Weekly Current Affairs February 2019: Week V

National Events

Deloitte launched of its global initiative ‘WorldClass’ in India for the empowerment of women. The initiative was launched by Deloitte’s Global CEO, Punit Ranjan. The initiative aims to support 10 million girls and women by 2030 through education and skills development.
Union Human Resource Minister, Shri Prakash Javadekar launched Operation Digital Board to leverage technology to boost quality education in the country. Under Operation Digital Board seven lakh classrooms of 9th, 10th and 11th standards and two lakh classrooms of colleges and Universities will be equipped with digital boards in the next three years.
Argentina’s President Mauricio Macri arrived in New Delhi for a three-day India visit.

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) condemning the Pulwama Terror Attack has decided to continue the ‘Grey’ listing of Pakistan for its failure to stop funding of terrorist groups such as Jaish-e-Mohammad, Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jamat-ud-Dawa.
A month-long Festival of India in Nepal is being held at Nepal. It is organised by the Swami Vivekananda Cultural Center at the Indian embassy in Kathmandu with support from India’s Ministry of culture.
Zimbabwe’s central bank launched a new currency called RTGS dollars, to resolve a long-term monetary crisis.

The government of Himachal Pradesh has made an announcement regarding the announcement of Monkey as Vermin for the period of one year in 11 districts of the state
Sikaria Mega Food Park Pvt Ltd which is the 17th Mega Food Park in the country and first in the state of Tripura was inaugurated .
Yogi Adityanath launched a scheme for adolescent girls aged between 11 to 14 years, who have left their education and will take steps to provide them proper nutrition and special care.
UP Government decided to observe 8th of every month as Adolescent Girls Day, at Anganwadi Centres across the state, and Nutrition Campaigns will be organized for these girls on that day.

The data released from the Ministry of Commerce and Industries shows that the FDI inflows to India contracted by 7 per cent to USD 33.49 billion during April-December in the financial year 2018-19.
World Bank, United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women(UN Women), and Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) launched new social impact bonds exclusively for women, called Women’s Livelihood Bonds (WLBs), with an initial corpus of Rs 300 crore. It will enable individual women entrepreneurs in sectors like food processing, agriculture, services and small units to borrow around Rs 50,000 to Rs 3 lakh at an annual interest rate of around 13% to 14% or less and have a tenure of 5 years. They will be unsecured, unlisted bonds and offer fixed coupon rate of 3% per annum to bond investors.
Reserve Bank of India (RBI), in accordance with an announcement made during the last bi-monthly policy, decided to create a single category for the NBFCs (non-banking financial companies) by bundling their present three-tier structure. It was also decided that exposures to all NBFCs, excluding core investment companies, will be risk weighted as per credit ratings.

NITI Ayog organised the conference on Future of Indian Banking and Role of technology Tomorrow in association with the Foundation for Economic Growth and Welfare (EGROW Foundation).
The 4th India-ASEAN Expo and Summit was inaugurated in New Delhi.
“VIVID-Vision Insight and Voices as India goes Digital”- the District Informatics Officer (DIO) meet, was organised by National Informatics Centre (NIC) as an initiative to interact with the DIO’s and to share their experiences as well as contribution, as digital change-makers at the grass-root level in the States.
Technology Incubation and Development of Entrepreneurs (TIDE 2.0) Scheme has been devised to promote the momentum into the tech entrepreneurship landscape. The Scheme provides financial and technical support to incubators engaged in supporting ICT startups using emerging technologies such as IoT, AI, Block-chain, Robotics etc. in seven pre-identified areas of societal relevance.
Digidhan Mitra Chatbot: Designed and developed by NIC, the AI based Digidhan Mitra enables a text & voice based conversation with the user, mining the Digidhan Portal, to give customized information in graphical, tabular and textual format. It provides bank wise transactions details as well as growth pattern of various modes of transactions like BHIM, IMPS, Cards etc. in tabular as well as graphical form."

The government of Gujarat has launched the second edition of the water conservation scheme Sujalam Sufalam Jal Sanchay Abhiyan. The state government has increased its financial contribution for the scheme to 60 per cent, which meant private groups getting involved would have to give only the remaining 40 per cent.
The Minister of Textiles, Smriti Irani inaugurated Soil to Silk Project and Eri Spun Silk Mill in Assam. Soil to Silk Project envisages new Eri plantation on 100 hectares and will facilitate post cocoon activities for an on-farm sector like plantation, spinning and reeling.
Madhya Pradesh launched the Mukhyamantri Yuva Swabhiman Yojana to provide employment for youth. The scheme guarantees 100 days of employment every year to urban youths from economically weaker sections (EWS). They will get Rs 4,000 stipend per month and total Rs 13,500 for the 100 days period would be provided. The scheme defines Economically weaker sections as those whose family’s annual income is less than Rs 2 lakh and the scheme is limited to youth in the age group 21-30 years.
Odisha government approved Khusi scheme aimed at improving menstrual hygiene among adolescent girl students in the state, with an outlay of Rs 466.08 crore over a period of 5 years.

The Jindal Steel and Power Ltd (JSPL) has been honoured with the prestigious ‘FICCI CSR Award’ for Women Empowerment. JSPL was awarded for its innovative and high impact women empowerment programmes
Dr Divya Karnad, Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies at Ashoka University has been awarded the prestigious Global Future For Nature Award 2019 for her work on marine conservation.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been honoured with the Seoul Peace Prize for his service to international cooperation, global growth and human development.
Oil and Natural Gas Corporation(ONGC)’s Rajahmundry unit won the Energy and Environment Foundation Global Clean Awards-2019 for sustained efforts in pursuit of Swachh Bharat Mission as envisioned by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, at a function in New Delhi.
Harmanpreet Singh was awarded the 2018 Player of the Year award while women’s team striker Lalremsiami as the Rising Player of The Year,by the Asian Hockey Federation.

India and South Korea was signed an agreement for releasing a joint stamp, commemorating Princess Suriratna (Queen Hur Hwang-ok), a legendary Princess of Ayodhya, who went to Korea in AD 48 and married King Kim-Suro.

Actress Kareena Kapoor Khan has been appointed as an ambassador of Swasth Immunised India campaign. The Swasth Immunised India campaign has been launched by Serum Institute of India (SII) and Network 18.
Justice Uma Nath Singh took the oath as the first lokayukta of Nagaland.

Thailand and the United States hosted the annual Cobra Gold military exercise, the biggest activity of its type in the Asia-Pacific region with 29 nations taking part as participants or observers.