Current Affairs Update – 21st December, 2016

Hello and welcome to exampundit . Here are the important Current Affairs of 21 December, 2016. These are important for the upcoming RBI Assistant Mains, IPPB PO Mains, NIACL AO Mains, IBPS Clerk Mains and RBI Assistant Mains 2016-17.

• Private lender HDFC Bank today
  signed an MoU with Bihar State Power Holding Company to enable residents pay
  electricity bill online.
• The MoU will allow residents of
  the state to pay electricity bills online in a quick and convenient manner by
  any debit card, credit card, or netbanking facility, from the comfort of their
  homes or offices, an HDFC statement said.
• The initiative will benefit over
  6 crore people in the state, it said.
• HDFC Bank has 90 branches and 239
  ATMs in Bihar.
• Bihar State Power Holding Company
  generates, distributes and transmits electricity in the state.
• As part of agreement, HDFC Bank
  will provide its electronic cash management platform for the payment of fee
  through RTGS, NEFT & Electronic Fund Transfer.

• The Reserve Bank today imposed
  penalty on five foreign banks, including Deutsche Bank and Standard Chartered
  Bank, for violation of its instructions on reporting requirements of the FEMA.
• The three other banks are: Bank
  of America, Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi and The Royal Bank of Scotland.
• RBI said they have been fined for
  violation of its instructions on reporting requirements of the Foreign Exchange
  Management Act, 1999 (FEMA).
• Germany’s Deutsche Bank has been
  imposed fine of Rs 20,000, while Bank of America, Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi, The
  Royal Bank of Scotland and Standard Chartered Bank have been fined Rs 10,000
  each.

• More than 25 lakh people in rural
  areas of the country have adopted digital modes of payments through ‘Digi Dhan
  Abhiyan’ programme, the Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) said on Tuesday.
• Over 55,000 merchants have
  started offering digital payment options to rural customers across various
  districts and blocks in India, the ministry said in a statement.
• Over 70 per cent of the rural
  citizens have adopted e-wallets, 16 per cent opted for Unified Payment
  Interface (UPI) and the rest looked at Unstructured Supplementary Service Data
  (USSD), Adhaar Enabled Payment System (AEPS) and Cards/Point of Sale (PoS), the
  data with the ministry showed.
• The ‘Digi Dhan Abhiyan’ aims to
  reach out to more than one crore rural citizens, cover two lakh Common Services
  Centres (CSC) in rural and semi-urban areas and also reach to 2.5 lakh Gram
  Panchayats across the country.

• The Union Government on 20
  December 2016 announced Rs 207 crore to undertake developmental works in Majuli
  Island in Assam.
• The announcement was made by the
  Union Minister for Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER) Jitendra Singh
  in New Delhi.
• The sanctioned amount will be
  spent primarily for safeguarding the land loss due to erosion and to protect
  the 80 km length of the bank line on the right bank of river Brahmaputra.

• It was declared as India’s first
  Island district in June 2016 by the Assam Government.
• It is a fluvial landform (a
  riverine delta), a unique geographical occurrence and a result of the dynamics
  of the Brahmaputra river system.
• It is bounded by the river Subanisri
  and her tributaries on the North West, the kherkatia Suli in the northeast and
  the main Brahmaputra River on the South and the South west.

• The Central government has
  approved construction of another 52,319 houses for urban poor, including 11,286
  houses in poll-bound Uttar Pradesh, under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana
  (PMAY-Urban).
• “The Ministry of Housing and
  Urban Poverty yesterday approved construction of 52,319 houses for urban poor
  under PMAY (Urban) involving an investment of Rs 2,946 crore and the Central
  assistance of Rs 778 crore,” an official release said today.
• Besides Uttar Pradesh, 25,097
  houses will be constructed in Madhya Pradesh, 8,941 in Chattisgarh, 3,805 in
  Maharashtra, 2,422 in Nagaland, 720 in Puducherry and 48 in Daman, it said.
• With this, the Ministry has so
  far approved construction of a total of 13,43,805 houses for urban poor with an
  investment of Rs 72,781 crore and central assistance of Rs 19,633 crore.
• It also gave nod to Uttar
  Pradesh’s proposal for construction of 11,286 houses for urban poor in 34 towns
  involving investment of Rs 384 crore. The Centre will provide assistance of Rs
  160 crore for these houses.
• Uttar Pradesh was the 29th state
  to send proposals for construction of affordable houses under Pradhan Mantri
  Awas Yojana-Urban (PMAY-Urban).

