Weekly Current Affairs 22nd To 31st January 2020

International News

Mahatma Gandhi International Convention Centre

• The convention centre is established by India to honour the memory of Mahatma Gandhi and also represents India's firm commitment towards Africa.
• The convention centre is designed as a 2,000 capacity Plenary Hall, to witness high-level and wide-ranging participation from African Union member states and other high-level conventions.

National News

Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puraskar

• The President of India, Ram Nath Kovind, presented the Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puraskar 2019 on 22nd January 2019 at Rashtrapati Bhavan.
• Individuals and Institutions are also conferred with the awards for child welfare.

Subhash Chandra Bose Aapda Prabandhan Puraskar 2020

• The Subhash Chandra Bose Aapda Prabandhan Puraskar is given to recognise the excellent work done by individuals and institutions in India in the field of disaster management.
• Government of India announces the award every year on 23rd January on the birth anniversary of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose.

India's First Underwater Metro

• The underground Metro Project is known as the East-West Metro project, which is being constructed below the Hoogly River.
• The underwater metro twin tunnel will connect Howrah and Mahakaran Stations.

India’s 10 More Wetlands got the Ramsar Site Tag

• Wetlands declared as Ramsar sites are protected under strict guidelines of the convention.
• With this recognition, the numbers of Ramsar sites in India are now 37 and the surface area covered by these sites is now 1,067,939 hectares.

India’s First Governmental Waste to Energy Plant

• The Waste to Energy Plant has a capacity of 500 Kg of waste per day and has been constructed in three months.
• It is a patented technology called POLYCRACK, with the heterogeneous catalytic process which converts multiple feedstocks into hydrocarbon liquid fuels, gas, carbon and water.

WHO Declared Coronavirus as PHEIC

• The decision was taken in the second consecutive meeting of the Emergency Committee.
• The committee was convened by the WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus under the International Health Regulations (IHR) (2005).

Banking

Finance Ministry allows Filing GSTR-3B Returns in a Staggered Manner

• The decision is taken towards easing the process as presently, the last date of filing GSTR-3B returns for every taxpayer is 20th of every month.
• After the change, now the last date for filing of GSTR-3B for the taxpayers having annual turnover of Rs 5 crore and above in the previous financial year would be 20th of every month without late fees.

SEBI’s Draft Norms for Social Stock Exchange

• A high powered panel on Social Stock Exchanges (SSE) incorporated by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has prepared draft norms for the Social Stock Exchange.
• The SSE committee is chaired by Ishaat Hussain, Director, SBI Foundation.

Appointments

Name of the Person	Designation
Ramesh Joshi	Non-Executive Chairman of the company Vakrangee Limited
ED Janak Raj	Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) Reserve Bank of India
Lt Gen Satinder Kumar Saini	Vice Chief of the Army Staff
Arvind Krishna	Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of International Business Machines Corporation (IBM)
Resignation
Sachin Bansal	Independent Director of Ujjivan Small Finance Bank (USFC)

Awards and Honours

Awardee	Award
Rani Rampal	'World Games Athlete of the Year' Award

Important Days

Date	Day	Theme
24th January 2020	National Girl Child Day	Theme: “Aware girl child-able Madhya Pradesh"
25th January 2020	National Tourism Day	To raise awareness about the importance of tourism for the country’s economy.
25th January 2020	National Voters Day	Theme: ‘Electoral Literacy for Stronger Democracy'.
26th January 2020	Bharat Parv 2020	Theme: 'Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat' and 'Celebrating 150 Years of Mahatma Gandhi'.
30th January 2020	Martyrs' Day	To honour the sacrifices made by the Father of the Nation, Mahatma Gandhi.

MoU’s Signed

GOI signed $210 Million Loan with World Bank

• The $210 million loan agreement has been made to support smallholder farmers in the Indian state of Maharashtra.
• The loan agreement was signed by Sameer Kumar Khare, Additional Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs, and Junaid Kamal Ahmad, Country Director (India), World Bank.

