Focus Merit

Date	Day	Theme 2020
04 January	World Braille Day
06 January	Journalist day (in Maharashtra)
09 January	Pravasi Bhartiya Divas
10 January	World Hindi Day
11-17 January	National Road Safety Week	Sadak Suraksha - Jeevan Suraksha.
12 January	National Youth Day
14 January	Armed Forces Veterans Day
15 January	Indian Army Day
18 January	15th Raising day of NDRF
19 January	National Immunization day
24 January	National Girl Child Day
24 January	International day of education	Learning for people, planet, prosperity and peace.
25 January	National Voters' Day	Electoral Literacy for a Stronger Democracy
25 January	National Tourism Day
26 January	International Customs Day	Customs fostering Sustainability for people, prosperity and the planet.
26 January	World Leprosy Day	Leprosy isn't what you think
27 January	International day of the commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust	“75 years after Auschwitz – Holocaust Education and Remembrance for Global Justice”
30 January	World Neglected Tropical diseases day

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Mansukh Mandaviya participates at UNAIDS Programme in WEF

January 23, 2020

The Union Minister of State for Shipping and Chemical & Fertilizers Mansukh Mandaviya participated in the High-level roundtable of The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) at World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland on 21 January 2020. The theme of the programme was ‘Access for all: Leveraging Innovations, Investments, and Partnerships for Health’.

The officials discussed the health needs that are to be accessible for all and innovative technologies and solutions can play a key role, including in bridging economic inequalities. Mansukh Mandaviya mentioned Jan Aushadhi Pariyojana and Ayushman Bharat aiming to Affordable Quality Healthcare for all. He also described various schemes initiated by the GoI under the leadership of PM Narendra Modi.

Uttarakhand – 1st state to implement agricultural land leasing policy

January 23, 2020

Uttarakhand has become the first state in the country where the government has made a policy to lease agricultural land. In lieu of giving land on a 30-year lease, the concerned farmer will get the rent for the land.

In the hilly areas of the state, the obstacles of leasing land for farming, agriculture, horticulture, herbs, off-season vegetables, milk production, tea plantation, fruit hybridization and solar energy has been removed with this step.

There is a provision to take more land in special circumstances. If there is government land around farm land, then it can be leased by paying the fee with the permission of the District Magistrate. The state government has made this policy in the wake of difficulties in the consolidation of land.

India’s growth forecast for FY-20 lowered to 5.7% by UN

January 23, 2020

The UN projects India’s economy to grow by 5.7 percent in the current fiscal year and expects it to rise to 6.6 percent in the next fiscal year. The UN growth estimate for the current fiscal is drastically lower than the forecast of 7.6 per cent made in last year’s report in January and 7 percent in the May update.

The head of UN’s Global Economic Monitoring Branch, Dawn Holland, told IANS that although there has been a steep decline in growth, India was still one of the high performers globally. He said that it was expected to improve its growth rate in the coming year because of the steps being taken.

According to the report, only China has a higher growth rate than India among the world’s large economies with a 6 per cent forecast for the current calendar year.

‘Cardless cash withdrawal’ introduced by ICICI Bank

January 23, 2020

ICICI Bank has rolled out “Cardless Cash Withdrawal” service through ATM having a per day transaction limit of Rs 20,000. This service enables customers to withdraw cash from over 15,000 ATMs of the bank without using a debit card 24×7. They can withdraw cash by simply raising a request on iMobile, a mobile banking application.

Speaking on the launch, Executive Director of ICICI Bank Anup Bagchi said the bank will continue to focus on innovations in technology at all channels and touch-points that will bring more convenience to the customers. The bank’s consolidated total assets stood at Rs 12,88,190 crore at September 30, 2019. It is present across 15 countries.

NPCI Vajra, blockchain-based platform launched

January 23, 2020

The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has launched the Vajra Platform to make payments fast and secure. Based on blockchain technology, the primary highlight of the Vajra Platform is that it automates clearing and settlement of payments, drastically reducing the need for manual reconciliation.

The Vajra Platform uses distributed ledger technology (DLT). It uses a permissions model to ensure that only approved parties are a part of the network. Payment companies can apply to be a part of the network. Once approved, they can deploy the platform using an application programming interface (API) that will be provided by NPCI.

January 2020 Current Affairs

Government approves pact for seafarers’ competency certificate

Japanese tech major NTT to invest in data centres in India

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

Digital ATM service launched by PhonePe

13th Jaipur Literature Festival to begin

Mansukh Mandaviya participates at UNAIDS Programme in WEF

Uttarakhand – 1st state to implement agricultural land leasing policy

India’s growth forecast for FY-20 lowered to 5.7% by UN

‘Cardless cash withdrawal’ introduced by ICICI Bank

NPCI Vajra, blockchain-based platform launched

All In One Current Affairs

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