Current Affairs Quiz - January, 2020

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.

Notes:
After completion of extensive trials on the Shore Based Test Facility, the naval variant of indigenous Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) made its first successful landing on the aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya. The Light Combat aircraft is developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation, DRDO.
INS Vikramaditya was formally inducted into the Indian Navy on June 2014. It is a flagship air-craft carrier of the Indian Navy. Prior to this commission, it served with the Russian Navy.

Notes:
The 18th edition of the famous Dhaka International Film Festival was recently inaugurated at Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh. The festival will be organised from January 11 to 19, 2020 with the theme of ‘Better Film, Better Audience and Better Society’.
During the eight-day-long festival, which is to be held at various venues in Dhaka, more than 200 films from 74 countries are to be screened. A conference on the theme of ‘Women in cinema’ will also be conducted during the film festival.

Notes:
The Paytm Payment Bank recently announced that it has issued three million FASTags so far and has become the largest issuer of FASTags in the country. The Common Service Centre (CSC) recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Paytm Payment Bank Ltd (PPBL) for selling FASTags.
The users can recharge the FASTags provided by paytm directly from their paytm wallet without having the necessity of using another wallet or application. FASTag is an electronic toll collection system, which is based on Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology.

Notes:
Verizon Media, an arm of the international tele- communication company, Verizon communications, has recently launched a new privacy-focused search engine called ‘OneSearch’.
The search engine claims that the search history of the users will not be stored and the self-destructible search data of the users will not be shared with advertisers. The new search engine is also expected to give unbiased and unfiltered results, which will be personalised only based on locations and will separate IP addresses from users and their search results.

Notes:
Union Ministers Rajnath Singh and Nitin Gadkari launched the ‘Integrated Road Accident Database (IRAD)’ during the road safety stakeholders’ meet. IRAD is a central accident database management system, to analyse the causes of road accidents and create solutions to reduce them.
The database was developed by the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras (IIT-M) with the project cost of Rs. 258 Crores. This initiative is supported by the World Bank and it is implemented through the National Informatics Centre.

Notes:
The 7th Conference of Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA)- India Region, was recently inaugurated in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh.
The Speaker of Lok Sabha, Om Birla inaugurated the conference at the legislative assembly building in Lucknow. Several parliamentarians and delegates from some foreign countries will participate in the conference, whose theme is ‘Role of Legislators’. The CPA was formed to support the Parliamentarians and their staff to implement good governance measures and values of the Common wealth.

Notes:
The Union Territory of Ladakh recently hosted the first ever Food Processing Summit to guide the entrepreneurs and attract investments. The UT administration of Ladakh hosts the summit in association with the Union Ministry of Commerce and Industry and the Union Ministry of Food Processing Industries.
Several entrepreneurs from Leh and Kargil regions are participating in the Summit. As Ladakh is capable of exporting processed foods made from unique horticultural products, the entrepreneurs were encouraged to begin their own start-up companies in the food processing sector.

Notes:
Leading Private Sector Bank of India, ICICI Bank recently launched an API Banking portal with 250 virtual Application programming interfaces (API), which is the maximum APIs clubbed by any Indian bank.
Through this API Banking platform, the partner companies around the world can customise and co-create applications of their choice, test and generate code by a hassle-free mechanism and also in lesser time. APIs are set of instructions, which will enable the third-party applications to connect with the bank’s technology applications and team up to create new customer solutions.

Notes:
The Chief Minister of Odisha, Naveen Patnaik recently launched a state-wide helpline for labourers called e-Shramik Samadhan. He also announced that a State Corpus Fund of Rs. 500 crores has been created, so that payment given under the MGNREGA scheme will be on time.
The Chief Minister also announced that employment under MGNREGA will be extended for 200 days a year, in 20 vulnerable blocks of the state. He said that a Central data base will be created to track the migrant workers in the state and ensure that all welfare schemes reach them.