Current Affairs Quiz - January, 2020

Notes:
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) recently signed an MoU with National Institute of Technology (NITK), Suratkal located in Karnataka, to set up its regional academic centre for space research at the institution. The academic centre would jointly participate in research and development in emerging space technologies. ISRO would also provide an annual financial support of Rs. 2 Crore to the centre for the research projects.

Notes:
The Manas National Park is a UNESCO World Heritage site and a biosphere reserve is situated in Assam. Recently a one-horned rhinoceros of the national park named R3A gave birth to its calf. The R3A was also born in the same park to the elder rhino ‘Laisri’ in 2013.
The One-horned rhinoceros or the Indian rhinoceros is an endangered species and is listed as ‘Vulnerable’ in the IUCN Red list of threatened species. At present, the national park is home to 42 rhinos.

Notes:
The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) is set to launch its new block-chain based platform, which is named as ‘Vajra’. The new payment platform will be based on ‘Distributed Ledger Technology’ (DLT).
The platform is expected to make the payments secure and the transactions would be stored in a decentralised database. The bank nodes after receiving the requests from the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) will process them on the Vajra platform.

Notes:
The Bangladesh High Court recently ordered the Government to impose a ban on single use plastic in the country’s coastal areas and hotels.
Polythene has been banned in the country since 2002, but the usage of polythene could not be controlled in the country. Hence the court ordered to enforce the ban in a strict manner across the nation within one year from the order.

Notes:
The Chief Minister of Gujarat, Vijay Rupani recently announced that a new centre for fostering innovation among the children would be set up in the state of Gujarat. It is named as the Vikram Sarabhai Children Innovation Centre.
The announcement was made during the Children Innovation Festival held at Gandhinagar, Gujarat. This festival was organised by the Gujarat University’s start up council, GUSEC in association with UNICEF. During the event, a letter of intent was also exchanged between the Gujarat University and UNICEF.

Notes:
Madhavpur Mela is a weeklong cultural festival of Gujarat to be held at Madhavpur Ghed in Porbandar district in April, 2020, a day after Ram Navami festival. This year, eight states of the Northern Eastern region will participate.

Notes:
Niti Aayog and Indian Railways have recently released a discussion paper for running 150 trains on 100 routes by private operators. The plan envisages a total investment of Rs. 22500 crore. The discussion paper titled ‘Private Participation: Passenger Trains’ has identified 100 routes, including Mumbai Central-New Delhi, New Delhi- Patna, Allahabad-Pune and Dadar-Vadodara.

Notes:
As per statement of Lok Sabha Speaker, India will mark 75th anniversary of the country in 2022 and in same year parliament session will be held in the new building. The existing Parliament House Building has completed 92 glorious years after it was made functional in 1927.

Notes:
The Indian Railways has installed Artificial Intelligence based Facial Recognition Technology in Manmad and Bhusawal stations of Maharashtra and Bengaluru station of Karnataka. The PSU under the Railway Ministry, RailTel carries out the project to provide Video Surveillance System with facial recognition and video analytics.
The Railway Protection Force (RPF) will subsequently link the output of this facial recognition system with their existing criminal database, so that identification of criminals at the Railway station would be made easier.

Notes:
Union Cabinet has approved to confer the status of “Institution of National Importance” to a cluster of Ayurvedic institutions in Gujarat State’s Ayurved University campus in Jamnagar. This elevation of the status would provide it with the autonomy to upgrade the Ayurveda education standards and frame new courses in Ayurveda as per national and international requirements.
This decision is also expected to boost tertiary care in India and reduce government expenditure on health as Ayurveda is cost-effective. A bill to give effect to this approval will be introduced in the forthcoming Session of Parliament.