Current Affairs - 2019-20

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AirAsia is a low-cost airline based in Malaysia. It is the largest airline in Malaysia by fleet size and destinations, and it has a significant presence in Southeast Asia, East Asia, South Asia, and Australia. AirAsia was founded in 1993 and began operations in 1996. The airline is known for its low-cost business model and its frequent flyer program, AirAsia BIG. AirAsia has been awarded numerous accolades, including being named the “World’s Best Low-Cost Airline” by Skytrax for 10 consecutive years from 2009 to 2018.

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22nd March is celebrated as the World Water Day. It is celebrated to advocate for the sustainable management of freshwater resources. A theme related to the focus is selected every year by the UN organizations. The theme for 2020 was “Water and Climate Change”.

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Expenditure on the education of the children



Hence option [C] is the right answer.

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Astrosat is India’s first dedicated multi-wavelength space observatory. It has recently accomplished the extremely strenuous job of X-ray polarisation, putting up a strong challenge to prevailing theories of high energy radiation from pulsars. The 18-month old study of the Crab Pulsar in the Taurus constellation and measurement of the variations of polarisation as this highly-magnetised neutron star spins around 30 times every second is a commendable task. A pulsar is a celestial body, believed to be made up on neutrons, and rotates 30 times per second. Even though they are comparatively tiny in size, they have mass more than that of the entire Sun, and hence are known as compact objects. Scientists and astronomers, who participated in the project hail from the country’s top scientific institutes — the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai; the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Thiruvananthapuram; ISRO Satellite Centre (ISAC), Bengaluru; The Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA), Pune; and Physical Research Laboratory (PRL), Ahmedabad.

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Scientists of the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), Bengaluru and the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University, Japan have discovered two new ant species. The two new ant species have been named as Tetramorium krishnani and Tetramorium jarawa respectively in honour of late scientist K.S. Krishnan of the NCBS, and after the Jarawas, an indigenous people of the islands. The newly discovered ants are found in leaf litter in the evergreen forests of Havelock Island and are endemic to the Andamans.

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The Minamata Convention on Mercury is a global treaty to protect human health and the environment from the adverse effects of mercury. It was agreed at the fifth session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on mercury in Geneva, in 2013. Till now India was not a party to the convention, but recently the union cabinet approved the ratification of Minamata Convention on Mercury and thereby enabling India to become a Party of the Convention.

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The Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS) is a permanent organ of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) which serves to promote cooperation of member states against the three evils of terrorism, separatism and extremism.

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Recently, the Central Government formed a new committee named District Development Coordination and Monitoring Committee (DDCMC) in place of the original District Vigilance and Monitoring Committee (DVMC). The newly formed committee has been named as “Disha” in short, and it aims for the effective implementation of Central government schemes.

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The Swedish Academy has postponed the 2018 Nobel Prize for Literature. The academy will award the two Nobel Prizes in Literature, the 2018 prize and the 2019 prize, in 2019. The reason for the delay or postpone is the internal feud within the academy.

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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.