Current Affairs Today 26th December 2020-Download in PDF

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Current Affairs Today – 26th December 2020

NEWS AT A GLANCE

CURRENT AFFAIRS: NATIONAL NEWS

Union Minister Thaawarchand Gehlot Launches Swachhata Abhiyan

• Union Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment Shri Thaawarchand Gehlot launched a Mobile Application Swachhata Abhiyan in the presence of Ministers of State for Social Justice and Empowerment Shri Ram Das Athawale and Shri Krishan Pal Gurjar in New Delhi.
• It Provides the authorities concerned details of any insanitary latrine or manual scavenger.
• This would help in rehabilitating all manual scavengers and replace insanitary with sanitary ones.
• As per the 2011 census, insanitary latrines is the main reason for manual scavenging.

FASTag to be mandatory for all vehicles in country from new year

• Road Transport & Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari has announced that FASTag is being made mandatory for all vehicles in the country from new year.
• FASTag will be enforced from 1st of January, 2021. Enumerating its benefits,it is useful for the commuters as they will not need to stop at toll plazas for cash payments.
• It will also save time and fuel.
• FASTag was launched in
• The Ministry had issued a notification last month making FASTag mandatory by  1st of January 2021 in old vehicles also sold before 1st December, 2017.

Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri launches E-Sampada web portal and mobile app

• Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Hardeep Singh Puri launched E-Sampada, a new web portal and mobile app on Good Governance Day.
• The new application provides a single window for all the services including allotment for over one lakh government residential accommodations, office space allotment to government organisations in 45 office complexes in 28 cities and booking of 1,176 holiday home rooms.

About E-Sampada Portal :

• The portal provides online facility to users across India to lodge complaints, submit documents and appear for virtual hearing.
• This is a significant step towards promotion of e-governance to enhance  transparency and accountability in providing various estate services like allotment, retention, regularisation and no dues certificate
• The real time information on utilisation of assets and delivery of service will facilitate optimum utilisation of resources.
• The automated processes will minimize human intervention and will lead to greater transparency.

CURRENT AFFAIRS: STATE NEWS

India adds Tso Kar Wetland Complex in Ladakh as its 42nd Ramsar site

• India has added Tso Kar Wetland Complex in Ladakh as its 42nd Ramsar site, which is a second one in the Union Territory of
• Aim : The aim of the Ramsar list is to develop and maintain an international network of wetlands which are important for the conservation of global biological diversity and for sustaining human life through the maintenance of their ecosystem components, processes and benefits.
• Tso Kar Basin : High-altitude wetland complex, consisting of two principal waterbodies, Startsapuk Tso, a freshwater lake of about 438 hectares to the south, and Tso Kar itself, a hypersaline lake of 1800 hectares to the north, situated in the Changthang region of Ladakh.

About Ramsar Convention :

• Secretary General : Martha Rojas Urrego
• Secretariat : Gland, Switzerland

Odisha launches career portal for students in collaboration with UNICEF

• The Department of School and Mass Education, Government of Odisha in collaboration with UNICEF has launched a career portal for Secondary and Higher Secondary students to help them with expert advice on their future careers.
• Samir Ranjan Dash, Odisha’s School and Mass Education Launched the Odisha Career Portal on 24th December 2020.
• The portal can be accessed through the website odishacareerportal.com with the student login ID and password.
• The portal will provide easy access to information on different careers and will give students an opportunity to interact with teachers. Students will also be able to access career guidance services through a mobile friendly app created specifically for the portal.

About Department of School and mass Education :

• Principal secretary : Satyabrata Sahu
• Minister : Samir Ranjan Dash

About Odisha :

• Capital : Bhubaneswar
• Governor : Ganeshi Lal
• Chief Minister : Naveen Patnaik

About UNICEF :

• Headquarters : New York
• Head : Henrietta H.Fore
• Founded : 11 December 1946

Amarinder Singh Launches Digital ‘PR Insight’ Mobile App And Web Portal Platform

• Punjab, Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh launched Mobile Application and web portal ‘PR Insight’ to monitor the feedback and subsequently improve the delivery of citizen centric services to ensure responsive and transparent administration in the State.
• It has been developed by the Directorate of Information & Public Relations Department, Punjab.
• It is mainly for the application to restructure the existing schemes & Programmes after analyzing the feedback received from people.
• As many as 31 leading Newspaper agencies/portals have been integrated online with PR Insight application & portal and all the State Departments’ news articles are fetched from these newspaper agencies on a real time basis.
• The app will help the Government in identifying best practices from positively perceived programmes.

