Current Affairs - 2019-20

Notes:
State Bank of India has launched a new work from home facility for its employees. The board of the bank has approved the plan whereby its employees can work from home using mobile devices.

Notes:
India’s first automatic coastal warning for disasters will come up in Odisha from July 2017. Through alert system, Odisha will be able to warn its coastal population by pressing a single button from a control room in the Odisha capital in the event of natural disasters like tsunami or cyclone. The loud sirens will then go off simultaneously from towers at 122 spots locations including tourist destinations, fish landing centres and coastal habitations. The new system will also enable authorities to alert people in smaller pockets, depending on the severity of the disaster.

Notes:
Uttar Pradesh has become the first State to endorse the Central government’s draft bill that makes instant triple talaq a cognisable and non-bailable offence. The draft law, which provides for three-year imprisonment and a fine to a man trying to divorce his wife by uttering “talaq” three times, got the State government’s approval at a Cabinet meeting, chaired by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath in Lucknow on December 5, 2017.

Notes:
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.

Notes:
The new missions will be opened in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Mauritania, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Swaziland and Togo. Currently, India has 29 resident missions in Africa.

Notes:
ISRO has recently established the Gadanki Ionospheric Radar Interferometer system at Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh.

Notes:
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.

Notes:
'Pradhan Mantri Gramin Digital Saksharta Abhiyan' (PMGDISHA) is an initiative to make 6 crore rural households digitally literate. PMGDISHA is expected to be one of the largest digital literacy programmes in the world. The programme helps the Government to promote cashless transactions through mobile phones; the course content would also have emphasis on Digital Wallets, Mobile Banking, Unified Payments Interface (UPI), Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) and Aadhaar Enabled Payment System (AEPS), etc.

Notes:
Operation Resolute Support is a NATO-led counter-terror mission in Islamic Republic of Afghanistan which began on January 1, 2015. The mission aims to assist the Afghan security forces and institutions as well as counter-terror and combat.

Notes:
Artemisinin drug is used in the treatment of Malaria. The drug has been in news due to emergence of resistance to the drug. The drug was introduced when resistance to commonly used chloroquine was making malaria treatment inefficient.