Daily Current Affairs 26th September, 2020

Daily Current Affairs 26 September 2020 for Banking/Insurance/SSC and other related exams.

NATIONAL NEWS

Union Ministers inaugurate Post-Harvest Management Centre for medicinal plants, AYUSH units in J&K
Union Minister for AYUSH Shripad Yesso Naik and Union Minister of State PMO Dr. Jitendra Singh jointly laid e-foundation of Post-Harvest Management Centre for Medicinal Plants at Bhaderwah in Jammu and Kashmir.

• 21 AYUSH Health & Wellness Centres were also e-inaugrated across different districts of the Union Territory.
• Work is underway for establishing 194 health and wellness centres in Jammu and Kashmir this year and the Ministry of AYUSH has provided Rs 12.81-crore central grant for this purpose. There is a target of establishing 319 such centres in the Union Territory in the next three years.

UP’s First Conservation Centre For Vultures To Come Up In Gorakhpur Forest Division
Uttar Pradesh’s first vulture conservation and breeding centre is set to be established at Bhari Baisi village in Farenda range of Gorakhpur forest division.

• This vulture breeding and conservation centre will be the first in India which will be dedicated to king vulture and also the first vulture conservation and breeding centre in Uttar Pradesh.
• The centre will be established on the lines of Haryana’s Pinjore vulture conservation and breeding centre..

Kerala to have one of the first medical device parks
Kerala will soon house one of the first medical device parks in the country, focusing on the high-risk medical device sector to provide a full range of services for the medical devices industry like Research and Development (R and D) support, testing, and evaluation.

• MedSpark is going to be established at the Life Science Park, Thonnakkal, in Thiruvananthapuram district.
• The medical devices park is envisaged as a joint initiative of the Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences & Technology (SCTIMST), an institute of the DST, and the Kerala State Industrial Development Corporation (KSIDC).

Country’s apex regulator of medical education ‘National Medical Commission’ comes into existence
The National Medical Commission (NMC), in place of the Medical Council of India (MCI), as the country’s apex regulator of medical education and profession has come into existence.

• With the NMC coming into being, the Board of Governors (BoG) which superseded the MCI on September 26th, 2018, to perform its functions, has been dissolved and the nearly 64-year-old Indian Medical Council Act abolished.  
• The NMC comprises a chairman, 10 ex-officio members and 22 part-time members

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

Tel Aviv to become first city with electric roads that charge public buses
The city of Tel Aviv in Israel, is working on creating wireless electric roads to charge and power public transportation in the city.

• The project is being funded by a combination of government and private funds.
• The roads will span from Tel Aviv University Railway station to Klatzkin Terminal in Ramat Aviv, a route of about 1.2 miles. The electric road itself will be about 37 miles long, a little less than half a mile.

India-Japan Maritime bilateral exercise ‘JIMEX’ begins 
Indian and Japanese navies to begin their three-day-long maritime military exercise beginin the North Arabian Sea.This is the fourth edition of Japan Maritime bilateral exercise (JIMEX).

• This would be the first military exercise after the two countries signed a landmark agreement recently that will allow their militaries to access each other’s bases for logistics support.
• The JIMEX is a series of exercises commenced in January 2012 with a special focus on maritime security cooperation. The last edition of JIMEX was conducted in October 2018 off Visakhapatnam coast.

India Offers USD 100 Mn Line Of Credit To Lanka For Solar Projects
India has offered a Line of Credit worth USD 100 million to Sri Lanka for three solar projects in the country.

• The LoC will cover financing for rooftop solar systems meant for 20,000 households and 1,000 government buildings all across the island. The combined generation capacity of these rooftop systems will be about 60 MW, it said. The LoC will also provide financing for a floating solar power plant.

BANKING & FINANCE

Fino Payments Bank launches contactless payments for mass transport
Fino Payments Bank along with fintech partners has introduced NFC-based contactless payments solution for mass transit systems, especially state bus transport services in India.

• Fino, which has over 80 per cent of its banking network of 2.75 lakh points in villages, aims to tap the opportunity to digitise cash used in mass transit systems. 
• Fino has already issued over 30 lakh NFC-enabled smart cards that are accepted across 20,000 Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation buses. 

BOB Financial Solutions Limited partners Signzy to unveil its ‘Video KYC’
BOB Financial Solutions Limited (BFSL), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Bank of Baroda has selected RegTech firm Signzy, in a bid to digitize its customer verification through ‘Video KYC’.

• With this alliance, BFSL has now enabled a quick, zero-contact and paperless KYC that omits the requirement for physical submission of KYC documents.
• It also ensures end-to-end security in the entire KYC process to both financial services providers as well as their users.

IRDAI Identifies LIC, GIC, New India Assurance Systemically Important Insurers
Regulator IRDAI has identified LIC, GIC and New India Assurance as domestic systemically important insurers (D-SIIs) and subsequently decided to subject them to enhanced regulatory supervision.

• The three insurers have also been asked to raise the level of corporate governance, identify all relevant risks and promote a sound risk management culture.

