Current Affairs Quiz - January, 2020

Notes:
The State Bank of India’s economic research department has lowered its projection for the GDP growth rate of India for FY 20 to 4.6%. Earlier it has projected the GDP rate to be 5%.
The research department also estimated that the GDP of India would be below 6% for two successive years. The CSO also recently estimated the GDP growth of FY20 to be 5%, in lines with the Reserve Bank of India. But the RBI projected 5.9 – 6.3% growth rate for the next fiscal.

Notes:
India’s cabinet has recently (January, 2020) approved the mobility pact with France that would allow skilled workers, students and academics from the two countries to live and work in each others’ countries. The agreement was signed between India and France during French President Emmanuel Macron’s visit to India in 2018. France, however, is yet to ratify the pact, awaiting the French parliament’s consent.

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:
The Union Minister for Home Affairs, Amit Shah recently released a book titled ‘Karmayoddha Granth’. The book is based on the life of the present Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. During the book releasing event, Amit Shah hailed Modi for successfully transforming the Gujarat BJP organisation and his leadership qualities as the Indian Prime Minister.
Narendra Modi is the 14th and the incumbent Prime Minister of India since 2014. Prior to that he was the Chief Minister of Gujarat since 2001.

Notes:
The Union Home Minister Amit Shah recently launched a cyber-crime prevention initiative of the Gujarat Police, called ‘Cyber AASHVAST’ in Gandhinagar. The project was created as a help line for the victims affected by cyber-crimes.
During the launch event, the Minister also launched an e-governance initiative called ‘VISHWAS’ which is an acronym for Video Integration and State Wide Advanced Security. It helps in improving Law and Order and helps in Crime detection and investigation through video analytics.

Notes:
In the recently held presidential election of Taiwan, Tsai Ing-wen was re-elected as the country’s President. With more than 57% of the votes, Tsai won her second presidential term. Her victory in the election has gained significance as she vowed to protect the sovereignty of Taiwan amidst of the threats posed by China.
China has announced that Taiwan must be united with China at any cost and it would use power if necessary. There were several protests across the country against China’s Authoritarian behaviour.

Notes:
The first mission of the year of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is the communication satellite GSAT-30. It is scheduled for launch on January 17,2020 aboard the Ariane-5 launch vehicle (VA 251) from French Guiana.
The satellite will provide communication services from Geostationary orbit and is expected to serve as the replacement satellite to INSAT- 4 A with extended coverage. GSAT-30 would be beneficial in several ways including supporting VSAT networks, Cellular connectivity and DTH-Television services.

Notes:
Recently, the head of Amazon, Jeff Bezos announced that the company will invest $ 1 billion to digitise Small and Medium Businesses in India. Jeff also announced that Amazon India will export several ‘Make in India’ products, worth $10 billion, by the year 2025.
He made this announcement during his recent official visit to India, where he met many Small and Medium businessmen, top Indian business leaders and government officials. Recently, The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) alleged that the company follows unfair business practices.

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:
Veteran filmmaker and director Manmohan Mohapatra from Odisha recently passed away. He had won National Film awards for best Odia feature film, for eight consecutive years.
Seeta Raati was his first full-fledged Odia film, which he directed in 1976. It was the first Odia film to be screened at an international film festival, held abroad. He also directed several Hindi films. The Chief Minister of Odisha, Naveen Patnaik has condoled the demise of the eminent director.