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Category: All Current Affairs

13th Jaipur Literature Festival to begin

January 23, 2020

13th Jaipur Literature Festival will be held from 23th to 27th January. The themes of the festival include climate, constitution, poetry, and artificial intelligence. The five-day event will see more than 200 sessions. Around 500 speakers of different fields are expected to participate in the festival, out of which 120 are award-winning speakers.

The festival will have a range of speakers including Nobel laureate Abhijit Banerjee, Booker award-winning British novelist Howard Jacobson and Auther Elizabeth Gilbert. 37 sessions will be held on the first day, which includes speakers such as Nandita Das, Subha Mudgal and Prasoon Joshi among others.

Digital ATM service launched by PhonePe

January 23, 2020

Popular e-commerce company PhonePe has recently launched its new ‘PhonePe ATM’ feature which will allow customers to take cash from merchants offering this facility. The service has been launched on a pilot basis in the Delhi-NCR region on Thursday and will soon be open in other parts of the country if it earns a good response from people there.

There will not be any charges for customers or merchants to avail of this service and the withdrawal limit for customers will be the same as the limit set by their respective banks. The new kind of digital ATM service will help people in withdrawing money without the usage of ATM card and also help people to properly locate a nearby venue for withdrawing cash.

India Ratings and Research expects GDP growth at 5.5 percent in FY21

January 23, 2020

According to India Ratings and Research, India’s GDP is expected to grow at 5.5 percent in FY21 as against the estimated 5 percent in FY20. The slowdown was due to a combination of factors including an abrupt and significant fall in NBFCs’ and bank lending, reduced income growth and savings of households and rising debt.

Sunil Sinha, economist, India Ratings stated that, a strong policy push coupled with some heavy lifting by the government is required to revive the domestic demand cycle and catapult the economy back into a high growth phase. According to the ratings firm, a continuance of low GDP growth even in FY21 means subdued tax revenue and limited room for stepping up expenditure.

Japanese tech major NTT to invest in data centres in India

January 23, 2020

Japanese tech company NTT Data will make an investment of $1.5 billion (Rs 11,000 crore) for data centre business in India for next four years. The investment will be split equally between the four regions and the overall investments are bound to be shared proportionately.

The company is targeting to more than double its capacity in the next three years through the investments. Its overall capacity, which stands at 1.2 million sq ft at present spread across Mumbai, Noida, Chennai and it will go up by 1.5 million sq ft.

The company is looking at going to newer locations as well and also adding to its land bank to house the facilities. India is the fastest-growing region for NTT and a substantial amount of the USD 7 billion commitment will be invested.

Government approves pact for seafarers’ competency certificate

January 23, 2020

The government on 22 January, 2020 approved a model pact with foreign countries for recognition of seafarers’ competency certificates. The decision was taken at a meeting of the Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. This will pave the way for mutual recognition of maritime education and training of seafarers by the countries involved.

The pact will facilitate unilateral recognition certificates issued by the Directorate General of Shipping to Indian seafarers by another country, without seeking similar acknowledgment by India of the certificates issued by that country. Indian seafarers will be eligible to be placed on ships under the flag of that country for employment, thus leading to increased employment opportunities, the ministry said.

Bengaluru: Exclusive sports ground for visually impaired cricketers

January 22, 2020

Visually impaired cricketers are likely to get a dedicated sports training complex that will enable them to develop into professional players, as stated by the Cricket Association for the Blind in India (CABI).

In an interview with the media persons in Bengaluru Mahantesh G K, President of CABI and head of Samarthanam Trust for the Disabled, informed that CABI has approached the Karnataka government with a request to allot 25 acres of land to set up a sports complex with a training ground, gymnasium and swimming pool, and has received a positive response.

CABI has been striving to develop cricket on a large scale among visually impaired people by identifying and encouraging school students, and adults. The entire facility will be sensitive to the needs of people with visual and other disabilities so that everyone can come and practice their respective sports.

Odisha’s 44 underprivileged children to get their 1st flight experience

January 22, 2020

44 Divyang children from Odisha will experience the joy of flying aboard in a special Alliance Air flight from Biju Patnaik International Airport in Bhubaneswar. The children includes 21 girls and 23 boys coming from poor families, who will get this opportunity. It will be a 40 minute tour and the special flight will take off at 9:30 am.

The initiative is a result of joint collaboration of Ministry of Civil Aviation, Airport Authority of India (AAI) and Alliance Air with Government of Odisha. The AAI has waived all the cost of flying and Odisha Government has extended full support to this initiative.

RBI cancels certificate of authorisation of Vodafone m-pesa

January 22, 2020

The Reserve Bank of India cancelled the Certificate of Authorisation (CoA) of Vodafone m-pesa after its voluntary surrender of authorisation. Hence, the company cannot transact business of issuance and operation of Prepaid payment Instruments.

However, the customers or merchants having a valid claim on the company as a PSO, can approach the company till September 30, 2022 for settlement of their claims within three years from the date of cancellation, as stated by The Central Bank.

UN report: Global unemployment to rise by 2.5 million in 2020

January 22, 2020

According to UN’s International Labour Organization report – Global unemployment is projected to increase by around 5 million in 2020. Almost half a billion people are working fewer paid hours than they would like or lack adequate access to paid work.

The World Employment and Social Outlook: Trends 2020 (WESO) report has been released and it states that global unemployment has been roughly stable for the last nine years but slowing global economic growth means that, as the global labour force increases, not enough new jobs are being generated to absorb new entrants to the labour market.

Rs 5,000 cr approved to promote indigenization of defence equipment

January 22, 2020

Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) has approved procurement of equipment worth over Rs. 5000 crore from indigenous sources to promote indigenization. They include sophisticated Electronic Warfare Systems for the Army manufactured locally by the Indian industry and designed by Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO).

The systems will provide comprehensive Electronic Support and Counter Measure capabilities to the field formations in both communication and other aspects of Electronic Warfare. The systems will be used in deserts and plains. The DAC headed by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh met to consider a number of new and ongoing proposals for procuring critically needed platforms and equipment for the Armed Forces.

The council also approved prototype testing of trawl assemblies designed by DRDO for T-72 and T-90 tanks providing an important indigenous de-mining capability to the Army. The DAC also accorded approval for inclusion of Innovations for Defence Excellence (iDEX) in Defence Procurement Procedure.