DAILY GK 19 FEB 2020

DAILY GK 19 FEB 2020

1.    Permanent commission to women officers in the army

ü The Supreme Court bench of Justices  D.Y. Chandrachud and Hemant Gupta dismissed the central government’s submission that women are physically weaker than men and agreed on Delhi High Court’s decision about eligibility of permanent commission and command post to short service commissioned (SSC) women officers in the army.

2.    Most spoken language

ü The 22nd edition of the world language database Ethnologue stated Hindi, as the 3rd most spoken language of the world in 2019 with 615 million speakers. English language was at the top of the list with 1,132 million speakers and Mandarin Chinese was at the 2nd position with 1,117 million speakers.

ü Bangla has been ranked as the 7th most spoken language of the world and has 228 million native speakers.

3.    WEFFI 2019

ü The Worldwide Education for The Future Index (WEFFI) 2019 ranked India in 35^th position, whereas in 2018 it was ranked 40^th position. The WEFFI report is created by The Economist Intelligence unit and commissioned by Yidan Prize foundation. The index is topped by Finland.

4.    THE’s emerging economies university rankings 2020

ü According to the Times Higher Education’s (THE) Emerging Economies University Rankings 2020, which ranks  a total of 533 universities from 47 countries, India has 11 institutes among world’s top 100 universities where Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore (Karnataka) emerged as India’s top-ranked institution by getting the rank 16^th with the score 48.4 .

ü Tsinghua University in China has topped the list with the score of 83.8.

5.    Ashraf Ghani wins second term as Afghanistan’s President

6.    New PFRDA Chairman

ü Supratim Bandyopadhay was appointed as chairman of the PFRDA (Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority). The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet approved Supratim appointment for a period of 5 years from the date of assumption or till attaining the age of 65 years.

7.    New CVC & CIC elected

ü GOI has selected Sanjay Kothari as the new Chief Vigilance Commissioner(CVC) and Bimal Julka became new Chief Information Commissioner in the Central Information Commission.

8.    Pakistan successfully tests nuclear-capable air launched cruise missile Ra’ad-II

9.    Soil Health Card Day-February 19, 2020

ü PM Narendra Modi had launched the Soil Health Card (SHC) Scheme on February 19, 2015 at Suratgarh in Rajasthan, Jaipur, to increase the fertility of the soil.