Daily Current Affairs 15th March, 2020

Daily Current Affairs 15 March 2020 for Banking/Insurance/SSC and other related exams.

NATIONAL NEWS

“Wings India 2020” held in  Hyderabad
Wings India 2020, an international exhibition and conference on civil aviation sector, held at Begumpet Airport in Hyderabad.

• The three-day civil aviation exhibition and air show is having the theme ‘flying for all’. 
• The aim of the event is to provide assistance to the rapidly changing dynamics of the sector & focus on new business acquisition, investments, policy formation and regional connectivity.

Govt declares face masks and hand sanitizers as essential commodities to boost supply
The government has declared face masks and hand sanitizers as essential commodities for the next 100 days. The move is aimed at stepping up efforts to boost supply and prevent hoarding of these items in its fight to check the spread of coronavirus disease.

• The Centre has also invoked the Disaster Management Act to ensure price regulation and availability of surgical and protective masks, hand sanitizer and gloves.

DA for Central government employees and pensioners hiked by 4% from 1st January
The Union Cabinet has approved a four per cent  hike in Dearness Allowance – DA for  48 lakh Central government employees and Dearness Relief to 65  lakh pensioners. It will be effective from 1st of January this year. With this, the DA has gone up from 17 per cent  to 21 per cent.

• Cabinet also approved a hike in minimum support price of copra for 2020 season.The MSP for Fair Average Quality ( FAQ) of milling Copra has been increased to 9,960 rupees per quintal from 9,521 rupees.

Uttarakhand CM celebrates Phool Dei festival
Uttarakhand Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat celebrated the traditional harvest festival–Phool Dei–at his residence with children.

• Phool Dei is the harvest festival of Uttarakhand that is celebrated in the month of Chaitra (March-April) in the Hindu calendar.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

3rd edition of WION Global Summit 2020 held in Dubai, UAE
The ‘WION Global Summit: Navigating and Negotiating Global Imperatives’  held at The Oberoi in Dubai.

• WION is India’s first international news channel dedicated to putting forth India’s perspective on impactful global issues and the annual conclave, WION Global Summit, is a platform for global leaders to come together at a single platform and have a dialogue on a common global agenda

APPOINTMENTS

NCLAT Chairman Justice S J Mukhopadhaya retires
NCLAT Chairperson Justice Sudhansu Jyoti Mukhopadhaya, who handled several big-ticket insolvency cases like Essar Steel during his tenure at the appellate quasi-judicial body, retired who turns 70 on March 15, 2020

• Justice Mukhopadhaya, was the first chairperson of the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) which was established on June 1, 2016. An NCLAT chairperson is appointed for five years and can hold office till the age of 70 years.

Greece’s first female president is sworn in
Greece’s first female president, a former high court judge Katerina Sakellaropoulou was formally sworn in to office, nearly two months after the country’s parliament voted overwhelmingly to elect her.

• Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis nominated Sakellaropoulou as a non-partisan candidate who would enjoy broad support from across the political spectrum. All major parties voted in favor, with Sakellaropoulou being elected to the largely ceremonial post in a 261-33 vote in January, well above the 200 votes required. Six lawmakers were absent.

Sunil Mehta to be Non-Executive Chairman, Prashant Kumar to be MD & CEO of YES Bank
The Government has constituted new board of directors for Yes Bank. It will be led by former Punjab National Bank chairman Sunil Mehta

• Prashant Kumar was appointed as MD & CEO of YES Bank

• Mahesh Krishnamurthy and Atul Bheda will be the non-executive directors

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

BhoomiRashi potral of M/o RTH has significantly expedited error free and transparent land acquisition for National Highways
The BhoomiRashi Portal lunched as a major e-Governance initiative of the Ministry of the Road Transport & Highways, has expedited significantly the process of land acquisition for National Highways, making it error-free & more transparent with notifications at every stage being processed on real time basis. 

• While the physical processing of the cases usually took considerable time, ranging from weeks to even months, and there were errors whose rectification caused further delays, the processing time using this portal has been reduced to less than two weeks in a majority of cases and even a few days in some cases.

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