DAILY GK: 25 DEC 2020
1. HIGH POWER ELECTRIC LOCOMOTIVES
INDIGENOUSLY MANUFACTURED
• India became the 6th Country to
manufacture High Power Electric Locomotives indigenously, in 2015 Ministry of
Railways & Alstom (France) signed a contract worth €3.5 billion (INR 25,000
crore) to produce High Power Electric
Locomotives at Madhepura Electric Loco Factory in Bihar.
• It was the largest ever Foreign Direct
Investment (FDI) project of Indian Railways.
• 2020 marks the 5th year of signing of the
contract.
• The other countries are Russia, China,
Germany & Sweden.
• The contract allowed for manufacturing of
800 Prima Locomotives at the Madhepura Electric Loco Factory, Bihar.
2. GLOBAL MEDIA AND FILM SUMMIT IN
2021
• Prakash Javadekar, Union Minister for
Information and Broadcasting addressed the Confederation of Indian
Industry(CII) Big Picture Summit 2020.
• During the event mentioned that India will
host Global Media and Film Summit in 2021.
• During the event, he announced that India
will establish a special pavilion at Cannes in 2022 as the Cannes Film Festival
celebrates 75 years.
3. “FIREFLY BIRD DIVERTER”
• “Firefly Bird Diverter” a unique
initiative of the Ministry of Environment Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC)
and Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) to reduce the mortality of the Great
Indian Bustard (GIB) from the overhead power lines in areas with high
population of GIB in the wild.
• Under this initiative, around 1813
diverter flaps, called “fireflies”, were installed on the lines, which can be
spotted by the birds from a distance of 50 meters and change their course.
4. ‘MANAGEMENT OF COVID-19’
• The 31-member Committee (10 from Rajya
Sabha, 21 from Lok Sabha) Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs
headed by Rajya Sabha MP, Anand Sharma presented a report on ‘Management of
COVID-19 pandemic and related issues’ to Rajya Sabha Chairman – Venkaiah Naidu
(Vice President).
• The report lauded the Government’s efforts
in controlling the spread of COVID-19, but pointed out the deficiency of
testing facilities at Airports throughout March 2020.
5. ARMY VARIANT OF MRSAM
• India successfully conducted the first
army variant test of Medium-Range Surface-to-Air Missile (MRSAM) from
Integrated Test Range, Chandipur, Odisha.
• The missile has been jointly developed by
Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO) & Israel Aerospace
Industries (IAI).
• The MRSAM has been manufactured by Bharat
Dynamics Ltd (BDL).
• It has a strike range of 100 kms and speed
of Mach 2 (supersonic).
6. AMITABH KANT VIRTUALLY LAUNCHED
DIGIBOXX
• Amitabh Kant, CEO of National Institution
for Transforming India (NITI) Aayog virtually launched India’s 1st digital
asset management platform, DigiBoxx.
• The digital file storage, sharing, and
management SaaS product provides storage options for individuals and
organisations of all sizes and industries.
• This cloud storage service was created by
a tech startup founded and promoted by Arnab Mitra, MD, LIQVD ASIA along with
Ashish Jalan and Vivek Suchanti, Concept Group.
7. BOOK “COVID-19: SABHYATA KA
SANKAT AUR SAMADHAN”
• Former Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra
and Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman Harivansh Narayan Singh launched Nobel laureate
Kailash Satyarthi’s new book titled “Covid-19: Sabhyata ka Sankat aur Samadhan”
(Covid-19: Crisis of Civilisation and Solutions).
• This Hindi book was published by Prabhat
Prakashan.
8. NATIONAL CONSUMER DAY 2020
• The National Consumer Day also called as
National Consumer Rights Day is annually
observed across India on 24th December to highlight the importance of the
consumer movement and the needs to ensure that customers are aware of their
rights and responsibilities.
• The National Consumer Day marks the day on
which the Consumer Protection Act 1986 received the presidential assent.
• The theme of National Consumer Day 2020 is
“New Features of Consumer Protection Act, 2019”.
