per unit.

Notes:
35% total cost = Rs. 17500
∴15% of total cost =

Notes:
Hokersar is an important refuge for migratory waterfowls, shorebirds and trans-Himalayan species during winters. It also acts as one of the major flood absorption basins. Hokersar has been declared as Conservation Reserve under the Jammu and Kashmir Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1978. It was also declared as Ramsar site on November 8, 2005 under the Ramsar Convention. The study shows that the open waters of the wetland have been colonized by the weeds and other aquatic vegetation. Some areas of the wetland that existed in 1969 have been converted into paddy fields. About 10 hectares of the wetland has been converted into built-up area.This wetland is on the brink of extiction as per various environmentalists.

Notes:
Recently, the Union Ministry of Culture has chosen Tawang district of Arunachal Pradesh, as the venue for the Rashtriya Sanskriti Mahotsav, the biggest national cultural festival in the country. The major objective of the annual festival is to popularise and showcase the cultural diversity of India through arts, artisans, various dance forms, handicrafts, flavours etc. from across the country. The festival is a five-day festival, which would be celebrated at Tawang during March 2-6, 2017, and is expected to be attended by almost 600 artistes from all over the country.

Notes:
Alliance 8.7 is for a world without forced labour, modern slavery, human trafficking and child labour. It is an initiative under the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. It calls for effective measures to end forced labour, modern slavery, and human trafficking, as well as child labour in all its forms.

Notes:
“Walopi” (Warning Loco Pilots) and “Chemvist” (Check My Vigilance State) are the two technologies, which have been patented by IIT-Kharagpur Professor Aurobinda Routray and his team in the Electrical Engineering department. These technologies will now be developed for Indian Railways. A globally conducted survey reveals that driver drowsiness is a major problem identified as a cause of accidents. To curb the menace in India, the research team of IIT Kharagpur has developed the two technologies. Both the technologies are based on what is globally called PERCLOS (percentage of eyelid closure over the pupil over time), and reflects slow eyelid closures (“droops”) rather than blinks. “Chemvist” uses Electrooculography (EOG) signals, which essentially give the voltage difference between the cornea and retina of the eye. Drivers will have to wear a specially-designed headband to play a “video game” on a screen. The headband will detect if the driver is fatigued or will be alert for the next few hours. “Walopi” on the other hand, checks the on-board level of alertness. It uses a camera with face-detection technology, which assesses if the driver is falling asleep.

Notes:
Project DARPAN (Digital Advancement of Rural Post Office for A New India) is an initiative by Ministry of Communication. It aims to improve the quality of services to rural poor, and achieve “financial inclusion” of un-banked rural population. The project will increase the rural reach of the Department of Posts and enable Branch Offices (BOs) to increase traffic of all financial remittances, savings accounts, Rural Postal Life Insurance, and Cash Certificates; improve mail operations processes by allowing for automated booking and delivery of accountable article; increase revenue using retail post business; provide third party applications; and make disbursements for social security schemes such as MGNREGS.

Notes:
Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya was born on September 25, 1916, in a village Nagla Chanderabhan in district Mathura of Uttar Pradesh. He was regarded as an ideal Swayamsevak of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). He is known for starting a monthly magazine “Rashtra Dharma”, a weekly “Panchajanya”, and a daily “Swadesh”. He conceived the political philosophy called “Integral Humanism”. Recently, the government celebrated his 100^th birth anniversary on 25^th September 2017.

Notes:
The NASA’s X-ray source, Chandra X-ray Observatory (CXO), located in a region of the sky known as the Chandra Deep Field-South (CDF-S), has observed the deepest gamma-ray burst (GRB) event. The two major possibilities to explain the X-ray source invoke gamma-ray burst (GRB) events are- GRBs are jetted explosions triggered either by the collapse of a massive star or by the merger of a neutron star with another neutron star or a black hole.

Notes:
ARIES telescope has been launched in a joint collaboration between Indian, Russian, and Belgian scientists and is located at Devasthal, Nainital at a height of 2,500 metres. The ARIES optical telescope's mirror is 3.6 meters in diameter and will be used in the study and exploration of planets, starts, magnetic field and astronomical debris.