About Punjab :

• Capital : Chandigarh
• Governor : V.P. Singh Badnore
• Chief Minister : Amarinder Singh

Gujarat: State to host India’s first Lithium refinery

• India’s first Lithium refinery which will process Lithium ore to produce battery-grade material will be set up in
• Manikaran Power Limited, one of the country’s largest power trading and renewable energy companies will be investing over Rs 1,000 crore to set up this refinery.
• The company will be importing Lithium ore from Australia and will be processing in Gujarat.
• Last year, Manikaran Power had collaborated with Australian firm Neometals to tap the Mount Marion Lithium mine in Western Australia.
• The proposed project is expected to help Gujarat secure the raw material supply for domestic manufacturing of Lithium batteries as it looks to promote electric vehicles.

CURRENT AFFAIRS: AGREEMENT

DGT – MSDE inks pact with MICROSOFT and NASSCOM FOUNDATION for digital skilling

• The Directorate General of Training (DGT) joined hands with Microsoft and NASSCOM Foundation to provide digital content for ITI students.
• Nearly 1,20,000 students in around 3000 ITIs across India can be benefited by this digitized e-learning module via the Bharatskills portal.

Bharatskills portal:

• Central Repository for skills providing easy access for the trainees and trainers of the ITI ecosystem.
• This platform also presents a unique access to a centralized, scalable and a thriving support ecosystem .

CURRENT AFFAIRS: APPOINTMENTS

Yes Securities elevates Prasanth Prabhakaran as MD & CEO

• Yes Securities announced the elevation of Prasanth Prabhakaran as its managing director and chief executive officer.
• Prabhakaran was previously the Joint MD and CEO of Yes Securities, spearheading the wealth broking and investment advisory and institutional equities business.

About Prasanth Prabhakaran:

• He has two and a half decades of experience in the BFSI space.
• Prabhakaran has been associated with YES Securities since 2017.
• Prior to YES Securities, he has worked with India Infoline, Kotak Securities and HDFC Bank.

About Yes Securities Limited :

• MD & CEO : Prasanth Prabhakaran
• Headquarters : Mumbai, Maharashtra
• Established : 2013

Romania’s parliament approves new government

• Romania’s parliament approved a new liberal government and prime minister Florin Citu, keeping out of power a left-leaning populist party that won most votes at a parliamentary election earlier this month.
• Former investment banker and finance minister Florin Citu become the new prime minister
• 260 lawmakers in Romania’s 465-seat, two-chamber assembly voted for the new government.
• The opposition Socialist Democratic Party (PSD) won the most votes in the election — around 30%. But it could not muster support from more than half of lawmakers in the assembly to be able to form a government.

About Florin Citu :

• Citu had stints as an economist for the New Zealand central bank and the European Investment Bank before entering politics in 2016.
• He is from the ruling National Liberal Party (NLP) whose leader and former Prime Minister Ludovic Orban resigned in the wake of the Dec. 6 vote.
• Citu was backed by three more parties, giving him a majority in Romania’s two-chamber parliament.

About Romania :

• President : Klaus Iohannis
• Capital : Bucharest
• Currency : Romanian Leu

CURRENT AFFAIRS: BOOKS & AUTHORS

Satyarthi’s new book suggests solutions to Covid-19 crisis

• Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi’s new book  titled Covid-19: Sabhyata ka Sankat aur Samadhan (Covid-19: Crisis of Civilisation and Solutions) was launched online by former Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra and Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman Harivansh Narayan Singh.

About the book :

• The Hindi book, published by Prabhat Prakashan, discusses how the pandemic has influenced the education system, business, politics, public safety, foreign policy, law, medicine, economy and development of countries.
• He also pointed out the need to focus on children who are the “worst sufferers of economic, social and political violence”.

CURRENT AFFAIRS: SPORTS NEWS

FIFA cancels U17 and U20 World Cups in 2021

• FIFA has canceled the Under-17 and Under-20 World Cups scheduled for next year due to the pandemic. The next editions are now due to be staged in 2023, with Indonesia still hosting the U20s and Peru the U17s.
• So Peru will host the FIFA U-17 World Cup in 2023.
• In the same year, the FIFA U-20 World Cup will be held by Indonesia.

About FIFA :

• President : Gianni Infantino
• Founded : 21 May 1904
• Headquarters : Zurich, Switzerland

CURRENT AFFAIRS: OBITUARIES

Legendary Urdu poet Shamsur Rahman Faruqi passes away at 85

• Legendary Urdu poet and critic Shamsur Rahman Faruqi passed away, He was 85.
• Shamsur Rahman Faruqi’s books Mirror of Beauty (translated into English from the Urdu Kai Chaand The Sar-e-Aasmaan in 2006), Ghalib Afsaney Ki Himayat Mein (1989) and The Sun That Rose From The Earth (2014) are among others he wrote in his five-decade-long literary career.
• He received Saraswati Samman in 1996 for his work “She’r-e Shor-Angez”, a four-volume study of the eighteenth-century poet Mir Taqi Mir.
• He also honoured with the Padma Shri in the year 2009.

