DAILY GK 13 FEB 2020

DAILY GK 13 FEB 2020

1.    India bans E-Cigarettes on Flights and Airports

ü  On January 10,2020, Aviation security regulator the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) has issued a circular that Electronic-Cigarettes and all forms of Electronic Nicotine Delivery System(ENDS) will not be allowed in both domestic and International flights.

2.    National Water Conference

ü  The CM of Madhya Pradesh Kamal Nath has inaugurated the National water conference at Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh. The conference is being held to finalize the guidelines of “Right to Water Act” or “Water Rights Act” and also discussed the water crisis in the state and also making the state a water-rich state.

3.    Top 500 Banking Brands 2020

ü  As per the The Banker’s ‘Top 500 Banking Brands 2020’ report, India’s IndusInd Bank has topped the list of ‘Highest increase in brand value’ among global banks.It’s brand value saw an increase of 122% over the past 12 months.

ü  As a part of the report, the list “Top 50 By Total Brand Value by Country” has been topped by China, India ranked 8^th in this list in comparison to 10^th place in 2019.

  

4.    Facebook launched digital literacy training

ü  Facebook launched “We Think Digital” Programme to provide digital literacy training to 1 lakh women across 7 states, including Uttar Pradesh (UP),West Bengal & Bihar.
It has been launched in partnership with National Commission for Women (NCW) and Cyber Peace Foundation.

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DAILY GK 12 FEB 2020

DAILY GK 12 FEB 2020

1.    African Union (AU) Summit 2020

ü 33^rd African Union (AU) Heads of State Summit 2020 under the theme “Silencing the Guns: Creating Conducive Conditions for Africa’s Development” was held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

ü President of the Republic of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa, is the newly elected Chairperson of the African Union for one year.He replaces Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

ü The African Union (AU) is a continental union consisting of 55 member states located on the continent of Africa.

2.    WHO renames deadly coronavirus from China as ‘COVID-19’

ü WHO has officially renamed Coronavirus as ‘COVID-19’ [“co” stands for “corona”, “vi” for “virus” and “d” for “disease”, while “19” was for the year, as the outbreak was first originated in China’s Wuhan area in December 2019].

ü Earlier the WHO had given temporary name for the virus as 2019-nCoV

ü Wild mammal pangolin suspected as coronavirus host

ü According to the researchers at South China Agricultural University, pangolin, an endangered, scaly, ant-eating mammal is believed to be the cause of coronavirus.

3.    International Darwin Day-February 12, 2020

ü This year on 12^th February has marked the 211^th birth anniversary of the Charles Darwin.

4.    India’s foreign investment jumps 40%

ü According to RBI on RBI data on ‘Outward Foreign Direct Investment (OFDI), India ‘s Foreign investment rose by nearly 40 per cent to USD 2.10 billion on a yearly basis in January 2020.

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DAILY GK 11 FEB 2020

DAILY GK 11 FEB 2020

1.     “DefExpo 2020

ü The 11th edition of DefExpo-2020, organized by Ministry of Defence was held in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh (UP). It’s main theme was “India: The Emerging Defence Manufacturing Hub” with focus on “Digital Transformation of Defence”. This expo is also termed as “Mahakumbh of defence manufacturing companies”.

2.    India-UK joint Military Exercise “Ajeya Warrior” conducted in Salisbury plains, UK

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DAILY GK 9 – 10 FEB 2020

DAILY GK 9 – 10 FEB

1.    IOC selects Gopichand for the Lifetime Award

ü Pullela Gopichand, the Chief National coach for the Indian Badminton team has received the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) Coaches Lifetime Achievement Award in Male Category of the year 2019.He is the 1st Indian coach to be Honoured with this Lifetime award by the Olympics Committee.

2.    ICC Under 19 CWC 2020

ü 13^th edition of 2020 ICC Under-19 Cricket World Cup was held in South Africa. It was administered by International Cricket Council (ICC) & 16 teams participated.

