Daily Current Affairs 26th June, 2022

Daily Current Affairs 26 June 2022 for Banking/Insurance/SSC and other related exams.

NATIONAL NEWS

Culture Minister G Kishan Reddy inaugurates ‘Jyotirgamaya’ festival showcasing talent of unsung performers in New Delhi
Union Culture Minister G. Kishan Reddy inaugurated Jyotirgamaya – a festival showcasing the talent of unsung performers in New Delhi.

• As part of Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav and on the occasion of World Music Day on June 21,2022, Sangeet Natak Akademi has organised this festival to showcase the talent of rare musical instruments from across the country, including street performers and train entertainers.

Assam becomes 36th State/UT to implement One Nation One Ration Card
Assam has become the 36th State/UT to implement One Nation One Ration Card (ONORC). With this, the ONORC plan is successfully implemented in all the 36 states/UTs, making food security portable throughout the country.

• During the last two years of COVID-19 pandemic, ONORC plan has significantly contributed in ensuring subsidized foodgrains to NFSA (National Food Security Act) beneficiaries, especially migrant beneficiaries.
• This is one-of-its-kind Citizen Centric initiative in the country, which is swiftly implemented in a short-span of time covering about 80 Crore beneficiaries, after being initiated in August 2019.

Defence ministry approves setting up of ‘BRO Cafes’ at 75 border locations across 12 states/UTs
Ministry of Defence has approved setting up of wayside amenities under the brand of ‘BRO Cafes’ at 75 locations on different sections of roads with Border Roads Organisation across 12 states and Union territories.

• These are intended to provide basic amenities and comfort to tourists and lead to boosting of economic activities in border areas, besides generating employment for the local people. These wayside amenities will be branded as ‘BRO Cafes’. 

Prahlad Singh Patel inaugurates the National Conference on Millets – The future superfood for India
Union Minister of State for Food Processing Industries Prahlad Singh Patel inaugurated the National Millet Conference on the theme ‘Super Food of the Future for India’ in New Delhi.

• The conference was organized to discuss the opportunities and challenges of ensuring food and nutritional security.
• Union Minister Patel said that the production of coarse cereals in the country has increased to 17.96 million tonnes in 2020-21, from 14.52 million tonnes in 2015-16 and the production of millet (pearl millet) also during the same period. has increased to 10.86 million tonnes.

Jammu Kashmir to host G-20 summit next year.
Jammu and Kashmir will host the 2023 meetings of the G20, an influential group of the world’s major economies.

• J&K government has set up a five-member high-level committee for overall coordination of G20 meetings to be held in the Union Territory.
• Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal was appointed as India’s Sherpa for the G20 in September 2021. According to the Ministry of External Affairs, India will hold the G-20 presidency from December 1, 2022, and convene the first G20 leaders’ summit in 2023.

Single-use Plastic Ban To Be Effective From July 1 
Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change has notified that govt will ban identified single use plastic items across the country from 1 July.

• Single-use plastic are those items that are used only once and discarded.
• The adverse impacts of littered single use plastic items plastic on both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, including in marine environment are globally recognized. Addressing pollution due to single use plastic items has become an important environmental challenge confronting all countries, it said.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

Sri Lanka revises Minimum Age for Migrant Domestic Workers
The Cabinet of the Sri Lankan government approved a proposal to raise the minimum legal age of employment for migrant domestic workers from Sri Lanka, making it 21 rather than 18.

The decision was announced at the weekly Cabinet meeting. However, the minimum age limit for Saudi Arab has been set at 25 years, and 23 years for the other countries in the Middle East. The minimum age limit announced as 21 for the rest of the Middle East countries other than Saudi Arabia.

BANKING & FINANCE

Karnataka Bank launches online SB account opening facility V-CIP
Karnataka Bank launched Online SB (Savings Bank) Account opening facility through ‘Video based Customer Identification Process (V-CIP).’

• The facility enabled in the Corporate Website of the Bank, empowers any prospective customers to open an SB account through online process and complete KYC verification through a video call at their place of convenience.
• The end-to-end paperless digital process leverages Bank’s Application Programming Interface (API) that auto-fills the account opening form, validates PAN/Aadhaar number instantly and completes the Know Your Customer (KYC) process through a video call.

World Bank approves project to promote rain-fed farming in Uttarakhand
The World Bank has approved a project worth ₹1,000 crore for taking rain-fed farming to new heights in the hilly regions of Uttarakhand.

• The project named Uttarakhand Climate Responsive Rain-fed Farming Project will be implemented by the watershed department.
• The State government had proposed the project which is aimed at reducing green house gas emissions for funding by the World Bank.The World Bank has agreed to fund the project.

BUSINESS & ECONOMY

Oracle launches OCI dedicated region for India market
US-based technology major Oracle’s cloud services platform, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) has launched ‘OCI dedicated region’ for the India market to offer public cloud services to customers on their premises.

