Current Affairs - 2019-20

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India’s first automatic coastal warning for disasters will come up in Odisha from July 2017. Through alert system, Odisha will be able to warn its coastal population by pressing a single button from a control room in the Odisha capital in the event of natural disasters like tsunami or cyclone. The loud sirens will then go off simultaneously from towers at 122 spots locations including tourist destinations, fish landing centres and coastal habitations. The new system will also enable authorities to alert people in smaller pockets, depending on the severity of the disaster.

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India is a USD 2 trillion economy with around 1.3 billion people.

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The Ministry of Railways has signed MoU with Ministry of AYUSH in New Delhi on February 6, 2018 to augment Ayush services in Railway hospitals i.e. New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai and Guwahati. As per MoU, Ministry of Railways will provide logistics and infrastructure in the form of Land & building, Equipments, Furniture, AYUSH medicines and consumables as well as Manpower. It will organize and provide orientation training to newly recruited AYUSH Doctors and AYUSH Paramedicals. Ministry of AYUSH in turn will provide all other technical inputs required for introduction of AYUSH Systems in the five identified Railways Hospitals. The Ministry will also provide technical knowhow regarding the pharmacopoeia, medicine inventory, hospital planning. Presently, Indian Railways is running 126 Homeopathic Clinics and 40 Ayurvedic Clinics through Staff Benefit Fund under Welfare Section of Establishment Directorate.

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Ayushman Bharat -National Health Protection Mission (AB-NHPM) is a centrally sponsored scheme under Ayushman Bharat Mission. The scheme will provide insurance cover of Rs. 5 Lakh per family per year. The scheme will benefit more than 10 crore families belonging to poor and vulnerable population. AB-NHPM will subsume the on-going centrally sponsored schemes –Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY) and the Senior Citizen Health Insurance Scheme (SCHIS).

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General Bipin Rawat, Chief of the Army Staff, has released a book on Paramveer Chakra Awardees – ‘Paramveer Parwane’ on 20 March 2018. The book illustrates the bravery of Paramveer Chakra Awardees from 1947 to 1965 and is written by Dr. Prabhakiran Jain published by Medha Books. The book has 11 short stories, poems and songs highlighting the history of the battles in which the brave soldiers sacrificed their lives and have shown the utmost courage & leadership while facing the enemy during War to protect the motherland. The book is available in paperback & coffee table book format and its second part will be released shortly.

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Wrestler Bajrang Punia has clinched gold in the 71kg freestyle at the 2018 Yasar Dogu International in Istanbul, Turkey. It was his second consecutive gold medal, after he recently won gold at the 2018 Tbilisi Grand Prix in Georgia. Meanwhile, Sandeep Tomar finished with silver after losing 2-8 in the 61kg final against Iran’s Mohammad bagher Yakhkeshi. In the women’s competition, Pinki was the lone gold medallist in the 55kg category with her 6-3 win over Ukraine’s Olga Shnaider. Beside this, Sangeeta Phogat (59kg) and Geeta (65kg) won bronze medals in their respective categories. Overall, Indian wrestlers returned with 10 medals, including 7 by women in the event.

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NASA’s Juno spacecraft, which successfully entered the orbit of Jupiter on July 4, 2016, has revealed several secrets of the Planet Jupiter. The Great Red Spot is a giant, spinning and persistent storm in Jupiter’s atmosphere, like a hurricane on Earth, and is almost twice the size of our planet earth. It has been discovered in southern hemisphere of Jupiter and is observed since 400 years. Similarly, String of Pearls are massive counter clockwise rotating storms that appear as white ovals in Jupiter’s southern hemisphere.

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Specified Bank Notes (Cessation of Liabilities) Ordinance, 2016 extinguishes the liabilities of the Reserve Bank and the guarantee of the central government towards Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes.

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The Department of Disinvestment has been renamed as Department of Investment and Public Asset Management or ‘Dipam’. This step is aimed at proper management of Centre’s investments in equity including its disinvestment in central public sector undertakings. The new department has been mandated to "advise the government in the matters of financial restructuring of central public sector enterprises and for attracting investment through capital markets".

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National Accountability Bureau is Pakistan’s corruption watchdog. Its an autonomous and constitutional body of that country responsible to build efforts against corruption and prepare critical national economic intelligence assessments against economic terrorism to Pakistan government. It has been frequently in news in context with corruption charges on Nawaj Sharif. It recently also ordered the freezing of properties and assets of finance minister Ishaq Dar, who is also facing a reference in the Accountability Court for possessing assets disproportionate to his known sources of income.