ü In Finals Bangladesh’s youth team defeated India by three wickets in the final. With this, the Bangladesh team won the under-19 World Cup title for the first time.

ü Bangladesh captain Akbar Ali was adjudged Man of the Match  while India’s Yashasvi Jaiswal, who scored the highest 400 runs in the tournament, was adjudged Player of the Tournament.

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DAILY GK 8 FEB 2020

DAILY GK 8 FEB 2020

1.    Ease of Living Index and Municipal Performance Index 2019

ü Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs (MoHUA), has launched, two Assessment Frameworks, viz. Ease of Living Index (EoLI) and Municipal Performance Index (MPI) 2019 to assess quality of life of citizens in 100 Smart Cities and 14 other Million Plus Cities.

2.    Hyderabad Metro Rail becomes Country’s 2^nd Largest Operational Metro

ü CM K.Chandrashekhar Rao flagged off new Metro line from Jubilee Bus Station (JBS) to Mahatma Gandhi Bus Station (MGBS) connecting twin cities if Hyderabad and Secunderabad, and the stretch covering of 11-kms (Kilometers) becomes India’s 2nd largest Metro Rail Network of total operational distance of 69.2kms, only next to Delhi Metro Rail Network having an operational distance of 231kms.

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DAILY GK 7 FEB 2020

DAILY GK 7 FEB 2020

1.    NCRB report

ü According to the report  on report on ‘missing women and children in India’ released by National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). The highest number of women who go missing in India are from Maharashtra & and the number of missing children are maximum in the State of Madhya Pradesh(MP) in the year 2018.

2.    UNESCO DG visited India

ü UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay arrived in New Delhi. She visited the National Museum to see the exhibition titled ”Indian Heritage in Digital Space” in New Delhi which showcased augmented reality displays of five UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

3.    International Religious Freedom Alliance

ü United States launched the 27-nation International Religious Freedom Alliance, which will try to adopt a collective approach in protecting and preserving religious freedom across the world.

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DAILY GK 6 FEB 2020

DAILY GK 6 FEB 2020

1.    15-member trust for Ayodhya temple

ü PM Narendra Modi announced in Parliament about the formation of a trust to oversee the construction of a Ram Temple in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh. In this regard, 67.703 acres of land near the temple area has been allocated to the trust.

2.    Around 38 Cr bank accounts opened under PMJDY

ü According to the Minister of State for Finance Anurag Singh Thakur, bank accounts opened under the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) have registered around 38 crore till January 2020.

ü PMJDY accounts have “No minimum balance” requirement. It offers an overdraft (OD) limit of Rs 10,000 & free accident insurance cover of  Rs 2 lakh.

3.    International Intellectual Property (IP) Index

ü The U.S.(United States) Chamber of Commerce’s Global Innovation Policy Center (GIPC) has released the 8th edition of International Intellectual Property (IP) Index for 2020 namely ‘Art of the possible’.India’s position has downgraded to 40^th rank in comparison to 36^th position out of 50 countries in 2019. The index has been topped by the United States (US) followed by UK (United Kingdom), Sweden, France and Germany.

4.    6^th Bi-monthly monetary policy 2020

ü RBI announced its 6^th Bi-Monthly Monetary Policy Rates for 2020-21 in Mumbai , Maharashtra. The policy review meeting was headed by RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das.
Current rates:

Policy Rates under Liquidity Adjustment Facility (LAF)
Repo Rate	5.15%
Reverse Repo Rate	4.90%
Marginal standing facility (MSF) Rate	5.40%
Bank Rate	5.40%
Reserve Ratios
Cash reserve Ratio (CRR)	4%
Statutory Liquidity Ratio (SLR)	18.25%
GDP Prediction
GDP for 2020-21	6 % (from 5 %)
CPI Inflation
H1:2020-21	5.4-5.0 %

5.    Navy to get third Scorpene submarine

ü 3rd Scorpene submarine, Karanj, will be delivered to the Indian Navy by Dec.2020 and all 6 sub-marine deliveries would be completed by 2022.
The Scorpene submarine is to be equipped with the AIP (Air Independent Propulsion) system from 2023.

