Daily Current Affairs- 23 August

Author : Palak Khanna

Updated On : August 23, 2022

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Today's Current Affairs-23rd August 2022

INTERNATIONAL

Jaishankar Unveils Bust of Mahatma Gandhi in Paraguay

  • External affairs minister S Jaishankar unveiled a bust of Mahatma Gandhi in Paraguay and visited the historic Casa de la Independencia, from where the South American country’s independence movement started more than two centuries ago. Jaishankar arrived in Brazil on the first leg of his six-day visit to South America with an aim to boost overall bilateral ties with the region. Jaishankar, who is on his first-ever official visit to South America, is also visiting Paraguay and Argentina.
  • Earlier, Jaishankar, who was on his first-ever official visit to South America aimed at boosting overall bilateral ties with the region, is also the first Indian Foreign Minister to visit Paraguay, coinciding with the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

About Paraguay:

Capital: Asunción

President: Mario Abdo Benítez

Currency: Paraguayan guaraní

Official languages: Paraguayan Guaraní, Spanish

 NATIONAL

Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma launches 'Vidya Rath’

  • Assam Chief Minister, Himanta Biswa Sarma has launched the ‘Vidya Rath -School on Wheels’ project. This project aims at providing economically challenged underprivileged children to access elementary education for a period of 10 months. The project was launched at a function held at the premises of Gauhati High Court in Assam.
  • Children will be provided with uniforms and textbooks and free-mid day meals under the project. Students will be provided free mid-day meals, uniforms and textbooks under the project.
  • The stakeholders involved in the project are the Government of Assam, Assam State Legal Services Authority, Guwahati High Court Legal Services Committee, District Legal Services Authority Kamrup (Metro), Assam State Transport Corporation, and Assam Sarba Siksha Mission, GMDA, and several NGOs.

About Assam:

Capital: Dispur

Chief Minister: Himanta Biswa Sarma

Governor: Prof Jagdish Mukhi

Govt grants permission to defence forces to buy emergency weapons through Make in India route

  • Taking a major step towards strengthening the Indian defence forces, the Centre has allowed them to purchase critical weapon systems for their operational requirements through an emergency procurement route. The approval was given in a meeting of the Defence Ministry which was headed by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh. It is pertinent to note that the defence forces have extensively used the emergency procurement powers in the past and further strengthened their preparedness through these acquisitions. Also, by utilising the power in different phases, they had equipped themselves with the necessary weaponry to handle any conflict or aggression by enemies on both sides.
  • In addition to that, the forces have also got missiles that can hit ground targets from long ranges. The Rafale fighter jets have also received a boost with the induction of the HAMMER missiles which can hit hardened ground targets like bunkers from a long distance.

About Defence Ministry of India:

Officeholder: Rajnath Singh

Formed: 1776; 246 years ago (as Military Department); 15 August 1947; 75 years ago (as Ministry of Defence)

Jurisdiction: Government of India

Punjab & Haryana agree to be name Chandigarh airport after Bhagat Singh

  • The Punjab and Haryana governments have agreed to name the Chandigarh International Airport in Mohali after Shaheed Bhagat Singh. The decision was taken during a meeting between Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann & Haryana deputy CM Dushyant Chautala. The Punjab government has already declared a state holiday on March 23, the martyrdom day of legendary freedom fighter Bhagat Singh.
  • The Rs 485-crore airport project is a joint venture of the Airports Authority of India (AAI), the governments of Punjab and Haryana.
  • The Punjab government in 2017 had demanded that the airport should be named as “Shaheed-e-Azam Sardar Shaheed Bhagat Singh International Airport, Mohali”.
  • In 2016, the Haryana Assembly unanimously passed a resolution to name Chandigarh airport after Bhagat Singh.

