Current Affairs - 2019-20

Notes:
The top three states in India that generate the most hazardous waste are:

• Gujarat: 28.76%
• Maharashtra: 25.16%
• Andhra Pradesh: 8.93%

Other major generators of hazardous waste include:

• Chhattisgarh (4.74%)
• Rajasthan (4.38%)
• West Bengal (4.17%)
• Tamil Nadu (4.15%)

In 2022, Gujarat generated over 4.2 million metric tons of hazardous waste, which was more than one third of the total hazardous waste output in India. Gujarat also had the largest number of industries generating hazardous waste in 2021.

Notes:
Indian anti-hunger activist Ankit Kawatra has honoured with the 2017 Queen’s Young Leaders award for his exceptional work in transforming the lives of others. Kawatra is among the 60 others from all 53 Commonwealth countries to be felicitated with the prestigious award by Queen Elizabeth (II) at a ceremony in Buckingham Palace in London on June 29, 2017. The honourees will also undergo a year-long mentoring and online learning by the University of Cambridge to build leadership capabilities and better their work towards the communities. He is the founder of Feeding India, a not-for profit organization that works towards solving problems of hunger, malnutrition and food wastage, mainly by redistributing extra food from restaurants, canteens, households, corporates etc. to help people in need.

Notes:
As of 2021, India is the second-highest producer of sugarcane in the world after Brazil. Among Indian states, the largest producer of sugarcane is Uttar Pradesh.

Notes:
Before April 2019, National Housing Bank (NHB) was a wholly-owned subsidiary of RBI. RBI sold its 100% equity to government in 2019 and now its owner is Government of India. This was done to end the cross-holding in the regulatory institutions as per the Narasimham-II committee report’s recommendations.

Notes:
The Government of India (GoI) had constituted an 8-member task force under CBDT member Arvind Modi in November 2017 to review the Income-tax Act of 1961 and to draft a new Direct Tax Law in consonance with the economic needs of the country. Recently, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has invited suggestions and feedback from stakeholders and general public in the format provided on the departmental website. It stated that the format can be downloaded from the website and suggestions may be sent through e-mail at [email protected], latest by 2nd of next month. The task force will also study the direct tax system in other countries and also keep in mind international best practices. The committee will submit its report in May 2018.

Notes:
All given features are of Indian roller

Notes:
Recently, Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, Chandrababu Naidu, has proposed to develop a dedicated 200 acre industrial park for the manufacture of medical devices in his state. The Park will be having a Common Manufacturing Facility Centre to act as a Hub for SME Sector to enable it to flourish as a Cluster. Focus will be on creating an Eco System for High End Medical Device Manufacturing and Import Substitution with an eye for Export Market. Though the Medical Device Park has been proposed to be set up in three states viz. Gujarat, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh, but Andhra Pradesh has become the first to implement the programme. The proposed medical devices park will have ‘Centre of Excellence’ in which research for medical device will be conducted.

Notes:
The drug called Truvada has been approved for the treatment of HIV in infected patients. It works by lowering the amount of virus circulating in people’s blood. Also the recent clinical trials show that it can also protect uninfected high-risk people from acquiring the virus, if they take the drug daily before and after exposure. Truvada contains the active substances emtricitabine and tenofovir disoproxil fumarate. Drugmaker Cipla has received regulatory approval in India to sell its version of Truvada.

Notes:
The Economic Survey 2017-18 notes that India could face a “Late Converger Stall” when it comes to economic growth. The survey identified four major factors impeding India’s growth to developed economy viz. climate change-induced agricultural stress; hyper-globalization which reduces India’s exporting opportunities; difficulties of transferring resources from low productivity to higher productivity sectors; & upgrading human capital as per the demands of a technology-intensive workplace.

Notes:
Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation project is an ambitious project of Telangana state government to provide water to farmers by December 2017.