Current Affairs - 2019-20

Notes:
S Ganesh Kumar has been appointed the new Executive Director (ED) of Reserve Bank of India (RBI). He succeeded Chandan Sinha, who has taken voluntary retirement on May 31, 2017. As Executive Director (ED), Kumar will look after the departments of Information Technology, Payment and Settlement Systems and External Investments and Operations. Prior to being promoted as ED, he was Chief General Manager-in-Charge, Department of Information Technology. Currently, the central bank has 11 Executive Directors.

Notes:
General Bipin Rawat, Chief of the Army Staff, has released a book on Paramveer Chakra Awardees – ‘Paramveer Parwane’ on 20 March 2018. The book illustrates the bravery of Paramveer Chakra Awardees from 1947 to 1965 and is written by Dr. Prabhakiran Jain published by Medha Books. The book has 11 short stories, poems and songs highlighting the history of the battles in which the brave soldiers sacrificed their lives and have shown the utmost courage & leadership while facing the enemy during War to protect the motherland. The book is available in paperback & coffee table book format and its second part will be released shortly.

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Bihar has celebrated its 106th foundation day on March 22, 2018. A number of programmes have been organized throughout the state on the occasion. Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu inaugurated a 3-day Bihar Diwas celebrations in Patna and also released 4 books- ‘Ek Tha Mohan’, ‘Bapu Ki Chiththi’, ‘Champaran Ki Kahani’ and ‘Neel Ke Dhabbe’ on this occasion. The 2018 theme for this year’s celebrations is “Centenary of Champaran Satyagraha and Elimination of Dowry and Child Marriage”. It was on this day when the British carved out the state from Bengal Presidency in 1912. Before that Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand and Orissa were part of the Bengal province during the British rule.

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The 1504 kilometers of Western DFC cover Rajasthan, Gujarat, Haryana, Maharashtra and UP. The Eastern DFC cover UP, Bihar, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Punjab and Haryana.

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Southern birdwing is the largest butterfly of India, endemic to peninsular India. It was recently in news when the State Forest department of Karnataka sent a proposal to the state government to declare Southern Bird Wing butterfly as the state butterfly. 

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R Seetharaman, a Qatar-based Indian banker has been awarded for his contribution in environment-friendly activities and for promoting green economy for nearly two decades. R Seetharaman, group chief executive officer of Doha Bank, was honoured with the 'Green Economy Visionary award' at the 2016 Union of Arab Banks International Banking Summit held in Rome.

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Alliance 8.7 is for a world without forced labour, modern slavery, human trafficking and child labour. It is an initiative under the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. It calls for effective measures to end forced labour, modern slavery, and human trafficking, as well as child labour in all its forms.

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In Budget 2018, Bamboo has been termed as “Green Gold”. The Finance Minister announced a Re-structured National Bamboo Mission with corpus of Rs.1290 crore to promote bamboo sector. Taxonomically, bamboo is a grass. However, the Indian Forest Act, 1927 classifies Bamboo as tree as well as grass. While the bamboos produced in the forest area have been termed as tree, those produced in non-forest areas have been termed as grass. The recent change introduced in the Forest Act, 1927 has made Bamboo as one of the highest yielding renewable natural resource. The non-forest bamboo produce will now be used for artifacts and for infrastructure development.

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The Hubble space telescope has captured a new image showcasing an incredibly massive galaxy located under 400 million light-years away from the Earth. The galaxy UGC 12591 sits somewhere between a lenticular and a spiral, according to NASA.

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India became an Associate member of CERN on November 21, 2016 with the Indian government completing its internal approval procedures in respect of the agreement it had signed with CERN. As an Associate member India will have full access to all data generated at CERN.