About Punjab:

Capital: Chandigarh

Governor: Banwarilal Purohit

Chief Minister: Bhagwant Mann

About Haryana:

Capital: Chandigarh

Governor: Bandaru Dattatreya

Chief Minister: Manohar Lal Khattar

 SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

India's first indigenous monkeypox test kit launched

  • India has developed the first indigenously-developed RT-PCR kit for testing monkeypox disease. The kit is developed by Transasia Bio-Medicals, the kit was unveiled by Principal Scientific Adviser to the Centre Ajay Kumar Sood. The kit would help in early detection and better management of the infection which the WHO declared a public health emergency of international concern.
  • Monkeypox is a viral zoonosis — a virus transmitted to humans from animals — with symptoms similar to smallpox although clinically less severe.
  • Monkeypox typically manifests itself with fever, rash, and swollen lymph nodes and may lead to a range of medical complications. It is usually a self-limited disease with symptoms lasting for two to four weeks.

About Transasia Bio-Medicals:

Headquarters location: Mumbai

Founded: 1979

Uttarakhand to have India's first observatory to monitor space activity

  • India’s first commercial space situational awareness observatory, to track objects as small as 10 cm in size orbiting the earth, will be set up in the Garhwal region of Uttarakhand by Digantara, a space sector start-up. The space situational awareness (SSA) observatory will help India track any activity in space including that of space debris and military satellites hovering over the region. Currently, the United States is a dominant player in monitoring space debris with observatories in multiple locations and commercial companies providing additional inputs from across the world.
  • The observatory in Uttarakhand will fill the crucial gap in SSA observations in the region as there is a lack of such facilities between Australia and southern Africa. The high-quality observations, along with those of its partner ground-based sensor network, would help improve its ability to monitor events occurring in deep space, especially in the geostationary, medium-Earth, and high-Earth orbits.

About Uttarakhand:

Governor: Gurmit Singh

Chief Minister: Pushkar Singh Dhami

Capitals: Dehradun (Winter), Gairsain (Summer)

 SUMMIT'S & MOU's

Union MoS for Textiles Darshana Jardosh inaugurates Silk Mark Expo in New Delhi

  • The Silk Mark Expo was inaugurated by the Union Minister of State for Textile Darshana Jardosh in New Delhi. The Silk Mark Expo is organized by the Silk Mark Organization of India under the Central Silk Board, Ministry of Textiles. This is a milestone in the Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav said the Union Minister of State for Textile. The Textile Ministry has launched various schemes including the Silk Mark Expo to boost the textile sector in India.
  • Silk Mark is a quality assurance label launched by the government to determine the quality of the natural and pure silk produced by the weavers.
  • The Silk Mark highlights the qualifying standards of the product, which will eventually build consumers’ confidence in both domestic and export markets.

About Delhi:

Chief Minister: Arvind Kejriwal

Capital: New Delhi

Lieutenant Governor: Vinai Kumar Saxena

NAMASTE: National Action for Mechanised Sanitation Ecosystem

  • The Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment and the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs have started a joint initiative scheme called the National Action for Mechanism Sanitation Ecosystem (NAMASTE). National Action for Mechanism Sanitation Ecosystem (NAMASTE) aims to work in Urban India for the safety and dignity of sanitation workers. This scheme will achieve the goal by creating an enabling ecosystem that recognizes Sanitation workers as one of the key contributors to the maintenance and operations of sanitation infrastructure.
  1. To ensure that no sanitation workers should come in direct contact with human faecal matters.
  2. To provide all sewer and septic tank sanitation workers (SSWs) access to alternative livelihoods.
  3. To make the Sanitation workers collectivized into Self Help Groups (SHGs) to empower them to run Sanitation enterprises.
  4. NAMASTE scheme will reduce the vulnerabilities of Sanitation workers by providing access to alternative livelihoods support and entitlements.
  5. National Action for Mechanism Sanitation Ecosystem (NAMASTE) will bring out a behavioral change amongst the citizens towards the sanitation workers and enhance the demand for safe sanitation services.

