Daily Current Affairs 25th & 26th September, 2022

Daily Current Affairs 25 & 26 September 2022 for Banking/Insurance/SSC and other related exams.

NOTE: To read complete Current Affairs, subscribe to our plan. All important news are not covered here.

NATIONAL NEWS

Scheme for Special Assistance to States for Capital Investment for 2022-23
The Government of India has launched a Scheme Special Assistance to States for Capital Investment for 2022-23. Under this Scheme, financial assistance is provided to the States Governments in the form of 50-year interest free loan for capital investment projects.

• Under Part V (Optical Fibre Cable) of the Scheme, an amount of Rs 3000 Crore is earmarked and will be available to States for capital projects on Optical Fibre Cable (OFC) network. On the recommendation of Department of Telecommunications, Department of Expenditure has recently approved proposals of four States namely Uttarakhand, Jharkhand, Haryana and Karnataka with allocation as 50 Cr, 84 Cr, 65 Cr and 156 Cr respectively.

Vitamin Angels India partners with UNICEF India for Poshan Maah 2022
Vitamin Angels India has announced a partnership with UNICEF India for Poshan Maah 2022.

• Keeping in line with the Poshan Maah campaign by the Government of India, the goal is to implement a comprehensive, unified outreach and awareness programme to enhance nutritional content, delivery, outreach, and outcomes with a renewed focus on fostering health, wellness, and immunity to disease and undernutrition.
• The campaign partners have hosted 160 activities on nutrition related awareness and action across the country, reaching over 1,00,000 people.

India’s under-5 mortality rate declines by 3 points
India’s under 5 mortality rate has significantly declined by from 35 per 1,000 live births in 2019 to 32 per 1,000 live births in 2020, with the highest decline recorded in Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka, according to the Sample Registration System (SRS) Statistical Report 2020.

• According to the report released by the Registrar General of India, the country has been witnessing a progressive reduction in infant mortality rate (IMR), under 5 mortality rate (U5MR) and neo-mortality rate (NMR) since 2014 towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) targets by 2030, Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya said.
• The Under 5 Mortality Rate for the country has shown a significant decline of three points (annual decline rate–8.6 per cent) from 2019 (32 per 1,000 live births in 2020 against 35 per 1000 live births in 2019). It varies from 36 in rural areas to 21 in urban areas.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

Five Asian countries, including India, join hands to form palm oil alliance 
The apex edible oil industry associations from five major palm oil importing countries of Asia – India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal have come together to form the Asian Palm Oil Alliance (APOA), at the instance of Solidaridad Network, a specialist in sustainable agriculture.

• APOA was launched during the Globoil Summit at Agra on September 21.
• The first general body meeting of the Alliance elected Atul Chaturvedi, Director of Adani Wilmar Ltd and President of SEA, as the first Chairman. The website and logo of the APOA were also launched on the occasion. The APOA secretariat would initially be managed by the Solvent Extractors’ Association of India (SEA).

BANKING & FINANCE

World Bank approves USD 350 million loan to Gujarat for better health services
World Bank has approved a USD 350 million or over ₹2,832 crore loan to Gujarat for augmenting health services with a special focus on adolescent girls and disease surveillance in the state.

• The agency informed that the funding will come from the World Bank arm International Bank of Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), carrying a maturity of 18 years including a grace period of 5.5 years.
• According to the World Bank, the loan amount will be utilized through the state government’s Systems Reform Endeavours For Transformed Health Achievement In Gujarat (SRESTHA-G) programme which will enable more people to access a wider range of high-quality health services.

UCO Bank becomes first lender to get RBI’s approval for rupee trade
Public sector lender UCO Bank has received the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI’s) approval to open a special vostro account with Gazprombank of Russia for trade settlement in Indian rupees.

• The Kolkata-based lender is the first bank to receive regulator’s approval following the RBI’s decision to allow Indian banks to settle trade in Indian currency in July.
• The Russian lender, which was set up by world’s largest gas producer and exporter Gazprom to provide banking services for gas industry enterprises has been operating since 1990. One of the top three banks in Russia, Gazprombank offers a whole range of banking and investment services to over 45,000 corporate and three million private clients.

BUSINESS & ECONOMY

India to get first car that can run on 100% ethanol and electric
India will get its first flex-fuel vehicle, which can run on ethanol blended petrol and battery next month. The Flex Fuel Strong Hybrid Electric Vehicles (FFV-SHEV) imported from Brazil will be used as a pilot to assess its performance in terms of reduced carbon emissions.

• The vehicle will be flagged off by Union road transport and highways minister Nitin Gadkari in the second week of October.
• Flex-fuel vehicles (FFV) have engines that can run on flexible fuel — a combination of petrol and ethanol, which can include up to 100% ethanol. The FFV-SHEV are the ones in which FFV is integrated along with stronghybrid electric technology.

AWARDS

Author-poet Meena Kandasamy wins the German PEN award
Indian author and poet Meena Kandasamy has been announced as this year’s recipient of the Hermann Kesten Prize by the PEN Centre in Germany’s Darmstadt.

• The Hermann Kesten Prize honours personalities who, in the spirit of the charter of the PEN association, stand up for the rights of persecuted authors and journalists.
• Born in 1984 in Chennai, Kandasamy is a feminist and anti-caste activist whose work revolves around the issue of gender, caste, sexuality, patriarchy, and oppression by the Brahmanical system. Her novels have been shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, the International Dylan Thomas Prize, the Jhalak Prize and the Hindu Lit Prize.

CIAL wins global recognition for passenger satisfaction post-COVID
Cochin International Airport Limited (CIAL) has won the Airport Service Quality Award-2022 instituted by Airport Council International (ACI) for its meticulous implementation of a programme, christened ‘Mission Safeguarding’ that was implemented in 2021-22 to ensure seamless traffic and reinforced passenger satisfaction in the aftermath of the pandemic.

• It has won recognition in the 5 to 15 million passenger category of airports operating in the Asia-Pacific region. The ACI award is considered as the highest honour in the global aviation sector owing to its extensive survey methodology practices.

SCIENCE&TECHNOLOGY

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman launches Bhandarkar Institute’s ‘Bharat Vidya’ portal
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has launched Bharat Vidya, an online learning platform for Oriental and South Asian studies, in Pune.

• Designed and developed by the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute (BORI), Bharat Vidya is a first-of-its-kind online platform, which will offer both free and paid courses covering various aspects of Indology pertaining to art, architecture, philosophy, language and science.
• To begin with, six courses – Veda Vidya, Bharatiya Darshanshashtra, Sanskrit learning, 18 Parvas of Mahabharata, Fundamentals of Archaeology and Kalidasa and Bhasha – have been announced.

Click here to read Daily Current Affairs