Current Affairs - 2019-20

Notes:
Karnataka won the 2019-20 Vijay Hazare Trophy.

Notes:
B.N. Mohapatra, an officer of Indian Railway Accounts Service (IRAS) of 1980 batch, has been appointed the new Financial Commissioner (FC) of Indian Railways. Prior to this posting, he served as Additional Member (Finance) since November 2016,

Notes:
Mulberry silk is the most popular variety of silk in India, accounting for around 79% of the country’s silk production. In 2022, India produced nearly 26,000 metric tons of mulberry silk. The other varieties of silk produced in India are:

• Tasar, which accounted for 8.02% of the total raw silk production
• Eri, which accounted for 20.55% of the total raw silk production
• Muga, which accounted for 0.71% of the total raw silk production

India is the second largest producer of silk in the world. The five states that produce the most silk are Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, and Jammu & Kashmir.

Notes:
In the equilateral triangle centroid, incentre, orthocentre, coincide at the same point.
∴ Height 3 = in radius
∴ Height = Median = 33 = 9 cm
Hence option [B] is the right answer.

Notes:
% Expenditure on transport and other items = (20 + 5) % = 25%.

Notes:
Major General Jose Eladio Alcain of Uruguayan Army has been appointed new Head of Mission and Chief Military Observer for UN Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP). He will succeed Major General Per Gustaf Lodin of Sweden, who will complete his two year assignment in July 2018. In 1948, the UN Security Council (UNSC) established the UN Commission for India and Pakistan (UNCIP) to investigate the dispute between India and Pakistan regarding the disputed state of Kashmir. In 1949, UNCIP was absorbed into the UNMOGIP, which supervises the ceasefire between India and Pakistan and to monitor the peace in Kashmir.

Notes:
The Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) won the international competition to adopt the Wax Deoiling Technology at Numaligarh Refinery Ltd (NRL) in Assam. The Wax Deoiling Plant is based on indigenously developed technology and in line with the Make in India initiative. The Wax Deoiling Technology is used to produce waxes from petroleum streams. Paraffin wax is used for making candles, polishes, medicines, food packaging, paints, leather etc, while Microcrystalline Wax is mainly used in cosmetic industry.

Notes:
Gujarat’s Dahej is all set to get India’s first roll on-roll off (Ro-Ro) vessel passenger ferry services around April 2017. The Rs 550 crore projects being executed by the Gujarat Maritime Board (GMB), and is expected to bring down travel time between Saurashtra regions in Gujarat with its Southern parts significantly. From Ghoga in Saurashtra to Dahej in South Gujarat takes around 10-12 hours for trucks and buses, and even by cars it is not less than 6-8 hours. Once the Ro-Ro ferry service commences, this time would be dramatically shortened to one and a half hours. Roll-on/roll-off (RORO or ro-ro) ships are vessels designed to carry wheeled cargo, such as cars, trucks, semi-trailer trucks, trailers, and railroad cars that are driven on and off the ship on their own wheels or using a platform vehicle, such as a self-propelled modular transporter. This is in contrast to lift-on/lift-off (Lolo) vessels, which use a crane to load and unload cargo. Roll-on/Roll-off or ‘Ro-Ro’ services for freight transport have being proposed to be introduced at five places – Kolkata, Sahibganj, Varanasi, Patna and Bhagalpur besides setting up small terminals at a cost of Rs 1,000 crore.

Notes:
Till now, only Highways, ports, inland waterways and railways were part of the planned multi-modal logistics hubs in India. But recently Aviation sector has been also included as the part of multi-modal logistics hubs in India. With this step the government will integrate all kinds of logistics hubs. It has been included as a part of India Integrated Transport and Logistic policy. The integrated policy would include construction of 50 Economic Corridors and upgrading key feeder and inter corridor routes to improve overall efficiency of freight movement. It also includes developing 35 multimodal logistics parks to serve as centres for freight aggregation and distribution, multimodal transportation, storage and warehousing and value added services.

Notes:
Recently, the ministry of earth science (MoES) launched a high performance computer (HPC) system named Mihir. The system is meant to improve India’s weather forecasting. It will be India’s largest in terms of peak capacity and performance and will propel the country’s ranking from the 368th position to the top 30 in list of HPC facilities across the world. India will now also be ranked 4th, after Japan, UK and US for dedicated HPC resources for weather/climate community.