 BANKING AND ECONOMY

Sebi joins RBI's Account Aggregator framework to ease access to financial information

  • Asset management firms (AMCs) and depositories are examples of stock market intermediaries that have been instructed by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) to join the account aggregator framework put forward by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). Additionally, the market regulator, Sebi established regulations that will only apply to participants in the stock market ecosystem who join the aggregator framework.
  • The account aggregator framework is a non-banking financial institution (NBFC) governed by the RBI .
  • Account aggregator framework makes it easier to obtain or gather financial data about a customer from financial information suppliers (FIP).
  • Financial information would be made available by the FIPs in the securities market through any account aggregators registered with the RBI with the help of account aggregator framework.

About SEBI:

Founded: 12 April 1992

Headquarters: Mumbai

Agency executive: Madhabi Puri Buch (Chairperson)

About RBI:

Governor: Shaktikanta Das 

Ownership: Ministry of Finance, Government of India

Founded: 1 April 1935, Kolkata

Founder: British Raj

Indians remitted $6 bn in Q1FY23 under LRS scheme, shows RBI data

  • Outward remittances under the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI’s) liberalised remittance scheme (LRS) made a strong comeback in the first quarter of FY23 as Indians increased spending on international travel, maintenance of close relatives, and gifts. The latest data for Q1-FY23 released by the RBI shows that remittance by Indians under the scheme jumped 64.75 per cent to over $6.04 billion from $3.67 billion in Q1FY22. The amount remitted in Q1FY23 is even higher than that in Q4FY22, where outward remittance under LRS was to the tune of $5.8 billion.
  • International travel contributed $2.92 billion of the $6.04 billion remitted under LRS in Q1FY23, thus constituting almost 48 per cent of the money remitted under the LRS scheme. In the same period a year-ago, Indian’s spent $856.43 million on international travel as Covid-19 restrictions around the world slowed down international travel.

About RBI:

Governor: Shaktikanta Das 

Ownership: Ministry of Finance, Government of India

Founded: 1 April 1935, Kolkata

Founder: British Raj

 

Daily Current Affairs- 23 August

Author : Palak Khanna

August 23, 2022

SHARE

Today's Current Affairs-23rd August 2022

INTERNATIONAL

Jaishankar Unveils Bust of Mahatma Gandhi in Paraguay

  • External affairs minister S Jaishankar unveiled a bust of Mahatma Gandhi in Paraguay and visited the historic Casa de la Independencia, from where the South American country’s independence movement started more than two centuries ago. Jaishankar arrived in Brazil on the first leg of his six-day visit to South America with an aim to boost overall bilateral ties with the region. Jaishankar, who is on his first-ever official visit to South America, is also visiting Paraguay and Argentina.
  • Earlier, Jaishankar, who was on his first-ever official visit to South America aimed at boosting overall bilateral ties with the region, is also the first Indian Foreign Minister to visit Paraguay, coinciding with the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

About Paraguay:

Capital: Asunción

President: Mario Abdo Benítez

Currency: Paraguayan guaraní

Official languages: Paraguayan Guaraní, Spanish

 NATIONAL

Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma launches 'Vidya Rath’

  • Assam Chief Minister, Himanta Biswa Sarma has launched the ‘Vidya Rath -School on Wheels’ project. This project aims at providing economically challenged underprivileged children to access elementary education for a period of 10 months. The project was launched at a function held at the premises of Gauhati High Court in Assam.
  • Children will be provided with uniforms and textbooks and free-mid day meals under the project. Students will be provided free mid-day meals, uniforms and textbooks under the project.
  • The stakeholders involved in the project are the Government of Assam, Assam State Legal Services Authority, Guwahati High Court Legal Services Committee, District Legal Services Authority Kamrup (Metro), Assam State Transport Corporation, and Assam Sarba Siksha Mission, GMDA, and several NGOs.

