Current Affairs - 2019-20

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In a bid to expand the green cover, the Maharashtra government recently signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Railways, under which trees will be planted on the land adjacent to the railway tracks in the state.

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The 56th Liberation Day of Goa was celebrated with great pomp & show in Panaji on December 19, 2017. Several programmes and events have been organised to mark the occasion. The state was liberated on this day in 1961 from Portuguese control after almost 450 years of colonial rule. The armed action “code name – Operation Vijay” was carried out by the Indian Armed Forces in December 1961. The operation involved air, sea and land strikes for over 36 hours, and was a decisive victory for the Republic of India that ended 451 years of rule of Portugal over its remaining exclaves in India. The engagement lasted two days resulting in twenty-two Indians and thirty Portuguese killed in the fighting. The brief conflict drew a mixture of worldwide praise and condemnation.

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The Advanced Ultra Supercritical technology is an indigenous technology for coal-fired power plants, which requires less fuel, delivers greater efficiency and is a tad cleaner. The Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research (IGCAR) is designing phases of the 800 MW advanced ultra supercritical (AUSC) boiler for coal power plant will be ready by 2019-2020.

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Under Provision Coverage Ratio (PCR), banks set aside funds to cover bad loans. A higher provision coverage ratio means the bank is protecting itself better against its bad loans. It was recently in news when provision coverage ratio for most of the public sector banks went down and quantity of bad loans increased.

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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 Low Equilibrium Trap is an economic concept given by Richard R. Nelson. It is an economic situation in which the per capita income is too low to save or invest a part of it. The individuals in such economies live hand to mouth. Also the low level of investment results in a low rate of growth in national income. As per Richard Nelson, there are four reasons for “Low Equilibrium Trap” viz. a high correlation between the level of per-capita income and the rate of population growth; low propensity to direct additional per-capita income to increase in per-capita investment; scarcity of uncultivated arable land and Inefficient production methods.

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Global Energy Architecture Performance Index Report is published by World Economic Forum.The Report 2017 ranks 127 countries on their ability to deliver secure, affordable, sustainable energy. India ranked 87th among the 127 surveyed countries.

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Tamang and the Limbu communities of Sikkim have been placed in the ST category.

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Recently, the scientists have discovered the oldest fossil ever on earth at Quebec in Canada. The discovered fossils shows that organisms were thriving 4.2 billion years ago, hundreds of millions of years earlier than previously thought.

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The 2018 cleanliness survey for Indian Railways has been conducted by the Quality Council of India (QCI) i.e. announced by Railway Minister Piyush Goyal in New Delhi on August 13. Among the A-1 category stations, Jodhpur has been declared the cleanest railway station in the A1 category, followed by Jaipur and Tirupati (Andhra Pradesh). In A category stations, Marwar (Rajasthan) has been placed at first position, followed by Phulera (Rajasthan) and Warangal (Telangana). The North Western Railway (NWR), which is headquartered at Jaipur , topped the list in the cleanest zone category, followed by South Central Railway (SCR) and East Coast Railway (ECR). This is the 3rd report of Third Party Audit-cum-Survey of ranking of cleanliness, which covers 407 stations which includes 75 stations in A1 and 332 stations in A category stations. It is an attempt of Indian Railways to increase cleanliness levels and improve hygiene standards by identifying the laggards.