Daily Current Affairs Quiz-07 Feb 2020

The International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation is a United Nations (UN) campaign held on February 6 to stop genital mutilation to girls and women.

It not only violates a person’s rights to health, security, physical integrity but also cruel, inhuman, right to life when procedures result in death. The theme for 2020 is “Unleashing Youth Power: One decade of accelerating actions for zero female genital mutilation.”

The Government has set a target of installation of 100 GigaWatt solar power and 60 GigaWatt wind power capacity in the country by December 2022 by implementing various schemes. Energy Minister R K Singh stated the majority of solar power projects are installed with private investments.

He added that Grid-connected solar power capacity of over 33 thousand seven hundred megawatts has been installed in the country till 31st December last year.

The government informed that around five lakh 70 thousand inhabited villages including gram panchayats have been covered by the mobile service. The Rajya Sabha, Electronics and Information Technology Minister, Ravi Shankar Prasad stated mobile coverage in remaining villages is being provided by the government and telecom service providers in a phased manner.

Around four lakh nine thousand kilometre optical fibre cables have been laid down till last month and around one lakh 33 thousand gram panchayats have been made service ready.

About NASA: Headquarters: Washington, D.C., United States

Jim Bridenstine-Administrator, James Morhard-Deputy Administrator, Jeff DeWit-Chief Financial Officer.

Actor Kirk Douglas, whose Hollywood career spanned seven decades, passed away aged 103. He rose to prominence during Hollywood’s “golden age”, earning his first Oscar nomination for the 1949 film Champion. He was also the father of Oscar-winning actor Michael Douglas.

The Ministry of Food Processing Industries (MoFPI) has sanctioned 39 Mega Food Parks and 298 Integrated Cold Chain Projects throughout the country to fill in the gaps across the value chain and establishing the Cold Chain Grid.

The MoFPI is focusing on building cold chain infrastructure across the country, for seamless transfer of perishables from production to consumption areas, through the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Sampada Yojana (PMKSY), which comprises of component schemes namely (i) Integrated Cold Chain and Value Addition Infrastructure, (ii) Mega Food Park, (iii) Creation of Backward & Forward Linkages, (iv) Creation/ Expansion of Food Processing and Preservation Capacities (v) Agro-Processing Clusters and (vi) Operation Greens.

Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa will undertake a four-day state visit to India and hold talks on a number of key areas including trade, defence and maritime security cooperation. The visit, beginning February 7, will be the Rajapaksa senior’s first overseas visit since his brother Gotabaya was elected President in November

He will have meetings with President Ram Nath Kovind, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar.

Chairperson: Rajnish Kumar

State-owned Indian Oil Corp (IOC) signed a first term contract for importing Russian crude oil as the world’s third-largest energy consumer looks to diversify its sources away from the volatile Middle East.

IOC signed the contract to import up to 2 million tonnes of Urals grade crude oil from Rosneft of Russia. India is 83 per cent dependent on imports to meet its oil needs. Two-thirds of the imports come from the Middle East, Iraq being the biggest supplier followed by Saudi Arabia.

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das-led Monetary Policy Committee announced its decision to keep the key lending rates at existing levels.

All six members of the MPC voted in favour of maintaining the status quo on monetary policy, which was in line with economists’ expectations.

The repo rate – or the interest rate at which the RBI lends short-term funds to commercial banks – was left steady at 5.15 per cent, the lowest level recorded in more than nine years.

The Monetary Policy Committee decided to continue with an “accommodative” policy stance “as long as it is necessary to revive growth while ensuring that inflation remains within the target”.

All six members of the Monetary Policy Committee voted in favour of maintaining the status quo on the policy.

The State Bank of India (SBI) announced a 5 basis points reduction in its marginal cost of fund-based rate (MCLR) across tenors, effective February 10. This is the ninth consecutive cut in MCLR by the bank in the current fiscal.

With this reduction, the one-year MCLR has come down to 7.85 per cent per annum from 7.90 per cent.

PhonePe says it will by the end of this year create an Automated Teller Machine (ATM) network of 2 million users, helping the Walmart-owned service to fight rivals Alibaba-backed Paytm, Google Pay and Amazon Pay as they compete in India’s crowded digital payments market.

The service—billed as India’s first and world’s largest—enables neighbourhood stores to act as ATMs for PhonePe users. It had a pilot run in Delhi-NCR and is now being rolled out across 500,000 shops in 300 cities.

The PhonePe app to locate shops offering the ATM service and then click the “withdraw” button to transfer an amount to the merchant. Once the amount is transferred, the merchant gives the customer cash equal to the amount transferred. PhonePe will not charge for the service and it has set a withdrawal limit of Rs 1,000 for now.

Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium, commonly known as Ekana Cricket Stadium is an international standard cricket stadium in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. It is a stadium under a public-private partnership.

