Current Affairs - 2019-20

Notes:
Tawang Monastery, located in Tawang city of Tawang district in Arunachal Pradesh. It is the largest monastery in India and second largest in the world after the Potala Palace in Lhasa, Tibet.

Notes:
Kuno Palpur Wildlife Sanctuary is located in the state of Madhya Pradesh. In the year 2018, it received the status of national park. It was selected as a probable location to implement the Asiatic Lion Reintroduction Project, with an objective of establishing a second lion population in India.

Notes:
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.

Notes:
E = In-center, AD ⊥ BC
AB = 6 cm, BD = 3 cm
∠ADB = 90°
∴ AD =


∴ In-radius =

Hence option [B] is the right answer.

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

Notes:
A week long diversified cultural carnival ‘Rashtriya Sanskriti Mahotsav’ was held in February, 2018 in Madhya Pradesh beginning at Maan Mandir Fort, Gwalior. 

Notes:
Orang National Park is located on the north bank of the Brahmaputra River in the Darrang and Sonitpur district of Assam. It is also known as the mini Kaziranga National Park since the two parks have a similar landscape made up of marshes, streams and grasslands.

Notes:
The 5/20 rule is a norm of the Indian Aviation Ministry according to which under which national carriers are required to have five years of operational experience and a fleet of minimum 20 aircraft to fly overseas. Recently, the Cabinet gave its approval for partial abolition of the 5/20 rule, which will enable new carriers like Vistara and Air Asia to start international operations sooner. The government has decided to scrap a requirement that mandated airlines to have five years of domestic operations to be eligible to fly overseas. However, an airline will have to allocate 20 aircraft or 20% of their total fleet of aircraft, whichever is higher, to the domestic sector if they wish to fly overseas. So in place of 5/20 rule, the new proposed options are like 0/10 and 0/20.

Notes:
Catalonia’s separatist government has declared independence from Spain – but at the same time the national government in Madrid imposed direct rule on the region. Catalonia is one of Spain’s wealthiest and most productive regions. The region enjoyed broad autonomy once but that was suppressed under decades of Gen Francisco Franco’s dictatorship from 1939-75. When Franco died, Catalan nationalism was revived and eventually the north-eastern region was granted autonomy again, under the 1978 constitution. Recently, on 27 October 2017, after years of mutual hostility, independence supporters have proclaimed Catalonia a republic in response of which Spain has responded by imposing direct rule on the autonomous region.

Notes:
The Katoch Committee gave its recommendation for reforms in pharmaceutical Sector. The committee submitted its report in February 2015. Here are the recommendations of the committee:

• The committee suggested setting up of mega parks for API or Bulk drugs manufacturing. Since setting up API or Bulk Industry requires large tracts of land, water and electricity facility, effluent treatment plants, testing facilities, etc; therefore, government should ensure availability of all these facilities at reasonable cost.
• The bulk drug industry is known as one of the major polluting industries. Currently, the cost of the pollution control is very high in the country due to lack of capital intensive technology. Therefore, it is necessary to have proper rules and regulations to have check on the pollution level and the quality of the output.
• Innovative ideas and products should be promoted and awards to the scientists/industry should be given for contribution to the industry. Further, protecting innovation through patents will also help to prompt further innovation in the sector.
• There should be provisions for easy soft loans to the Industry through interest subvention upto 7.5%, and Capex loan to the manufacturers of APls.
• Income Tax rebates on up gradation of the existing R&D facilities should be doubled to 400% from existing 200% and Income tax benefits for manufacturing companies for an initial period of 10 years.
• Creation of advance testing lab infrastructure at all Indian ports/air ports for easy import and export.
• Tax free status to cluster developers and cluster participants for 15 Years
• Measures should be adopted to encourage foreign direct investment in green field as well as brown field projects
• Incentives should be provided to the manufacturers for setting up large plants and for importing of technology so that they can reduce the cost of production.
• Financial investment from the Government in the form of dedicated equity funds for the development of clusters.
• In order to ensure single window clearance to manufacturers and to provide common facilities and other support, units of various departments of government should be located at the manufacturing cluster or site.
• Revival of public sector units for starting the manufacture of selected and very essential critical drugs and vaccines
• Committee expects six large API intermediate clusters in five to six states would be able to transform the industry. As of now, it proposes to start with two fully financed clusters (one focused on fermentation and other on APls), while other clusters would be set up in future as per requirements.
• The committee suggested that states like Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Odisha which are most suited to manufacturing sector should come forward to participate in this sector. The States may also establish their own manufacturing zones for this purpose.