Daily Current Affairs 9th December, 2020

Daily Current Affairs 9 December 2020 for Banking/Insurance/SSC and other related exams.

NATIONAL NEWS

West Bengal cabinet approves construction of ‘state’s first deep sea port in Tajpur’
West Bengal Chief Miniter Mamata Banerjee announced that the state cabinet has approved the construction of a deep sea port in Tajpur.

  • Tajpur Deep Sea Port will be built at a cost of Rs 15,000 crore and will generate employment for 25,000 people. It will be the state’s first deep seaport. 
  • The concentration of iron and steel industries around Kharagpur will get a boost by having a port at their doorstep for exports.

Mumbai offers highest quality of life, Chennai treats its women best: Study
IIT-Bombay researchers have come up with an urban quality of life index tailored to the reality of life in India. And, for the first time, they have factored in gender parity. Chennai, it turns out, is the most women-friendly and Patna the least.

  • Overall, Mumbai tops the list of 14, followed closely by Delhi, Kolkata and Chennai. But so important is the gender role index that quality of life rankings of six cities would have changed had it not been considered — Delhi, Jaipur and Indore would have been ranked higher, and Mumbai, Bhopal and Lucknow would have ceded their spots.
  • Only Chennai, Kolkata and Mumbai surpass the average score for gender index, while Indore, Jaipur and Patna are way below average.


INTERNATIONAL NEWS

India ranked 10th in Climate Change Performance Index
India has been ranked in the top 10 for the second year in a row in this year’s global Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI), which was released in Germany.

  • India is ranked at the 10th position on the Climate Change Performance Index 2021. India slid down by one position, as it was ranked 9th in last year’s Index. India received high ratings in all CCPI categories except Renewable Energy, where it had a medium performance.
  • None of the countries is on the path compatible with the Paris climate targets, to implement strategies to limit global warming below 2 or even 1.5°C. Sweden (4th) United Kingdom (5th), Denmark (6th), Morocco (7th), Norway (8th), Chile (9th) were among the top 10 rankers in the index.
  • The CCPI 2021, covering the year 2020, shows that only two G20 countries – the UK and India – are among the high rankers while six others – the USA, Saudi Arabia, Canada, Australia, South Korea and Russia (52nd) – are at the bottom of the index.


BANKING & FINANCE

RBI cancels license of Karad Janata Sahakari Bank due to lack of adequate capital
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has canceled the licence of Karad Janata Sahakari Bank to conduct banking business citing that the bank does not have adequate finance. This means that the bank is prohibited from taking any deposit or making any repayment.

  • However, the RBI said, the process of paying the depositors of the bank will be set in motion. This means, on liquidation, every depositor will receive up to ₹5 lakh from the Deposit Insurance and Credit Guarantee Corporation as per usual terms and conditions.

ADB approves USD 2.5 million technical assistance for advanced biofuel development in India
Multilateral lending agency Asian Development Bank (ADB) said it has approved a USD 2.5 million (about Rs 18 crore) technical assistance to support advanced biofuel development in India.

  • The grant is funded from the Asia Clean Energy Fund, financed by the Government of Japan under the Clean Energy Financing Partnership Facility, and the Republic of Korea’s e-Asia and Knowledge Partnership Fund.
  • The technical assistance (TA) will support development of advanced bioethanol, bio-compressed natural gas, and biodiesel plants to demonstrate the best practices for suitable feedstock, efficient conversion technology, and sustainable biofuel value chain.

Ujjivan SFB launches neighbourhood banking channel – Money Mitra
Ujjivan Small Finance Bank said it has introduced a new channel to make banking services accessible to customers in their neighbourhood.

  • The channel – Money Mitra – will facilitate entrepreneurs running local businesses like Kirana, medical stores and insurance agencies to offer retail banking solutions to the bank”s customers exclusively.
  • In these outlets, the lender”s customers can make a deposit, withdraw money, pay loan EMI and perform fund transfer without having to travel to branches.

BoB launches Atmanirbhar Women Gold Scheme 
Bank of Baroda (BoB) has launched the Atmanirbhar Women Scheme as part of its Baroda Gold Loan.

  • The bank under the gold loan scheme is also offering agri-gold loan at 0.25 percent concession and for retail loan at 0.50 per cent concession for women.
  • This Atmanirbhar scheme is exclusively meant for helping women to be self-reliant.

ICICI Lombard and PLUM partner to provide technologically powered group health insurance products
ICICI Lombard General Insurance announced that it has tied up with Plum, an employee health insurance startup, to co-create technologically backed group health insurance products.

  • The penetration of health insurance across India is abysmally low, with 0.29 per cent of GDP being spent on the health sector.
  • There is an enormous unmet demand for healthcare, with only 2% of the total healthcare expenditure being currently covered by insurance providers.


BUSINESS & ECONOMY

Mastercard, CII come together to help over 3 lakh MSMEs digitise their businesses
Mastercard, the National Institute for Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (ni-msme) and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) have partnered to launch Digital Saksham, a capacity building initiative to drive awareness around digitization for MSMEs in the country.

  • Digital Saksham is an expansive program designed to strengthen the competitiveness of MSMEs through building their digital know-how and acceptance.
  • The program will involve three key stages over three years from the launch, including outreach, capacity building and adoption of digital tools that will help small businesses.