• The new offering will help customers meet latency, data residency, and data sovereignty requirements that are key to many IT modernisation efforts.
• It will also allow Oracle to offer customers nearly 100 services within their premises, which were earlier available only to public cloud consumers.

SPORTS

Rumeli Dhar retires from all forms of international cricket
Rumeli Dhar, the India seam-bowling allrounder, has announced her retirement from international cricket, at the age of 38. Dhar played her last international match in the tri-nation women’s T20I series between India, Australia and England, at Brabourne in 2018.

• In all, she featured in four Tests, 78 ODIs, and 18 T20Is, scoring 1328 runs and taking 84 wickets across formats. She was also part of the India team that had reached the 2005 World Cup final in South Africa.

India jump two places to 104 in latest FIFA ranking 
The Indian football team reaped a good harvest of its impressive Asian Cup qualification campaign as it gained two places to jump to 104th in the latest FIFA world rankings released.

• The Blue Tigers are placed just below New Zealand (103), who missed out on a 2022 FIFA World Cup spot after losing 0-1 to Costa Rica in the intercontinental play-off earlier this month.
• In the overall world rankings, Iran retained the top spot among the AFC countries (23). Brazil remained on top, three months after taking the top spot from Belgium (2nd). Argentina jumped one place to third at the expense of France (4th) who paid the price for four winless games in the UEFA Nations League. England, Spain, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal and Denmark complete the top-10.

APPOINTMENTS

Udayakumar assumes as the CMD, NSIC
P Udayakumar, Director (Plng and Mktg), NSIC, took additional responsibility as CMD NSIC with effect from 20 June 2022.

• He has a mechanical engineering degree from College of Engineering in Guindy, a postgraduate degree from IIM Bangalore, and 12 years of service on the Board.
• He is also Investment Committee member of PE growth fund namely SRI Fund ,the Fund of Fund of Ministry of MSME.

Lisa Sthalekar becomes first woman president of FICA 
Legendary Australian cricketer Lisa Sthalekar has become the first woman president of the Federation of International Cricketers’ Association (FICA).

• The 42-year-old former Australia captain was confirmed in the role at the FICA Executive Committee meeting held in Nyon, Switzerland.
• She will take up a position that has previously been held by former South Africa batter Barry Richards, former West Indies all-rounder Jimmy Adams, and most recently by former England batter Vikram Solanki.

Ranjit Bajaj named chairman of advisory committee to assist CoA in running AIFF
Entrepreneur Ranjit Bajaj, who earlier owned an I-League club, has been named chairman of advisory committee to assist the Supreme Court-appointed Committee of Administrators (CoA) which is running the day-to-day affairs of All India Football Federation (AIFF).

• The 12-member advisory committee was appointed by the CoA to oversee the day-to-day matters of various departments of the AIFF.
• The advisory committee will send regular reports to all the members of the CoA for their information and approvals, if required.

NDB appoints ex-bureaucrat Dr D J Pandian to head its India Regional Office 
Shanghai-headquartered New Development Bank (NDB) of the BRICS countries has appointed former bureaucrat Dr D J Pandian as the Director-General of its India Regional Office in Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT City), the bank announced.

• Last month, the NDB had announced plans to set up IRO in the Gift city.
• Pandian earlier served as the Vice President and Chief Investment Officer of the Beijing-based Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) in which India is the 2nd largest shareholder after China.A retired IAS officer, Pandian had also served as Chief Secretary of Gujarat.

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY 

Indian Oil unveils indoor solar cooking stove, Surya Nutan
Taking up a challenge put forth by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to design a sustainable stove for middle-class households, oil marketing major Indian Oil Corporation Limited and the Union ministry of petroleum and natural gas have developed a solar cook top to cut down on gas consumption.

• A demonstration of the innovative cook top, named ‘Surya Nutan’, ‘Surya Nutan’ is a stationary, rechargeable and always kitchen-connected indoor solar cooking system, which has a patented product designed, an official statement said. It has been developed by the Indian Oil research and development centre in Faridabad.

ENVIRONMENT

High carbon emitters may get sops to curb footprint
India is considering several measures to incentivise high carbon emitting industries such as steel, cement and thermal plants to set up carbon capture facilities. Incentives could be provided through production-linked incentive schemes, viability gap funding or carbon credits.

• Niti Aayog, the country’s policy think-tank, will soon come out with a policy prescription for carbon capture and utilisation of carbon dioxide emitted by industries as part of the plan to achieve Net Zero by 2070, an official said requesting anonymity.
• These industries constitute 6-10% of the total carbon dioxide emitted.Various options are being considered to incentivise the polluting industries to set up carbon capture plants to capture, utilise and store carbon from the carbon dioxide emitted by them so that it can be used for various industrial purposes.

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