Current Affairs - 2019-20

Notes:
State Bank of India has launched a new work from home facility for its employees. The board of the bank has approved the plan whereby its employees can work from home using mobile devices.

Notes:
Nirupama Rao, the former Indian Ambassador to US, has been appointed as a public policy fellow to a Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (WWICS) where she will work on a project on the Sino-India ties. Rao will be affiliated with the Wilson Centre’s Asia program and spend 3 months in residence at the Wilson Centre from June 2017, which is a key non-partisan policy forum for tackling global issues. The WWICS is the living, national memorial to President Wilson, created by Congress in 1968 and headquartered in Washington DC. The Wilson Center provides a strictly nonpartisan space for the worlds of policymaking and scholarship to interact.

Notes:
The mines mentioned in this are in Jharkhand.

Notes:
“Operation Save Kurma” was conducted in the country by the WCCB to combat the proliferating illegal trade in live turtles and its parts from the country to destinations abroad. India is the only recipient of the certificate of commendation at the 69th Standing Committee meeting of CITES. The WCCB had convened a species specific operation on turtles, code named OPERATION SAVE KURMA” from December 15, 2016 to January 30, 2017 and recovered a total of 15,739 live turtles from 45 suspects, having inter-state linkages. The operation brought about awareness among the enforcement agencies to focus on the existing trade routes and major trade hubs in the country, which will be specifically focused in future.

Notes:
“Operation Greens” was recently announced in Budget 2018. It aims to double the income of farmers by end of 2022. It is basically a price fixation scheme that aims to ensure farmers are given the right price for their produce. Under this, government will enhance the MSP for crops to 1.5 times the input cost of the produce. Also, it envisages promoting farmer producer organisations, agri-logistics, processing facilities and professional management. For its implementation, government has allocated a sum of Rs 500 crore in the Budget 2018.

Notes:
India has declared 2010-20 as the “Decade of Innovation”. The Government has stressed the need to enunciate innovation in the diverse field and has taken several steps in order to fulfil the same.

Notes:
Ministry of Communications has launched the Cool EMS Service. It is a one-way service that allows customers in India to import Japanese food for personal use. All the Food items will be carried by Japan Post in special cool boxes containing refrigerant to preserve the quality of the food items and then collected in India.

Notes:
“Khapli” wheat is traditionally cultivated on a limited scale in Karnataka, southern Maharashtra, Saurashtra region of coastal Gujarat, parts of Tamil Nadu, and Andhra Pradesh. Khapli wheat forms only 1% of all wheat grown in India.

Notes:
India’s first and the only Minority Cyber Gram village is Chandauli village in Rajasthan. It was recently praised by the founder of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg during his visit to India. The village has 1300 households with average two persons per family (2600 persons) including non minorities in the village were selected for Digital Literacy. The project has been completed under the digital literacy programme.

Notes:
In Thailand, Tropical storm Pabuk caused floods and blackouts leaving nearly 30,000 people in evacuation shelters across the southern part of the country on January 5, 2019. Pabuk packed winds of up to 75km an hour and brought heavy rains and storm surges as it lashed the entire south of the kingdom. It is expected to be the worst storm to hit the region in 30 years. The storm was downgraded to a depression early today as it moved into the Andaman Sea. Meanwhile, ‘yellow’ alert has been issued for the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. As per the latest data, no warning has been issued for Odisha but due to cyclonic activities near the Andaman Islands, weather in the eastern Indian state will be cloudy and dry. IMD has predicted heavy rainfall over the Andaman Islands from the evening of January 5. People in the Andaman Islands have been advised to remain in safe places and IMD has advised fishermen to stay out of the sea.