John Edrich, former England and Surrey batsman, dies aged 83

• Former England batsman John Edrich has died at the age of 83, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) announced on December 25, 2020.
• Edrich, a left-handed batsman, scored more than 5,000 runs for England during a 77-match Test career spanning 13 years between 1963 and 1976.
• He also partook in the first ever men’s One Day International.
• He scored the first boundary and the first-ever fifty in men’s ODI cricket.
• He scored a triple-century during a test match in 1965 that is the fifth highest Test score for England.

About England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) :

• Chairperson : Tom Harrison
• Headquarters : London, UK

Daily CA on Dec 25^th

• Good governance is celebrated annually on 25 December, the anniversary of the birth of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
• Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik announced that India’s biggest hockey stadium will come up at Rourkela and the 20,000-capacity facility will host matches of FIH men’s World Cup in 2023.
• The US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) has announced to invest USD 54 million in India to support the development of critical infrastructure projects in the country in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic
• India successfully test-fired a medium range surface-to-air missile (MRSAM) from Odisha coast on December 23, 2020.
• The Defence Secretary Dr Ajay Kumar launched the DGNCC Digital Forum in New Delhi On December 24, 2020.
• The Himachal Pradesh government has decided to frame an integrated Drug Prevention Policy including Drug Prevention, Treatment, Management and Rehabilitation Programme.
• Union Minister for S&T, ES and MoHFW, Dr Harsh Vardhan inaugurated the Global Indian Scientists & Technocrats (GIST) meet which is being organized as a part of the Indian International Science Festival (IISF) 2020.
• On December 24 The Reserve Bank of India (RBI)  cancelled the banking licence issued to Subhadra Local Area Bank Ltd, Kolhapur, citing problems in the way the bank was run.
• India Ratings and Research (Ind-Ra) has revised India’s GDP estimate for the current financial year to -7.8 percent from -11.8 percent earlier, primarily due to the easing of COVID-19 curbs and better-than-expected growth numbers in the second quarter.
• Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Frances Tiafoe were among the winners of the ATP’s top awards for 2020.
• NTPC Limited, the country’s largest power producer,  has been conferred Excellence in the prestigious CII-ITC Sustainability Awards 2020 in corporate social responsibility (CSR).
• The New India Foundation announces the shortlist for the third edition of the ‘Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay NIF Book Prize’, recognising and celebrating excellence in non-fiction writings on modern/ contemporary India.
• Online payments solutions provider PayU has collaborated with Google Pay to introduce tokenised payments flow for merchants in India.
• Vice-President of India M Venkaiah Naidu released a book of English poems by Mizoram Governor PS Sreedharan Pillai, titled ‘Oh Mizoram’.
• HDFC Bank is the top ranked company among the 100 BFSI companies in the country, as per the BFSI Movers and Shakers 2020 report by Wizikey.
• Veteran Congress leader and former minister Madan Lal Sharma died in Katra. He was 68 years old.

Daily CA on Dec 26^th

• Union Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment Shri Thaawarchand Gehlot launched a Mobile Application Swachhata Abhiyan in the presence of Ministers of State for Social Justice and Empowerment Shri Ram Das Athawale and Shri Krishan Pal Gurjar in New Delhi.
• Road Transport & Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari has announced that FASTag is being made mandatory for all vehicles in the country from new year.
• Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Hardeep Singh Puri launched E-Sampada, a new web portal and mobile app on Good Governance Day.
• India has added Tso Kar Wetland Complex in Ladakh as its 42nd Ramsar site, which is a second one in the Union Territory of
• The Department of School and Mass Education, Government of Odisha in collaboration with UNICEF has launched a career portal for Secondary and Higher Secondary students to help them with expert advice on their future careers
• Punjab, Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh launched Mobile Application and web portal ‘PR Insight’ to monitor the feedback and subsequently improve the delivery of citizen centric services to ensure responsive and transparent administration in the State.
• India’s first Lithium refinery which will process Lithium ore to produce battery-grade material will be set up in
• The Directorate General of Training (DGT) joined hands with Microsoft and NASSCOM Foundation to provide digital content for ITI students.
• Yes Securities announced the elevation of Prasanth Prabhakaran as its managing director and chief executive officer.
• Romania’s parliament approved a new liberal government and prime minister Florin Citu, keeping out of power a left-leaning populist party that won most votes at a parliamentary election earlier this month.
• Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi’s new book titled Covid-19: Sabhyata ka Sankat aur Samadhan (Covid-19: Crisis of Civilisation and Solutions) was launched online by former Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra and Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman Harivansh Narayan Singh.
• FIFA has canceled the Under-17 and Under-20 World Cups scheduled for next year due to the pandemic. The next editions are now due to be staged in 2023, with Indonesia still hosting the U20s and Peru the U17s.
• Legendary Urdu poet and critic Shamsur Rahman Faruqi passed away, He was 85.
• Former England batsman John Edrich has died at the age of 83, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) announced on December 25, 2020.

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