APPOINTMENTS

Sheikh Sabah Al-Khaled Al-Hamad Al-Sabah reappointed as PM of Kuwait
Kuwait’s Emir Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah has reappointed Sheikh Sabah Al-Khaled Al-Hamad Al-Sabah as prime minister following parliamentary polls in the Gulf Arab state, which faces its worst economic crisis in decades. 

  •  Sheikh Sabah, who had been foreign minister since 2011 before being elevated to the post of premier in late 2019, faces the urgent task of overcoming legislative gridlock on a debt law that would allow Kuwait to tap international debt markets in order to plug a growing budget deficit.

Romanian PM Ludovic Orban resigns
Romanian Prime Minister Ludovic Orban announced his resignation, after the ruling National Liberal Party (PNL) he leads failed to achieve its goal of scoring the best in parliamentary election.

  • Legislative elections held against a background of a second wave of the coronavirus pandemic and the lowest turnout in the country’s democratic history, made the Social Democratic Party (PSD) the winners, with 30.16 percent of the Senate and 29.7 percent of the Chamber of Deputies.
  • By comparison, Orban’s National Liberal Party (PNL) took 25.6 percent and 25.2 percent respectively, after more than 95 percent of votes had been counted.


AWARDS

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman among 100 Most Powerful Women under Forbes 2020
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, US Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, Biocon Founder Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw and HCL Enterprise CEO Roshni Nadar Malhotra have been named among the world’s 100 most powerful women by Forbes.

  • German Chancellor Angela Merkel tops the Forbes 2020 list, followed by European Central Bank president Christine Lagarde and US Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris, who has made her debut on the list at No.3.
  • The women on the 17th annual Forbes Power List hail from 30 countries and were born across four generations.There are 10 heads of state, 38 CEOs and five entertainers among them.
  • Sitharaman is ranked 41st on the list, Nadar Malhotra comes in at the 55th spot, Mazumdar-Shaw — described as “India”s richest self-made woman” — is ranked 68th and chairwoman of Landmark Group Renuka Jagtiani is ranked 98th.
  • The list also includes philanthropist Melinda Gates of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (5th), Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the US House of Representatives (7th), Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg (22nd), Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina (39th), Queen Elizabeth II (46th) and music icons Rihanna (69th) and Beyonce (72nd).

Raj Kamal Jha wins Rabindranath Tagore Literary Prize 2020
Journalist-author Raj Kamal Jha has won the 3rd Rabindranath Tagore Literary Prize for his novel, “The City and The Sea”.

  • Jha’s book, which is based on the December 2012 Nirbhaya rape and murder case, was chosen from ten shortlisted books including Amitav Ghosh’ “Gun Island”, Nirmala Govindarajan’s “Taboo”, and Ranjit Hoskote’s “Jonahwhale”.

ICAR’s IISS conferred King Bhumibol World Soil Day 2020
The Indian Council of Agricultural Research-Indian Institute of Soil Science (ICAR-IISS), Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, has been awarded the prestigious King Bhumibol World Soil Day 2020 Award by the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) on its World Soil Day 2020 function.

  • This international recognition is in view of excellent contribution in ‘Soil health awareness’ remarkably done by the Institute during last year. The Institute has organised several programmes with great fervour and enthusiasm in the school and Institute’s premises as well as in the farming community in the villages.


OBITUARIES

Dennis Ralston, Hall of Fame tennis player, passes away 
Dennis Ralston, a five-time Grand Slam doubles champion who was one of the initial players signed to the professional World Championship Tennis tour in the 1960s and a member of the sport’s Hall of Fame has passed away. He was 78.

  • He was considered the highest-ranked American player for three years in the 1960s, long before the sport’s computerized rankings system began.He was a three-time Grand Slam finalist in mixed doubles.
  • Ralston was one of the so-called Handsome Eight who signed on with the WCT tour in 1967, along with John Newcombe, Tony Roche, Cliff Drysdale, Earl Buchholtz, Niki Pilic, Roger Taylor and Pierre Barthes.


BOOKS & AUTHORS

Education Minister presents first copy of his inspirational book on Maharishi Arvind to President
Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank presented the first copy of his inspirational book “Pioneer of Humanity: Maharishi Arvind” to President Ram Nath Kovind at the Rashtrapati Bhavan.

  • The book is in Hindi with the title ‘Manavta ke Praneta Maharishi Arvind’.
  • Shri Arvind was a person fully devoted to Indian culture, Indian values, Indian nationalism and Indian philosophy.Through this book, I have wanted to convey his philosophy and thinking in very simple language to the younger generation of the country and the world.

India’s first woman author writes on sales, ‘Romancing Targets’ by Nidhi Vadhera launched worldwide
The book titled ‘Romancing Targets’ by author Nidhi Vadhera has been released recently.

  • In this book, Author Nidhi Vadhera shares with you a systematic approach to understand the sales process which will empower you to embrace sales targets and achieve results without getting burnt in the process.


IMPORTANT DAYS

International Anti-Corruption Day
In order to raise awareness of corruption, International Anti-Corruption Day is observed every year on December 9. This day also highlights the role of United Nations Convention against Corruption in combating and preventing corruption.

  • This year’s theme for International Anti-Corruption Day is “Recover with Integrity”. The theme emphasises the urgent need for countries to ensure that anti-corruption is an integral part of all sustainable development efforts.


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