The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) offered to extend a $3 billion loan to Andhra Pradesh for development projects. This was revealed at a meeting of AIIB representatives with chief minister Y.S Jagan Mohan Reddy, according to the chief minister’s office.

Reddy told AIIB officials that his government intended to utilise these funds to construct ports at Bhavanapadu and Machilipatnam in Srikakulam and Krishna districts, respectively, apart from other infrastructure projects in the state.

The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) projected a credit potential of Rs 34421.38 crore for Chhattisgarh in the financial year 2020-21.

The State Focus Paper (SFP) that was released by Panchayat and Rural Development Minister T S Singhdeo at the state credit seminar  noted that the theme for the financial year 2020-21 had been “Hi-tech agriculture practices.”

NABARD Chief General Manager M Soren informed that the total credit potential for Chhattisgarh for the financial year 2020-21 is Rs 3977.59 crore ahead of previous year’s projection of Rs 30443.79 crore.

The highlight of the credit potential for the total agriculture sector for 2020-21 is projected at Rs 19579.13 crore, of which an amount of Rs 13227.37 crore has been assessed under crop production, maintenance and marketing.

In Madhya Pradesh, the state government has decided to use drones for mapping villages. So far, land survey work is being done either manually or with the help of satellite images in Madhya Pradesh.

The drone technology will be used for the first time to make maps in the state. 55 thousand villages of the state have been selected for mapping. Now, the map of the population area will be made on a scale of 1: 500, which will give a clearer picture of the population area.

The Duleep Trophy is a domestic first-class cricket competition played in India. Named after Kumar Shri Duleepsinhji of Nawanagar, the competition was originally contested by teams representing geographical zones of India. Since 2016-17 it has been played by teams chosen by the BCCI selectors.

Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao will inaugurate the 11-km stretch of corridor-II of elevated Hyderabad Metro Rail. The stretch starts from Jubilee Bus Station in Secunderabad and joins at Mahatma Gandhi Bus Station in Hyderabad facilitating bus commuters with two major Railway Stations in the State Capital.

Managing Director NVS Reddy informed that the total operational length of the Hyderabad Metro will become 69 kilometres.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had inaugurated the project by dedicating the Miyapur and Nagole stretch to people in November 2017. Another stretch of Hyderabad Metro between Ameerpet to LB Nagar was commissioned in September 2018.

Jeff Weiner became the Executive Chairman of Linkedin. He was the CEO of Linkedin for the past 11 years. Linkedin is the professional networking company owned by Microsoft.

Ryan Roslansky, Senior Vice President of Linkedin will become the CEO of the company as of June 1.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray presented an award to senior journalist Dinkar Keshav Raikar for his contribution to journalism.

Raikar, currently consulting editor of Lokmat group, was conferred with the lifetime achievement award instituted by the Mantralaya and Vidhimandal Vartahar Sangh.

India has achieved a lot over the years and successfully accomplished levels of leprosy elimination defined as less than one case per ten thousand population.

The President of India, Shri Ram Nath Kovind, presented the International Gandhi Awards for Leprosy for the year 2019 to Dr N.S. Dharmashaktu under the Indian nomination (individual) category and the Leprosy Mission Trust under the institutional category on February 6, 2020, New Delhi.

The annual award has been instituted by Gandhi Memorial Leprosy Foundation to recognise the work of individuals and organisations who have worked tirelessly to fight this disease and the prejudices associated with it.

Celebrated Odia and English writer Manoj Das to receive the much-coveted Mystic Kalinga Literary Award (Indian and Global Languages).

Currently teaching English literature and Philosophy at the Sri Aurobindo International University in Puducherry, the bilingual writer was recently conferred Padma Bhushan, the country’s third-highest civilian award for his contribution in the field of literature and education.

The award will be presented during the two-day 4th Mystic Kalinga Festival of verse, music, dance and discussion at Swosti Premium Bhubaneswar.

Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB) secured the third rank in the global list of Top Business Schools of 2020 by MOOCLab.

This was the maiden ranking for business schools globally who are offering MOOCs (massive online open courses) courses. HEC Paris (France) and Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania (USA) have secured the first and second rank respectively.

Sixteen business schools across the world offering open online courses on the three MOOC platforms – Coursera, edX and FutureLearn – were ranked in the MoocLab’s Business School Rankings 2020.

In the ongoing defence expo, the ‘Lucknow Declaration’ was adopted at India – Africa Defence Conclave held on the sidelines of the event. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and his counterparts from 12 African countries along with representatives of 38 other African countries were present at the conclave, which was organised for the first time.

The ‘Lucknow Declaration’ recalled the Indian contribution to defence and security in the African continent and states that terrorism is a major threat in the region.

Addressing the conclave Defence Minister Shri Rajnath Singh said that India is an all-weather friend of Africa and Africa is at the top of India’s priorities. 14 MoUs had been signed between India and Russia which will pave way for the production of different Russian defence equipment in India.