Current Affairs Quiz - January, 2020

Notes:
The Common Service Centre (CSC) recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Paytm Payment Bank Ltd (PPBL) for selling digital toll payment tags called FASTags. CSC will integrate its platform with that of the bank to sell the PPBL FASTags. The digital tags are made mandatory to be fixed in all vehicles from December last year. The Common Service Centres sell the FASTags through its Village Level Entrepreneurs (VLEs). Earlier CSCs had integrated with State Bank of India, Equitas Bank and HDFC Bank for sale of FASTags.

Notes:
For his commended performance in the movie ‘Joker’, American actor Joaquin Phoenix won the ‘Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama’ award in the Golden Globe awards 2020. The Joker movie was nominated in four categories in the ceremony and won two awards namely Best Actor (Drama) and Best Original Score. Joker is a psychological thriller film which was directed by Todd Philips. The movie was released in October 2019 and created records by collecting revenues in box offices world-wide.

Notes:
The planet finder satellite of NASA, named the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) recently discovered a new exoplanet in the habitable region of its host star.
The newly found exoplanet, known as ‘TOI 700 d’ has approximately the same size of the Earth. The Space Scientists of NASA also announced that the exoplanet is only 101.5 light years from the earth, making it easy for further observations and research.

Notes:
Mission Indradhanush is a Universal Vaccination Programme launched by the Ministry of Health and Family welfare in 2014. The Intensified Intensified Mission Indradhanush 2.0 is carried out from December 2019 to March 2020.
Under the Indradhanush scheme, unvaccinated or partially vaccinated children and pregnant women are vaccinated. The target fixed for the scheme is 2020. Recently the Ministry launched IMI 2.0 portal to record the target and real time data of the campaign.

Notes:
Retired Indian Police Service Officer and Former Director General of CRPF, Rajiv Rai Bhatnagar was recently appointed as the advisor to the Lieutenant Governor of Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir.
Rajiv Rai retired from the Central Reserve Police Force in December 2019.He will serve as the third advisor to the Lieutenant Governor, Girish Chandra Murmu. The other two advisors are retired IAS officer K K Sharma and retired IPS Officer Farooq Khan.

Notes:
The Union Sports Minister recently released the schedule of the 1st edition of ‘Khelo India University Games 2020’. The event is to be conducted in Bhubaneswar from February 21 to March 1, 2020.
Students from various universities across the country will take part in the event in 17 different sports. The logo and the jersey of the players were also released by the Sports Minister along the Chief Minister of Odisha, Naveen Patnaik.

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:
Arunachal Pradesh has adopted a new logo for its Legislative Assembly (APLA) recently. The new logo reflects the distinct identity and culture of the state. The Speaker of the Legislative Assembly PD Sona had circulated pictures of the new logo among the members of the house.
The new logo consists of the national emblem and the state flower of Arunachal Pradesh, foxtail orchid. The existing logo has been amended to create the blue colour-based logo.

Notes:
The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) has released a chart of world’s fastest growing cities based on the data provided by the United Nation’s Population Division. Malappuram, a city of Northern Kerala topped the list. Two other cities of Kerala, Kozhikode and Kollam were ranked 4th and 10th respectively.
As per the report, Malappuram has recorded 44% rise in population between 2015 and 2020. In the report, three Kerala cities were in the top 10 list while six Indian cities were placed in the top 30 list.

Notes:
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) recently released a report titled ‘National Strategy for Financial Inclusion’.
The report suggested that along with formal banking outlets, payment banks, small finance banks, cooperative banks and non-banking units like fair price shops should also practice digital banking. The Regulator directed the banks to increase the outlets in all villages and hilly areas by March 2020. The report also suggested to make the Public Credit Registry (PCR) fully functional by 2022.