Current Affairs - 2019-20

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Union Cabinet has approved the proposal for merger of State Bank of Bikaner & Jaipur (SBBJ), State Bank of Patiala (SBP), State Bank of Mysore (SBM), State Bank of Travancore (SBT), and State Bank of Hyderabad (SBH) with the parent, State Bank of India. This merger will create a banking giant, having 1/4 of market share in India’s banking sector (in terms of loans and deposits), with an asset base of about Rs 40 lakh crore from Rs 23 lakh crore.

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The Matunga suburban station on the Central Railway (CR) of Mumbai division has figured in the Limca Book of Records 2018 for having an all-woman staff. The achievement comes six months after Matunga became the first railway station in the country to be run by an all-woman staff. A team of 41 women staffers at the station includes personnel from the RPF, commercial and operating departments. These staffers work under the supervision of station manager Mamta Kulkarni. The staff has been handling all operations of the station round-the-clock for the last six months and results are positive and encouraging. The aim of the initiative is to create an environment where women are encouraged to take a decision about their own personal and professional well-being.

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World’s One of the most powerful X-ray machines called European X-ray Free Electron Laser (XFEL has officially opened at Hamburg, Germany. It is capable of firing powerful X-rays in bursts in less than seconds: so short that, like strobe lights, they can capture snapshots of jittery molecules frozen in time, and with a wavelength small enough to provide pictures at atomic resolution. The Hamburg machine is one of a few such X-ray lasers worldwide, but boasts a unique rapid-fire feature: it can rattle off 27,000 pulses every second, a firing rate more than 200 times greater than the next-fastest facility.

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The only project from India called “Installation of Ground Water Recharge System” to get GCF Fund is based in Odisha. It has recently been approved GCF for $34 million. India’s National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) signed an Accreditation Master Agreement (AMA) with the Green Climate Fund. NABARD is the implementation agency of Green Climate Fund in India. The Green Climate Fund (GCF) was set up in 2010 and is one of the operating entities under financial mechanism set up under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to provide support to developing countries in combating climate change, with resources to be generated from funding by developed country Parties and various other public and private sources.

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United Nations declared 2016 as the International Year of Pulses (IYP). It provides an unprecedented opportunity to raise awareness and to celebrate the role of beans, chickpeas, lentils and other pulses in feeding to health, nutrition and sustainability.

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INS Chakra is an 8,140-tonne nuclear-powered submarine manufactured by Russia. It was taken by India on lease from Russia in 2012 for a period of 10 years. The Russian experts after examination of the damaged submarine have asked 125 crore for its repair. The Arihant is based on Russian double hull design with a sealed nuclear reactor section. Recently, it also suffered a major damage due to “human error” and is back in services after repairs. INS Arihant was built with Russia’s help under Advanced Technology Vessel (ATV) project.

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The Economic Survey 2017-18 has suggested six key areas that can be taken up as national missions. These are as follows: National Mission on Cyber-Physical Systems; national missions on dark matter; genomics; energy storage systems; mathematics and agriculture. National Mission on Food Processing was launched in 2012 for the 12^th five-year plan.

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The Girdhar Malviya Committee was constituted to prepare draft Ganga Act. The committee recently submitted its report to the Union Minister of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation.  

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The term was coined by RBI governor Raghuram Govind Rajan. He explain his point, with an imaginary example of a pensioner with a savings of Rs 1 lakh who earns an interest rate of 10 per cent and wants to buy dosas that cost Rs 50 a piece. The RBI governor assumes inflation to be 10 per cent. “He could buy 2,000 dosas with the money today, but he wants more by investing. At 10 per cent interest, he gets Rs 10,000 after one year plus his principal,” Rajan argued. With dosa prices going up by 10 per cent to Rs 55, he can buy 182 dosas approximately with the Rs 10,000 interest. However, with his principle amount the pensioner can now buy 1818 dosas. Thus, stateing that that low deposit rate coupled with low inflation is better than high rates with high prices.

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Gherats are water mills, run on water power and are used for grinding wheat and spices. These are most commonly found in Uttarakhand. Recently, many of these mills which were abandoned earlier have been renewed with the help of German technology. The Uttarakhand state government is also supporting the villagers in setting up these traditional water mills by providing subsidy on the purchase of equipment for the setting up the mills.