Government Schemes

PRAGATI

• PRAGATI is the ICT based multi-modal platform for Pro-Active Governance and Timely Implementation, involving Central and State governments.
• Prime Minister had launched the PRAGATI is a multi-purpose and multi-modal governance platform on 25th March 2015.

Mukhyamantri Krishak Durghatna Kalyan Yojana

• The Mukhyamantri Krishak Durghatna Kalyan Yojana will provide financial assistance to the family of farmers who die or become handicapped while working in fields.
• The government has also decided to implement Mukhyamantri Paryatan Samvardhan Yojana to boost tourism in the state.

SERVICE -a Scheme of SAIL

• The SERVICE scheme will promote and facilitate philanthropist activities by the employees in a structured manner.
• The Minister also launched a dedicated interactive “SAIL SERVICE” portal for implementation of this Scheme.

'Shiv Bhojan' Scheme

• The 'Shiv Bhojan' scheme is aimed at providing a meal to the poor for just Rs 10.
• Under this, thalis or lunch plates would be available to people at designated centres/ canteens during a stipulated time in all the districts.

PM-KUSUM Scheme

• The Scheme has a substantial environmental impact in terms of savings of CO2 emissions.
• The Government has targeted to install 175 Giga Watt renewable energy by 2022.

Science and Technology

India Achieved Complete Phase Out of HCFC-141b

• The HCFC-141b is a chemical used by foam manufacturing enterprises and one of the most potent ozone depleting chemical after Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs).
• The MoEFCC prohibited the issuance of import license for HCFC-141b from 1st January, 2020 under Ozone Depleting Substances (Regulation and Control) Amendment Rules, 2019.

Vyom Mitra

• ISRO showcased the lady robot (the prototype of the half-humanoid) at the inaugural session of the "Human Spaceflight and Exploration - Present Challenges and Future Trends".
• The Robot will be send before astronauts on India's first manned mission to space in December 2021.

DRDO Anti-Satellite (A-SAT) Weapon System

• DRDO launched ‘Mission Shakti’, India’s first anti-satellite technology A-SAT mission in March 2019 from the Dr AP J Abdul Kalam Island in Odisha.
• The system destroyed a live orbiting satellite in the Low Earth Orbit (LEO) in a "Hit to Kill" mode with 10-centimetre accuracy.

Bhuvan Panchayat V3 Web Portal

• The Bhuvan Panchayat V3 web Portal is launched to enhance network application of gram panchayats.
• The Portal will function with the help of satellite technology developed by ISRO.

Medical Termination of Pregnancy (Amendment) Bill, 2020

• The Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi has approved the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (Amendment) Bill, 2020 on 29th January 2020.
• The bill has the objective of expanding access of women to safe and legal abortion services on therapeutic, eugenic, humanitarian or social grounds.

Summits and Conferences

ECI to Host 10th Annual Meeting FEMBoSA

• FEMBoSA was established at the 3rd Conference of Heads of Election Management Bodies (EMBs) of SAARC Countries held at New Delhi from in 2012 through a unanimously adopted resolution to establish the Forum.
• The annual FEMBoSA meeting is held by rotation among the members. The last (9th) annual meeting of FEMBoSA was held in Dhaka in September 2018.

India-Brazil Business Forum

• The delegation was led by the President of the Federative Republic of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, and India’s Union Minister of Commerce and Industry & Railways, Piyush Goyal.
• The India-Brazil Business Forum was organised by industry body ASSOCHAM, The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India.

3rd Global Potato Conclave

• Gujarat is one of the leading producers of Potato in the country, with a productivity of more than 30 tonnes per hectare.
• In the last two decades, two Global Potato Conferences were organized in 1999 and 2008.

World Sustainable Development Summit 2020

• The World Sustainable Development Summit (WSDS) is the annual flagship event of The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI).
• The WSDS has continued the legacy of the erstwhile Delhi Sustainable Development Summit (DSDS) which was initiated in 2001 with the aim of making ‘sustainable development’ a globally shared goal.