Important Current Affairs 29th October 2020

NATIONAL

Vice President launches virtual festival of ‘Parampara Series 2020

• Vice President, M Venkaiah Naidu has launched the virtual festival of “Parampara Series 2020-National Festival of Music and Dance” organised by Natya Tarangini in partnership with the United Nations. Natya Tarangini has been organising this for the past 23 years.

• This dance and music festival as the normal life has been disrupted by C-19, economic downturns and lack of social interaction caused by the pandemic. It may be noted that this festival has been organized to coincide with the World Day for Audio-visual Heritage.

GoI sets up committee to commemorate 400th anniversary of Guru Tegh Bahadur

• The Centre has set up a high-level committee headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to commemorate the 400th birth anniversary of Shri Guru Tegh Bahadur.

• Union Home Secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla will be the member secretary of the 70-member high-level committee.

• The committee will look into the approval of policies, plans, programmes and supervision and guiding the commemoration, as well as for deciding dates for detailed programmes of celebration.

Arjun Munda launches two Centers of Excellence for tribal welfare

• The Union Minister of Tribal Affairs, Arjun Munda has launched two Centers of Excellence (CoE) for Tribal Welfare in a collaboration between Ministry of Tribal Affairs (MoTA) and Art of Living (AoL) through video conference.

• The first CoE has been launched in Aurangabad district of Maharashtra for training about 10000 tribal farmers in the field of sustainable natural farming based on Go-Adharith farming techniques.

• The second CoE has been launched in Jharkhand in the field of ‘Strengthening PRIs’ in 5 districts of the state covering 30 Gram Panchayats and 150 villages.

Mansukh Mandaviya inaugurates ‘Direct Port Entry Facility’

• The Union Minister of State for Shipping (I/C), Mansukh Mandaviya has inaugurated the ‘Direct Port Entry (DPE) facility’ of V.O. Chidambaranar Port Trust in Tamil Nadu.

• This will help in increasing Ease of Doing Business for the exporters, as the facility will bring efficiency and reduce dwell time, lower tariff cost and improve the competitiveness of shipper in the international trade.

• The state-of-the-art Direct Port Entry (DPE) facility would enable direct movement of containers from factories, without intermediate handling at any Container Freight Station (CFS), thus facilitating the shippers to Gate-In their factory stuffed exports directly to the Container Terminal on 24×7 basis.

UP Govt to establish anti-human trafficking Police Stations

• Uttar Pradesh Government has decided to establish anti-human trafficking Police Stations in each and every district in a major step towards the security of women and children.

• These Police Stations will be given enough powers to register the case and investigate the matter independently.

• The state government is going to establish 40 new anti-trafficking units which will work like police stations in districts and will conduct the investigation after registering the cases.

• Earlier, only 35 districts in the state had Police stations of anti-human trafficking unit which was established in 2011 and 2018.

• The new Police stations are being established after directives from women safety division of union Government. Union Government has also allocated funds for these units.

Young Advocates Welfare Fund launched in Tamil Nadu

• The Young Advocates Welfare Fund has been launched in Tamil Nadu. The Young Advocates Welfare Scheme is aimed at helping such fresh candidates to withstand the initial challenges. It provides monthly financial assistance of three thousand rupees each for two years to the lawyers who just come out of law colleges.

• Normally a fresher from law colleges takes three to four years to begin practice as an advocate in the court as the registration in the Bar Council, and the mandatory practicing under a senior advocate takes time. Unable to sustain themselves during the initial period, many from poor and rural backgrounds shifted their profession.

SUMMITS AND MOU’S

Om Birla participates in 6th BRICS Parliamentary Forum virtually

• The 6th BRICS Parliamentary Forum has been organised virtually under the chairmanship of Vyacheslav Volodin, the Chairman of Russian Parliament.

• The Indian Parliamentary Delegation is being led by Lok Sabha Speaker, Om Birla and also consists of Member of Lok Sabha Kanimozhi Karunanidhi.

• The forum provides an effective platform to facilitate inter-parliamentary dialogue and Parliamentary Diplomacy among the Parliaments of BRICS countries with a view to strengthening the role of Parliaments on a range of contemporary global issues.

• Speakers and members of five BRICS Parliaments namely Brazil, Russian, India, China and South Africa are attending the Forum. The theme of the Forum is ‘BRICS partnership in the interest of global stability, general safety and innovative growth: Parliamentary dimension’.

BOOKS AND AUTHORS

A book titled “Night of the Restless Spirits” authored by Sarbpreet Singh

• A book titled “Night of the Restless Spirits: Stories from 1984″ authored by Sarbpreet Singh. The author Sarbpreet Singh’s recounts the Sikh massacre of 1984 in this book.

• The book is a fictionalised version of real happenings comprising just eight chapters. It shows the events of 1984 through the prism of many lives & impact on Sikhs. The book is published by Penguin Publication.

BANKING AND ECONOMY

SBI signs $1 billion loan agreement with JBIC

• State Bank of India (SBI) has signed a loan agreement of up to $1 billion with The Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC). The loan will facilitate the operations of Japanese car companies in India. The financing will assist in Government of India’s ‘Make in India’ initiative.

• While $600 million will be financed by JBIC, the rest will come from other participating lenders which include the Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, MUFG Bank, , Mizuho Bank, Shizuoka Bank and Bank of Yokohama. JBIC will provide a guarantee for the portion co-financed by the participating banks. The loan is intended to promote the smooth flow of funds for the whole range of business operations of Japanese automobile manufacturers in India.

RBI bars payment system operators from launching any new QR codes

• The Reserve Bank of India has barred Payment System Operators (PSOs) from launching any new proprietary QR code for payment transactions.

• Currently, there are two interoperable QR codes — UPI QR and Bharat QR.

• The decision to continue with the two existing Quick Response (QR) codes was based on the recommendations of the committee which was set up by the Reserve Bank under the chairmanship of Deepak Phatak to review the current system of such codes in India and suggest measures for moving towards interoperable QR codes.