Important Current Affairs 8th October 2020

National

India gets its first ever Brand & Logo for its Cotton on World Cotton Day

• On the occasion of the 2nd World Cotton Day, the Union Minister of Textiles and Women & Child Development, Smt. Smriti Zubin Irani, launched the first ever Brand & Logo for Indian Cotton on  7th October, 2020 through Video Conferencing.

• It means that from now on, the premium Cotton of India would be known as ‘Kasturi Cotton’ in the world cotton Trade.

• The Kasturi Cotton brand will represent Whiteness, Brightness, Softness, Purity, Luster, Uniqueness and Indianness.

International

Jordan’s Prime Minister Omar Razzaz resigns

• Jordan’s Prime Minister Omar al Razzaz submitted his resignation to Jordan’s King Abdullah.

• King Abdullah accepted his resignation but asked him to stay on as a caretaker premier until he designates a successor to oversee parliamentary elections on Nov. 10.

• The monarch dissolved parliament at the end of its four-year term in a move that under constitutional rules meant the government had to resign within a week.

Banking and Economy

ICICI becomes the first Bank to offer debit card to customers availing LAS

• ICICI Bank and Visa has partnered to launch a debit card facility for the customers who avail Loans Against Securities (LAS) from the bank.

• Thus ICICI Bank has become the first bank in India to launch this facility after RBI allowed banks to issue electronics cards to customers who avail OD (Overdraft) facility.

• Customer can make use of this card to make payments through POS (Point of Sale) and online transactions by making use of sanctioned LAS account. The maximum daily transaction limit is Rs 3 lakhs.

Summits and Mou’s

NCERT signed an MoU with ISLRTC for deaf children

• To make textbooks and other study material easily accessible for deaf children through sign language, the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) signed an MoU with the Indian Sign Language Research and Training Centre (ISLRTC).

• It will not only enhance their vocabulary, but also enhance their capabilities to understand concepts.

Awards

Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A. Doudna wins Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2020

• The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2020 jointly to Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A. Doudna “for the development of a method for genome editing.”

• Emmanuelle Charpentier is a Director of the Max Planck Unit for the Science of Pathogens, Berlin, Germany.Jennifer A. Doudna is a Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, USA and Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Govt announces results of 1st National Startup Awards

• The Union Minister of Railways and Commerce & Industry Shri Piyush Goyal announced the Results of the first ever National Startup Awards 2020 on 6th October 2020.

• The award has been introduced by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) to recognize and reward outstanding Startups and ecosystem enablers that are building innovative products or solutions and scalable enterprises, with high potential of employment generation or wealth creation, demonstrating measurable social impact.

• The first edition of the Awards had applications from 12 sectors, which were further sub-classified into a total of 35 categories. A total of 1641 applications were received from startups from 23 States and 4 Union Territories.

• All applicants were evaluated against six broad parameters namely Innovation, Scalability, Economic Impact, Social Impact, Environmental Impact, and Inclusiveness and Diversity.

Acquisitions and Mergers

ADIA will invest Rs 5,512.5 crore in Reliance Industries Ltd

• Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) will invest Rs 5,512.5 crore in Reliance Industries Ltd’s retail arm.

• With this investment, RRVL has raised Rs 37,710 crore from leading global investors including Silver Lake, KKR, General Atlantic, Mubadala, GIC, TPG and ADIA in less than four weeks.

Science and Technology

C-DAC to commission India’s fastest HPC-AI Supercomputer ‘PARAM Siddhi – AI’ with NVIDIA

• The Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) will be commissioning India’s largest HPC-AI supercomputer ‘PARAM Siddhi – AI’.

• This initiative will place India among the top countries in global AI supercomputing research and innovation.

• The initiative was headed by Abhishek Das, Scientist and Program Director (HPC-AI Infrastructure Development) at C-DAC, who conceived the idea and designed the architecture for the largest HPC-AI infrastructure in India.

ICG Offshore Patrol Vessel ‘Vigraha’ Launched to Enhance Coastal Security

• The seventh offshore patrol vessel of the Indian Coast Guard (ICG), ‘Vigraha’ was formally unveiled at the Kattupalli port. The vessel is expected to be inducted into the Coast Guard after completion of extensive trials and testing for the equipment and machinery by March 2021.

• The vessel, built by Larsen and Toubro, is the last in the series of seven OPVs contracted to the company by the Ministry of Defence in 2015.

• The OPV is 98 metres long, 15 metres wide, has 3.6 m draught, 2140T displacement and a range of 5,000 nautical miles.

Appointments and Resignations

MA Ganapathy Appointed Director General of Civil Aviation Security

• A 1986 batch IPS officer of Uttarakhand cadre,M A Ganapathy has been appointed as the Director General of Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) for a tenure up to his superannuation on February 29, 2024

• The post of BCAS chief fell vacant after Rakesh Asthana was appointed as the Director General of Border Security Force in August.

Days

Air Force Day 2020

• Air Force Day is observed every year on 8 October.The Air Force Day 2020 celebrates the 88th anniversary of the official foundation day of the force on October 8.

• Indian Air Force was officially established on 8 October 1932 by the British Empire as the Royal Indian Air Force. The name was changed to Indian Air Force in 1950.