6.    International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation-Feb 6

ü Theme: “Unleashing Youth Power: One decade of accelerating actions for zero female genital mutilation”. 

7.     Women’s National Weightlifting Championships

ü Rakhi Halder of Bengal has bagged gold in the 64kg category of the 35th edition of  Senior Women’s National Weightlifting Championships in Kolkata, ranked 19th in the Olympic qualifiers list.

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DAILY GK 5 FEB 2020

DAILY GK 5 FEB 2020

1.    Greenbone Sustainable Resilience data ]

ü According to German cybersecurity firm Greenbone Sustainable Resilience, Maharashtra topped among the Indian states which has been hit by global medical data leak. The analysis was made after data of around 120 million Indian patients were leaked and made freely available on the internet.

ü Maharashtra which topped among Indian states had 3,08,451 data leaks giving access to 6,97,89,685 images.

2.    Bhutan ends free entry for Indian tourists

ü The Government of Bhutan, Thimphu decided to implement a daily fee of Rs.1200 ($17) for “regional tourists” from India, the Maldives, Bangladesh from July 2020. The fee is called SDF “Sustainable Development Fees” inorder to regulate a new tourism policy (tourism facilities, better infrastructure).

3.    RBI hikes Insurance cover on bank deposits

ü Reserve Bank of India has increased the Insurance cover on bank deposits to Rs 5 lakh from Rs 1 lakh effective from February 4, 2020 with a view to giving protection to depositors.

ü The cover is provided by a wholly owned subsidiary of the RBI, the Deposit Insurance and Credit Guarantee Corporation (DICGC).

ü The DICGC does not directly charge any premium from the depositor on this insurance. So Now Banks will pay a premium of 12 paise against 10 paise per Rs 100 deposit.

4.    SKOCH Award

ü Big Bang Boom Solutions Pvt Ltd (BBBS), start-up company in the defence sector was awarded the prestigious SKOCH Award for “Boron Nitrate Based Personal Hybrid Combat Armour ” at New Delhi.
The award is contributed to the best efforts in the area of digital, financial and social inclusion.          

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DAILY GK 4 FEB 2020

DAILY GK 4 FEB 2020

1.    IHME Report

ü According to a recent report by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation(IHME), 14% of under 5 years of age deaths in India occurred mainly due to pneumonia. This accounted for approximately 1,27,000 deaths annually where the figure was around 1,78,000 in 2013.

2.     ‘Central banker of the year 2020

ü The Banker magazine, a British English-language monthly financial affairs publication has named RBI governor Shaktikanta Das as the ‘Central Banker of the Year 2020’, Asia-Pacific for encouraging growth and balancing the economy.

ü Apart from this, the announcement of the title of Global Central Banker award 2020 has been given to Jorgovanka Tabakovi , the head of the National Bank of Serbia.

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DAILY GK 3 FEB 2020

DAILY GK 3 FEB 2020

1.    Exercise-‘Matla Abhiyaan’

ü Indian Navy has carried out coastal security exercise called, ‘Matla Abhiyaan’ at Sunderban region in Kolkata, West Bengal with the aim to create awareness about the coastal security.

2.    World Sustainable Development Summit

ü Prakash Javadekar was inaugurated World Sustainable Development Summit (WSDS) 2020 based on the theme “Towards 2030 Goals: Making the Decade Count” at India Habitat Centre in New Delhi.
The summit was organized by The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI).

3.    Maldives readmitted to Commonwealth family

ü Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, President of the Maldives announced that Maldives has once again become a member of the Commonwealth family after the meeting between Abdullah Shahid, Foreign Minister of Maldives & Patricia Scotland, Secretary General of the Commonwealth.

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