Current Affairs - 2019-20

Notes:
Parvathamma Rajkumar (77), Kannada film producer and the wife of the legendary Kannada superstar Dr Rajkumar, has passed away in Bangalore, Karnataka on May 31, 2017. She was the first woman producer, distributor, exhibitor who only marketed Kannada films. She produced 87 films under her banner Vajreshwari Combines — one of the oldest and most successful banners in Kannada film — and Poornima Enterprises.

Notes:
The Union Minister of Railways Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu has inaugurated the first-ever Indian Railways Human Resources Round Table Conference in New Delhi on June 10, 2017. The aim of the Conference is to improve the productivity of the human resources through inter-change of ideas with various stakeholders and HR practitioners and academics. There are 3-themes of the conference viz. Stakeholders Expectations from HR, The Future of Work – HR Role and Creativity Within Constraints.

Notes:
The Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi has approved the North East Industrial Development Scheme (NEIDS), 2017 with financial outlay of Rs.3000 crores upto March, 2020. Government will provide necessary allocations for remaining period of scheme after assessment before March 2020. NEIDS is a combination of the incentives covered under the earlier two schemes with a much larger outlay. In order to promote employment in the North East States, Government is incentivising primarily the MSME Sector through this scheme and is also providing specific incentive through it to generate employment. The newly introduced scheme will promote industrialization in the States of the North Eastern Region and will boost employment and income generation. All eligible industrial units which are getting benefits of one or more components of other schemes of the government will also be considered for benefits of other components of this scheme. The overall cap for benefits under all components of incentives will be of Rs 200 crores per unit.

Notes:
Let AB = 2x units
=> BD=DC = x units
∴ AB : BD = 2 : 1
Hence option [A] is the right answer.

Notes:
Night clouds or noctilucent clouds, made of crystals of water ice, re most commonly observed in the summer months at latitudes between 50° and 70° north and south of the equator. They can only be observed when the Sun is below the horizon. They are the highest clouds in Earth’s atmosphere, located in the mesosphere at altitudes of around 76 to 85 kilometres (47 to 53 mi). They are normally too faint to be seen, and are visible only when illuminated by sunlight from below the horizon while the lower layers of the atmosphere are in the Earth’s shadow. Noctilucent clouds are not fully understood and are a recently discovered meteorological phenomenon; there is no record of their observation before 1885.

Notes:
“Operation Greens” was recently announced in Budget 2018. It aims to double the income of farmers by end of 2022. It is basically a price fixation scheme that aims to ensure farmers are given the right price for their produce. Under this, government will enhance the MSP for crops to 1.5 times the input cost of the produce. Also, it envisages promoting farmer producer organisations, agri-logistics, processing facilities and professional management. For its implementation, government has allocated a sum of Rs 500 crore in the Budget 2018.

Notes:
Recently, based on the recommendations of Kokate committee, the Union Health Ministry had imposed the ban on 344 FDC drugs under Section 26A of Drugs and Cosmetics Act in March 2016. The ban was imposed because of FDC being unsafe and not having a therapeutic justification. India is one of the world’s largest markets for FDC drugs that make up almost half the market share. It was imposed over fears that these drugs cause anti-microbial resistance and might even cause organ-failure because of high toxicity. It also aimed at curbing the misuse of medicines.

Notes:
Jivi Kalp is an eco-friendly binding material. It is obtained from the locally available bio-resources. This aims to help in enhancing the rural economy by bringing down the cost of production of Agarbatti by approximately 60%. Besides this, the ICFRE has also identified 10 new plant species found good for Agarbatti making which are now being promoted through extension activities.

Notes:
While Ockhi was a cyclone in Arabian Sea; Roanu, Nada and Vardah originated in Bay of Bengal region. Cyclone Roanu was a relatively weak tropical cyclone that caused severe flooding in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh in May 2016. Nada was a result of a low-pressure area formed in the extreme south-eastern part of the Bay of Bengal. It badly damaged the coastal areas of Tamil Nadu in India. Cyclone Vardah was a result of a low-pressure area formed in the Malay Peninsula and adjoining north Sumatra, in early December 2016. Ockhi was a strong tropical cyclone in the Arabian Sea. It badly struck the west coast of India.

Notes:
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has recently announced to launch Mars Mission “HOPE”, which is expected to be launched by 2020. Upon launch, it will become the first mission to Mars by any Arab or Muslim country. The aim of the mission is to enrich the capabilities of Emirati engineers and to increase human knowledge about the Martian atmosphere. The Hope probe will study the atmospheric layers of Mars in detail and will provide data to study the causes of the corrosion of its surface that has made it impossible for water to exist on the planet. The project will also provide insights about the weather on the Red Planet. It will observe weather phenomena such as dust storms and changes in temperature and how the atmosphere interacts with topography, from the highest volcano peaks to ice sheets to the vast deserts and the deepest canyons. It is expected to reach Mars in 2021, which coincides with the 50th anniversary of the UAE’s formation.