• India today conducted the flight
  test of indigenously-designed and developed long range subsonic cruise missile
  ‘Nirbhay’ from the Integrated Test Range (ITR) at Chandipur in Odisha but there
  was no official word on reports that it had failed.
• The sophisticated missile with a
  strike range of 1,000 km was test launched from a specially-designed launcher
  around noon from the launch complex-3 of the ITR near here, defence sources
  said.
• Shortly after the launch, there
  were reports that the test had failed like most of the earlier launches.
• Neither the Defence Ministry nor
  the DRDO, which is the agency involved in the launch, were ready to comment on
  the development.
• They also refused to react to
  reports that the launch was a failure.
• Powered by a solid rocket motor
  booster, ‘Nirbhay’ missile with a turbo-fan engine is guided by a highly advanced
  inertial navigation system.

• The National Green Tribunal has
  decided to impose a fine of Rs 50000 on the airline whose aircraft empties its
  human waste tank while still being in the air.
• The direction came on 20 December
  2016, following a plea by a retired Lt. Gen Satwant Singh Dahiya who sought
  strict action against airlines for splattering human waste on houses near the
  IGI airport while landing. He termed the act as a health hazard and a violation
  of the Prime Minister’s ‘Swachh Bharat’ drive.

• The NGT has directed the
  Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) to issue notices to all the
  involved airlines to pay Rs 50,000 as compensation and to ensure that they do
  not release any waste from the tanks anywhere near the terminals of the IGI
  Airport. 
• The decision was taken by a bench
  chaired by NGT chairperson Swatanter Kumar.
• Though normally, the collected
  waste from the aircraft is disposed of by the ground staff after the plane
  lands, there are cases when there is a leak in the lavatory.
• To ensure the implementation of
  the same, the DGCA will be conducting surprise inspections in airplanes once
  they land to check whether their human waste tanks are empty or not.
• The aircraft found violating the
  direction will be subjected to pay the compensation amount.

• Maharashtra Chief Minister
  Devendra Fadnavis on 20 December 2016 announced that a separate Ministry will
  be created for Other Backward Classes (OBCs). This ministry will be headed by
  an independent minister.
• The announcement was made at the
  concluding session of the Kunbi Mahotsav at Shahapur in Thane district of the
  state.
• Besides, the Chief Minister also
  announced funds worth Rs 200 crore for gravity-based water supply projects.
  These projects will help in fulfilling the need of the town and surrounding
  areas.
• He said that a policy will be
  prepared under which villages that provide land for dam projects would be
  entitled to the water from that project.
• In addition to this, he also
  directed the Zila Parishad of Thane to prepare a tourist circuit plan for
  Murbad and Shahpur talukas. He assured that maximum funds will be provided for
  the development of the plan.

• India in the third week of
  December 2016 was ranked 4th in the Global Wind Power Installed Capacity Index.
  The cumulative installed wind power generation capacity of India is 25088 MW.
• The Index was topped by China,
  followed by USA and Germany. The cumulative installed wind power generation
  capacity of China is 145362 MW. The cumulative installed wind power generation
  capacity of the USA is 74471 MW and that of Germany is 44947 MW.
• The ranking were released on 19
  December 2016 in the Global Wind Report: Annual Market update, which was
  launched by the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC).

• In 2015-2016, India installed
  31472 solar pumps, which is higher than the total number of pumps installed
  during last 24 years. As of 31 October 2016, 92305 solar pumps have been
  installed in the country.
• During 2016-2017, 51 MW installations
  of biomass power plants were achieved against a target of 400 MW.
• During 2016-17, against a target
  of 1.00 lakh biogas plants, 0.26 lakh biogas plant installations have been
  achieved, making a cumulative achievement to 4.94 million biogas plants as of
  31 October 2016.

• The Uttar Pradesh Government on
  20 December 2016 appointed Deepak Agarwal, CEO of Greater Noida Industrial
  Development Authority (GNIDA), as the CEO of Noida Authority.
• Deepak Agarwal will replace P K
  Agarwal, who was officiating as the CEO of Noida Authority. P K Agarwal was
  given the charge of Noida after the Uttar Pradesh Government relieved senior
  IAS officer Rama Raman from the post on 25 August 2016. However, P K Agarwal
  will continue to function as the additional CEO of Noida Authority.

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