Current Affairs - 2019-20

Notes:
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.

Notes:
The 90th edition of Annual General Meeting (AGM) of Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) has started in New Delhi, which was addressed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on December 13, 2017. It was the Mr Modi’s first address to an AGM of a national business association after becoming the Prime Minister. It was his first major interaction with India Inc since the launch of GST. The theme of this year’s AGM is, ‘Indian Business in a New India’. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and senior Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia are also scheduled to address different sessions of the AGM. Finance Ministers of Bihar, West Bengal, Kerala and Jammu and Kashmir will speak on GST at a special session during the AGM.

Notes:
The Union Cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has recently approved the launch of Ayushman Bharat -National Health Protection Mission (AB-NHPM) in New Delhi on March 21, 2018. The scheme has the benefit cover of Rs 5 lakh per family per year. The target beneficiaries under the scheme will be over 10 crore poor and vulnerable families. The benefits of the scheme are portable across the country. A beneficiary will be allowed to take cashless benefits from any public and private empaneled hospitals across the country. The AB-NHPM will subsume the ongoing centrally sponsored schemes- Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY) and senior citizen health insurance scheme.

Notes:
∠PRQ = 60°
∠PRS = 180° – 60° = 120°
=>∠PSR + ∠RPS = 60°
As RS = PR
∴ ∠PSR = ∠RPS
∴ ∠PSR =
Hence option [B] is the right answer.

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:
Buddha Poornima or Vesak is recognized as the thrice sacred day that marks the birth, enlightenment and parinirvana of Lord Buddha. While Buddha was born in Lumbini in present day Nepal, he attained sambodhiprapti in Bodhgaya in Bihar. In Sarnath, he set in motion the wheel of the Dharma, and finally attained mahaparinirvana in Kushinagar.

Notes:
All above given features are of Chennakeshava Temple, located at Belur in Karnataka.  Chennakeshava is a form of the Hindu god Vishnu.

Notes:
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.

Notes:
Shola forests are tropical montane forests predominantly found in the hilly regions of Western Ghats. Recently, researchers from Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE) in collaboration with IISER in Tirupati and Botanical Survey of India used satellite imagery to study the forest and grassland cover in the Western Ghats. They found that there has been a drastic decline in the area of the Shola grassland. In the place of these grasslands and forests, timber plantations have thrived. Also, increase in agricultural land coupled by urbanisation was reported as another major reason for decline of shola grasslands.

Notes:
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