Asian Development Bank Approves $570 Million Loans for Urban Projects in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh
The Manila-headquartered Asian Development Bank (ADB) said it has approved two loans totalling $570 million (about Rs 4,200 crore) for urban sector projects in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh.

• The $300 million loan has been approved to finance inclusive water supply and sanitation infrastructure and services in secondary towns of Rajasthan. 
• It has approved a $270 million loan for construction of water supply and integrated storm water and sewage management infrastructure in Madhya Pradesh.

Positive Pay System for Cheque Payments to Come into Effect from January 1: RBI
In order to check banking fraud, the Reserve Bank of India has decided to introduce from January 1, 2021, the ‘positive pay system’ for cheque, under which re-confirmation of key details may be needed for payments beyond Rs 50,000.

• Availing of this facility would be at the discretion of the account holder.However, banks may consider making it mandatory in case of cheques for amounts of Rs 5 lakh and above.
• Under the positive pay system, the issuer of the cheque will be required to submit electronically, through SMS, mobile app, internet banking or ATM certain minimum details of that cheque like date, name of the beneficiary, payee, amount to the drawee bank. These details will be cross-checked before the cheque is presented for payment. In case any discrepancy is flagged by cheque truncation system (CTS) to the drawee bank and presenting bank, redressal measures would be undertaken. 

APPOINTMENTS

Varanasi’s Shivangi Singh set to become India’s first woman fighter pilot to fly Rafale
Flight Lieutenant Shivangi Singh is set to become the first woman fighter pilot of India to fly the Rafale combat aircraft.

• Shivangi Singh, who hails from Uttar Pradesh’s Varanasi, was commissioned into the Indian Air Force (IAF) in the year 2017 as part of the second batch of women fighter pilots.
• At present, Shivangi Singh, who had been flying the MiG-21 Bison aircraft, is undergoing conversion training, which is necessitated when a combat pilot shifts from one fighter to another one.

AWARDS

‘Aavruthi’ Wins Best Film At IFFT-Orange Online Film Festival
Filmmaker Sreehari Dharman’s “Aavruthi” (Fence) won the best film trophy at the closing ceremony of IFFT-Orange Short and Documentary Film Festival which is jointly organised by the Orange Academy and the IFFT from Thrissur, Kerala.

• “Aavruthi” (Fence) also bagged the best director and best cinematography trophies for director Dharman and Arun Sekhar, respectively. Gokul Ambat’s “Black Mark” was declared the second best film, while Kiran KR won the best editor for “Atom”.
• The best sound designer award went to Shaiju M and Sony James for “21 Days”.

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

IIT Madras Develops ‘MOUSHIK’ Microprocessor For IoT Devices
Indian Institute of Technology Madras Researchers have successfully booted up MOUSHIK, an indigenously-made Microprocessor.

• MOUSHIK is a processor cum system on chip that can cater to the rapidly-growing IoT devices, an integral part of Smart Cities of a Digital India.
• There are three steps involved in the making of a microprocessor, namely design, fabrication and post-silicon boot-up,” Kamakoti Veezhinathan, Reconfigurable Intelligent Systems Engineering (RISE) Group.

OBITUARIES

Music legend S. P . Balasubramaniam passes away
Veteran playback singer SP Balasubramaniam passed away in Chennai hospital.He was 74.

• Balasubramaniam won numerous awards over the span of his 50-year career. He sang more than 40,000 songs, a Guinness World Record, in 16 languages, including Tamil, Telegu and Hindi.
• He was a recipient of six national awards, including the Padma Bhushan and the Padma Shri, India’s third and fourth-highest civilian awards.

Kannada Film Comedian Rockline Sudhakar  passes away
Popular Kannada actor Rockline Sudhakar, who recently recovered from Covid-19, passed away after suffering a massive cardiac arrest.He was 65.

• Rockline Sudhakar was the production manager at the Rockline Productions. He is a well-known personality in Kannada film industry and has been part of many films like Upendra’s Topiwala, Yash’s Mr and Mrs Ramachari, Bhootayyana Mommaga Ayyu, Ayyo Rama, and more. He made his debut with a film titled Belli Modagalu in 1992.

IMPORTANT DAYS

International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons
Every year, September 26 is observed as the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons.

• The aims of the day are to enhance public awareness about the threat posed to humanity by nuclear weapons and the necessity for their total elimination.

Antyodaya Diwas
Antyodaya Diwas was celebrated on 25th September across the country to mark the foundation day of Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushalya Yojana

• The Day was celebrated under the theme “Kaushal Se Kal Badlenge”
• So far, the Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushalya Yojana has trained 10.51 lakh rural youth. Among these, 6.65 are placed with a job successfully.

World Environmental Health Day
World Environmental Health day is celebrated on 26th September every year to shed the light on important work of environmental health around the world.

• The Theme for the 2020 World Environmental Health Day is “Environmental health, a key public health intervention in disease pandemic prevention” .

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