Current Affairs - 2019-20

Notes:
The Union Minister of Railways Suresh Prabhu has flagged off India’s first Antyodaya Express between Ernakulam and Howrah. The train service was inaugurated by the Railways Minister via video conferencing in New Delhi on February 27, 2017. The Antyodaya Express is a long-distance, fully unreserved, superfast train service, for the common man to be operated on dense routes. The new express train will have facilities like cushioned luggage racks which can serve as seats, LED lights, modular toilets, pleasing interior colour scheme and others. Beside this, the Railway Minister has also flagged off the 4th Humsafar Express between Sriganganagar and Tiruchirapalli. The new train is fully air-conditioned third AC service with an optional service for meals.

Notes:
The mines mentioned in this are in Jharkhand.

Notes:
∠BCD = ∠DCA = 30°
∠DCE = 180°
∴ ∠ACE = 180° – 30° = 150°
AC = CE
∴ ∠CAE = ∠CEA =
Hence option [A] is the right answer.

Notes:
Sahel region is an ecoclimatic and biogeographic zone of transition in Africa between Sahara Desert to the north and Sudanian Savanna to the south. It stretches across the south-central latitudes of Northern Africa between the Atlantic Ocean and the Red Sea. 12 African countries fall in this region including parts of (from west to east) Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Algeria, Niger, Nigeria, Chad, Sudan, South Sudan and Eritrea.

Notes:
Orang National Park is located on the north bank of the Brahmaputra River in the Darrang and Sonitpur district of Assam. It is also known as the mini Kaziranga National Park since the two parks have a similar landscape made up of marshes, streams and grasslands.

Notes:
Recently, NTPC started the power generation from India’s largest floating solar power plant at Kayamkulam in Kerala. Kerala was chosen for the installation due to abundant availability of water bodies and lack of enough land. The 100 kWp floating solar generation plant is the largest of its kind in India, and was indigenously developed as a part of ‘Make in India’ initiative, at Rajiv Gandhi Combined Cycle Power Plant (RGCCPP) in Kerala’s Kayamkulam district. Solar panels mounted on floating boards hold them in place saves land usage. The solar panels in water have been found to be efficient than the ones installed on land. These floating platforms were indigenously developed by NTPC Energy Technology Research Alliance, the R&D arm of NTPC Ltd BSE -0.30 %, in collaboration with Central Institute of Plastic Engineering & Technology (CIPET), Chennai and a patent has been applied for. 

Notes:
BND stands for Bharatiya Nirdeshak Dravya, is an indigenous Indian standard Gold bar weighing 20gms and with the dimensions of famous “Parle-G” Biscuit. It has been jointly developed by the scientists of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) and CSIR-National Physical Laboratory (NPL). With this, Indian jewellers will no longer need to import gold bars to check the purity of ornaments.This will add to the Make in India campaign and will save foreign exchange of nearly 1000 crore per annum as well as minimise dependency on foreign countries. The bars are being minted in denominations of 10g, 50g, 100g, 500g & 1000g by the India Government Mint (IGM), a unit of Security Printing and Minting Corp of India Ltd. The standard gold bars would be nearly 25% cheaper than their imported versions.

Notes:
SFURTI stands for Scheme of Fund for Up-gradation and Regeneration of Traditional Industries (SFURTI). The objective of the scheme is to organise traditional industries and artisans into clusters to make them competitive and provide support for their long-term sustainability or sustained employment. It aims to strengthen the cluster governance systems with the active participation of the stakeholders and to build up innovative products, improved technologies, advanced processes, market intelligence and new models of public-private partnerships. This scheme also helps micro and small enterprises (MSE) clusters to enhance marketability of products with design interventions, improved packaging and infrastructure. Under Scheme for Fund for Regeneration of Traditional Industries (SFURTI), the budgetary allocation has increased from Rs 10 crore in BE 2017-18 to Rs 125 crore in BE 2018-19.

Notes:
Pratham is an Indian Ionospheric research satellite built by the students of IIT Bombay. It is a part of Student Satellite Initiative. Its primary mission is to count electrons in the Earth’s ionosphere. Its weight is10 kg and is a cube with 30cm sides. Pratham was successfully launched on 26 September 2016 from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Andhra Pradesh.

Notes:
Each FIFA World Cup since 1966 has its own Mascot. Mascot is generally one or more anthropomorphic characters targeted by children with cartoon shows. The Mascot for 2018 FIFA World Cup was Zabivak