DAILY GK 30 DEC 2019


DAILY GK 30 DEC 2019
1.    Netherlands scrapping its nickname ‘Holland’
ü As a part of €200,000 tourism rebranding, the Netherlands has officially announced to drop the nickname ‘Holland’ from January 2020. Even the Netherlands’ Board of Tourism and Conventions is also scrapping its symbol featuring a tulip, the national flower, and the word “Holland” and replacing it with a new logo that has an orange tulip and the initials “NL.”

2.    No MDR charges on payment via RuPay
ü Union Finance Minister(FM) Nirmala Sitharaman launched an online auction platform named “eBkray” in New Delhi inorder to increase transparency in auctioning of assets attached by banks. eBkray is linked with Indian Banks Auctions Mortgaged Properties Information (IBAPI) portal.
ü As on December 27, 2019 over 35,000 properties were uploaded by PSBs. These PSBs have attached assets worth ₹2.3 lakh crore in the last three fiscal years.
ü The Indian Banks Auctions Mortgaged Properties Information (IBAPI) portal is an initiative of Indian Banks Association (IBA) under the Department of Financial Services (DFS) of the Ministry of Finance (MoF).


3.    RBI’s 20th FSR report
ü According to the 20th edition of the Financial Stability Report (FSR) 2019 released by RBI, India’s financial system remains stable despite the recession.
ü After the capital market regulator SEBI (Securities and Exchange Board of India) imposed a fine of Rs 25 lakh each on the major Credit rating agencies (CRA) -CARE and ICRA, the RBI has also taken a dig at these agencies by strongly criticizing them for allowing low-rated companies to do “rating shopping“(where rating agencies giving good ratings to companies with poor ratings within 3 months).
ü According to the report, frauds worth Rs 1.13 lakh crore have been registered in banks in the 1st half of the current financial year 2019-20 (H1 FY20), which is the highest amount of bank fraud so far.

4.    11th CEBR’s report
ü United Kingdom(UK)-based Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) released its 11th annual report titled ‘World Economic League Table 2020′(WELT 2020). According to the report, India is expected to overtake Germany as the fourth-largest economy in the world by 2026. It also estimated that India will overtake Japan as the third-largest economy by 2034.

5.    India’s 1st Chief of Defence Staff
ü Bipin Rawat has been appointed as India’s 1st Chief of Defence Staff(CDS). The CDS is a 4-star single-point military adviser to the government’s defence ministry as suggested by the Kargil Review Committee in 1999 headed by K. Subrahmanyam.
ü The CDS will also head all tri-services institutions such as the National Defence Academy in Pune, Maharashtra, College of Defence Management in Secunderabad, Telangana and the National Defence College in Delhi.

6.    Hemant Soren sworn in as CM of Jharkhand
ü Hemant Soren sworn in as the 11th Chief Minister of Jharkhand at the oath taking ceremony took place at Morabadi Ground in Ranchi for the second term. He is succeeding Mr. Raghubar Das.He is the president of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), a political party in Jharkhand.

7.    Algeria’s New PM
ü Algeria’s President Abdelmadjid Tebboune has announced Abdelaziz Djerad as the Prime Minister  of the country.Djerad succeeds Noureddine Bedouia as the new PM.

8.    Deputy CM of Maharashtra
ü Ajit Pawar was sworn in as Maharashtra’s deputy chief minister in Mumbai, for the second time in two months. Earlier he had sworn-in as deputy CM on November 23 along with BJP’s Devendra Fadnavis but had resigned in less than 80 hours.

9.    Seema banned by NADA
ü Indian Weightlifter Seema, has been banned for 4-years by National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA),the national organisation responsible for monitoring the doping control program in sports, for a doping violation.

10. FIDE Women’s World Rapid Chess Championship
ü Koneru Humpy from Andhra Pradesh, became FIDE Women’s World Rapid Champion for the year 2019 by defeating China’s Lei Tingjie in Armageddon (chess penalty shoot-out) in the finals held at Moscow, Russia .
The men’s World Rapid Championship 2019 title was won by Norway’s Magnus Carlsen.

11. Mujeeb Ur Rahman(Bangladesh) becomes the youngest bowler to take 100 T20 wickets