Current Affairs - 2019-20

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The National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC) is a statutory Corporation set up to promote and provide financial assistance to cooperatives. Its headquarters is located at New Delhi. Recently, NCDC’s new youth-friendly scheme ‘Yuva Sahakar-Cooperative Enterprise Support and Innovation Scheme’ has been launched to attract youth to cooperative business ventures. It was launched by Union Minister of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, Radha Mohan Singh. The scheme will be linked to Rs 1000 crore ‘Cooperative Start-up and Innovation Fund (CSIF)’ created by the NCDC. It would have more incentives for cooperatives of North Eastern region, Aspirational Districts and cooperatives with women or SC or ST or PwD members. The funding for the project will be up to 80% of the project cost for these special categories as against 70% for others. The scheme envisages 2% less than the applicable rate of interest on term loan for the project cost up to Rs 3 crore including 2 years moratorium on payment of principal. All types of cooperatives in operation for at least one year are eligible.

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Simona Halep is a Romanian professional tennis player and is currently world number 1 on the WTA Tour. She first broke into World top 50 in 2012. She received the ranking in October 2017.

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The official motto of the 2018 Commonwealth Games held at Gold Coast is Share the Dream. It was chosen to highlight the dreams and experience at the games that were shared by the participants of the games.

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Luka Modric was given the best player awar

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China is the most successful nation in the World Championships. It has won most number of titles in men’s singles. It has a total of 14 titles.

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Super Cyclonic Storm Kyarr, after a trail of destruction in Goa, moved away from the West Coast, with the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) forecasting reduction in the rainfall. It was an extremely powerful tropical cyclone that became the first Super Cyclonic Storm over the North Indian Ocean since Gonu in 2007.

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The researchers at IIT Hyderabad and KIIT School of Architecture (Bhubaneshwar) have developed bio-bricks for construction from agricultural waste products. The team’s bio-brick received a Special Recognition Trophy for sustainable housing at Rural Innovators Start-Up Conclave 2019 organised recently by National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj (NIRDPR), Hyderabad. These Bio-bricks can not only serve to manage agricultural waste but also provide scope for economically affordably environment-friendly sustainable construction building materials.

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Shikha Tandon is associated with Swimming, Ignace Tirkey is asociated with Hockey, Pankaj Advani is associated with Snooker and Rohan Bopanne is associated with Lawn Tennis.

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Voyager 2 has entered the interstellar medium (ISM).It is the region of space outside the bubble-shaped boundary produced by wind streaming outward from the Sun. A noted increase in plasma density indicated that the spacecraft has travelled form hot and lower-density plasma characteristic of the solar wind to the cool and higher-density plasma of interstellar space. This makes Voyager 2 the second human-made object to journey out of the Sun’s influence. The first one was the Voyager 1’s 2012.

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Community-based tourism start-up NotOnMap (NoM), which has its head quarter in Himachal Pradesh’s Chamba district, has won NASSCOM Foundation’s Social Innovation Forum (NSIF) award. A total of 10 organisations were selected across different categories out of 1,500 applicants through a rigorous selection criteria and NoM emerged winner in ‘other social innovation category’.