About Assam:

Capital: Dispur

Chief Minister: Himanta Biswa Sarma

Governor: Prof Jagdish Mukhi

Govt grants permission to defence forces to buy emergency weapons through Make in India route

  • Taking a major step towards strengthening the Indian defence forces, the Centre has allowed them to purchase critical weapon systems for their operational requirements through an emergency procurement route. The approval was given in a meeting of the Defence Ministry which was headed by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh. It is pertinent to note that the defence forces have extensively used the emergency procurement powers in the past and further strengthened their preparedness through these acquisitions. Also, by utilising the power in different phases, they had equipped themselves with the necessary weaponry to handle any conflict or aggression by enemies on both sides.
  • In addition to that, the forces have also got missiles that can hit ground targets from long ranges. The Rafale fighter jets have also received a boost with the induction of the HAMMER missiles which can hit hardened ground targets like bunkers from a long distance.

About Defence Ministry of India:

Officeholder: Rajnath Singh

Formed: 1776; 246 years ago (as Military Department); 15 August 1947; 75 years ago (as Ministry of Defence)

Jurisdiction: Government of India

Punjab & Haryana agree to be name Chandigarh airport after Bhagat Singh

  • The Punjab and Haryana governments have agreed to name the Chandigarh International Airport in Mohali after Shaheed Bhagat Singh. The decision was taken during a meeting between Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann & Haryana deputy CM Dushyant Chautala. The Punjab government has already declared a state holiday on March 23, the martyrdom day of legendary freedom fighter Bhagat Singh.
  • The Rs 485-crore airport project is a joint venture of the Airports Authority of India (AAI), the governments of Punjab and Haryana.
  • The Punjab government in 2017 had demanded that the airport should be named as “Shaheed-e-Azam Sardar Shaheed Bhagat Singh International Airport, Mohali”.
  • In 2016, the Haryana Assembly unanimously passed a resolution to name Chandigarh airport after Bhagat Singh.

About Punjab:

Capital: Chandigarh

Governor: Banwarilal Purohit

Chief Minister: Bhagwant Mann

About Haryana:

Capital: Chandigarh

Governor: Bandaru Dattatreya

Chief Minister: Manohar Lal Khattar

 SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

India's first indigenous monkeypox test kit launched

  • India has developed the first indigenously-developed RT-PCR kit for testing monkeypox disease. The kit is developed by Transasia Bio-Medicals, the kit was unveiled by Principal Scientific Adviser to the Centre Ajay Kumar Sood. The kit would help in early detection and better management of the infection which the WHO declared a public health emergency of international concern.
  • Monkeypox is a viral zoonosis — a virus transmitted to humans from animals — with symptoms similar to smallpox although clinically less severe.
  • Monkeypox typically manifests itself with fever, rash, and swollen lymph nodes and may lead to a range of medical complications. It is usually a self-limited disease with symptoms lasting for two to four weeks.

About Transasia Bio-Medicals:

Headquarters location: Mumbai

Founded: 1979

Uttarakhand to have India's first observatory to monitor space activity

  • India’s first commercial space situational awareness observatory, to track objects as small as 10 cm in size orbiting the earth, will be set up in the Garhwal region of Uttarakhand by Digantara, a space sector start-up. The space situational awareness (SSA) observatory will help India track any activity in space including that of space debris and military satellites hovering over the region. Currently, the United States is a dominant player in monitoring space debris with observatories in multiple locations and commercial companies providing additional inputs from across the world.
  • The observatory in Uttarakhand will fill the crucial gap in SSA observations in the region as there is a lack of such facilities between Australia and southern Africa. The high-quality observations, along with those of its partner ground-based sensor network, would help improve its ability to monitor events occurring in deep space, especially in the geostationary, medium-Earth, and high-Earth orbits.

About Uttarakhand:

Governor: Gurmit Singh

Chief Minister: Pushkar Singh Dhami

Capitals: Dehradun (Winter), Gairsain (Summer)

 SUMMIT'S & MOU's

Union MoS for Textiles Darshana Jardosh inaugurates Silk Mark Expo in New Delhi

  • The Silk Mark Expo was inaugurated by the Union Minister of State for Textile Darshana Jardosh in New Delhi. The Silk Mark Expo is organized by the Silk Mark Organization of India under the Central Silk Board, Ministry of Textiles. This is a milestone in the Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav said the Union Minister of State for Textile. The Textile Ministry has launched various schemes including the Silk Mark Expo to boost the textile sector in India.
  • Silk Mark is a quality assurance label launched by the government to determine the quality of the natural and pure silk produced by the weavers.
  • The Silk Mark highlights the qualifying standards of the product, which will eventually build consumers’ confidence in both domestic and export markets.

About Delhi:

Chief Minister: Arvind Kejriwal

Capital: New Delhi

Lieutenant Governor: Vinai Kumar Saxena

NAMASTE: National Action for Mechanised Sanitation Ecosystem

  • The Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment and the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs have started a joint initiative scheme called the National Action for Mechanism Sanitation Ecosystem (NAMASTE). National Action for Mechanism Sanitation Ecosystem (NAMASTE) aims to work in Urban India for the safety and dignity of sanitation workers. This scheme will achieve the goal by creating an enabling ecosystem that recognizes Sanitation workers as one of the key contributors to the maintenance and operations of sanitation infrastructure.
  1. To ensure that no sanitation workers should come in direct contact with human faecal matters.
  2. To provide all sewer and septic tank sanitation workers (SSWs) access to alternative livelihoods.
  3. To make the Sanitation workers collectivized into Self Help Groups (SHGs) to empower them to run Sanitation enterprises.
  4. NAMASTE scheme will reduce the vulnerabilities of Sanitation workers by providing access to alternative livelihoods support and entitlements.
  5. National Action for Mechanism Sanitation Ecosystem (NAMASTE) will bring out a behavioral change amongst the citizens towards the sanitation workers and enhance the demand for safe sanitation services.

 BANKING AND ECONOMY

Sebi joins RBI's Account Aggregator framework to ease access to financial information

  • Asset management firms (AMCs) and depositories are examples of stock market intermediaries that have been instructed by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) to join the account aggregator framework put forward by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). Additionally, the market regulator, Sebi established regulations that will only apply to participants in the stock market ecosystem who join the aggregator framework.
  • The account aggregator framework is a non-banking financial institution (NBFC) governed by the RBI .
  • Account aggregator framework makes it easier to obtain or gather financial data about a customer from financial information suppliers (FIP).
  • Financial information would be made available by the FIPs in the securities market through any account aggregators registered with the RBI with the help of account aggregator framework.

About SEBI:

Founded: 12 April 1992

Headquarters: Mumbai

Agency executive: Madhabi Puri Buch (Chairperson)

About RBI:

Governor: Shaktikanta Das 

Ownership: Ministry of Finance, Government of India

Founded: 1 April 1935, Kolkata

Founder: British Raj

Indians remitted $6 bn in Q1FY23 under LRS scheme, shows RBI data

  • Outward remittances under the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI’s) liberalised remittance scheme (LRS) made a strong comeback in the first quarter of FY23 as Indians increased spending on international travel, maintenance of close relatives, and gifts. The latest data for Q1-FY23 released by the RBI shows that remittance by Indians under the scheme jumped 64.75 per cent to over $6.04 billion from $3.67 billion in Q1FY22. The amount remitted in Q1FY23 is even higher than that in Q4FY22, where outward remittance under LRS was to the tune of $5.8 billion.
  • International travel contributed $2.92 billion of the $6.04 billion remitted under LRS in Q1FY23, thus constituting almost 48 per cent of the money remitted under the LRS scheme. In the same period a year-ago, Indian’s spent $856.43 million on international travel as Covid-19 restrictions around the world slowed down international travel.

About RBI:

Governor: Shaktikanta Das 

Ownership: Ministry of Finance, Government of India

Founded: 1 April 1935, Kolkata

Founder: British Raj

 

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