West Bengal Inland Water Transport, Logistics & Spatial Development Project will facilitate passenger & freight movement across the Hooghly river;undertake spatial planning to improve accessibility in Kolkata Metropolitan Area;improving logistics sector.
This IBRD loan has maturity of 17 yrs
6.4 percentage points lower than its June 2020 forecast. Contraction reflects a sharp drop in household spending & private investment;Informal sector has been subject to severe income losses.Growth is expected to recover to 5.4%in 2021 & South Asia by 3.3%
World Bank:
HQ: Washington, USA;
President: David Malpass
Conceptualize new & innovative toys using local material which are economical, affordable, safe & environment friendly;2 categories: for online toys & another for physical toys.Students & faculty members participating can get reward up to Rs.50 lakhs.
Toy market in India is $1 bn but India imports 80% of toys.
It is cancelled in view of the pandemic which has escalated in UK because of the new variant of coronavirus. An invitation to be Republic Day chief guest is symbolic from the Indian government’s perspective. UK was chosen for ties post-Brexit.
Johnson would have been the 6th leader from UK to be Chief Guest
Designed to replace physical processes with online to minimise need of human-to-human interaction.Offers customer-centric incentive schemes to facilitate logistic requirements, scheduled movement of cargo,live tracking & monitoring of parcels etc.
Railways targets at least 50% of freight traffic by 2030.
DRDO will render technical support for implementation of its advanced biodigester(a non-sewered sanitation technology) Mk-II technology for treatment of human waste (night soil) in metro rail network.The technology has been revamped to save water & space.
Indian Railways already installed about 2.40 lakh biodigesters.
Objective is to achieve a balanced & optimal development of energy infrastructure through mutual understanding & cooperation.Cross-border energy trade is a key part of Prime Minister's neighbourhood-first policy, with plans to build energy links.
Set up under MEA run think tank RIS.
600 MW solar energy project is to be constructed at Omkareshwar dam(Narmada river),Khandwa.Electricity will be produced in about 2000-hectare water area.International Finance Corporation, World Bank & Power Grid have granted in-principle consent for aid.
Estimated investment in this project stands at Rs 3,000 crore.
It has decided to take steps to ease the tendering process to speed up the implementation of the projects.Bangladesh is the largest development partner under the Line of Credit programme of India with total at $7862 million.
Bangladesh:
Currency: Taka;
Capital: Dhaka
Mandatory LEI system for all payment transactions of value ₹50 crore & above undertaken by entities (non-individuals) using RBI-run Centralised Payment Systems.LEI is a 20-digit number used to uniquely identify parties to financial transactions worldwide.
In India,it can be obtained from LEI Ltd,subsidiary of CCIL
An advisory council (AC) under RBI deputy governor BP Kanungo has been constituted for managing the fund.It will be operational for 3 years effective from January 1, 2021 & may be extended for 2 more years.Fund has a corpus of ₹345 crore.
Fund aims to create payment points in Tier-3 to Tier-6 centres
Alexander Ellis has been appointed as new British High Commissioner to India in succession to Sir Philip Barton. He was holding the portfolio of Deputy National Security Adviser in the UK. High Commissioner is ambassador equivalent in Commonwealth Nations
United Kingdom:
Capital: London;
Currency: Pound Sterling.
DPIIT, Ministry of Commerce & Industry is organizing it with Quality Council of India, National Productivity Council & Industry bodies from Jan 4 to Mar 2,2021.Webinar series comprises 45 sessions for reps from industry,testing & standardization bodies.
Shri Piyush Goyal, Minister for Commerce and Industry.
Flags of 5 new non-permanent UNSC members were installed at the Security Council during a solemn ceremony organised by the Kazakhstan Mission to the UN. They will be in Council for the 2021-22 term.
India’s Permanent Representative to UN: T S Tirumurti
Breaker has social element with features like the ability to like & comment on episodes, follow friends to discover new podcasts, share etc.Twitter Spaces is Twitter's own audio-based networking project, which lets users chat in real time using voice.
Twitter:
CEO: Jack Dorsey;
Founded:2006;
HQ: San Francisco,USA
Launched by Women&Child Development Dept for boys & girls coming out of child care institutions & having completed 18 years;52 districts divided into 5 clusters with HQ at Indore,Sagar,Gwalior,Jabalpur&Bhopal;District Admin will provide space to open shops
6 lakh will be provided for each launch pad installation.
All India Gem & Jewellery Domestic Council (GJC),the national apex body of the gems and jewellery industry has appointed Ashish Pethe as Chairman & Saiyam Mehra as its Vice Chairman for a period of two years.GJC represents over 6 lakh players.
GJC HQ: Mumbai.
National Capital Region Transport Corporation will use these tracks for India's first Regional Rapid Transit System (RRTS).Will be suitable for high-speed trains(up to 180 kmph) ;require low maintenance.To be first used on 17 km Sahibabad-Duhai section.
India''s first RRTS corridor between Delhi and Meerut.
Appointed former municipal councillor and member of the Delhi Tamil Sangam N. Raja as vice-chairman of the academy. It will provide language courses. It will also celebrate and organise cultural festivals for the people of Tamil Nadu.
Delhi:
CM: Arvind Kejriwal;
Deputy CM Manish Sisodia
The outsourced model or Brown Level ATM (BLA) is managed by the service provider on behalf of bank.Most of these ATMs are offsite ATMs. CMS provides end-to-end ATM management service.Rs 200 crore will be for setting up & hire 2000 employees for managing.
CMS Info Systems President Manjunath Rao
Provides facilities such as sending feedback to the Treasury office, making queries online & notifying pensioners on status of photographs submitted.App uses AI to detect whether the pensioner is alive or dead from the updated photographs.
Manipur:
CM: N.Biren Singh;
Governor: Najma Heptulla.
Google Cloud's India MD Karan Bajwa will be its new leader for Asia-Pacific.He will lead all regional revenue & go-to-market operations for Google Cloud, including on Google Cloud Platform (GCP) & Google Workspace.
He succeeds Rick Harshman.
Known for his contribution to African cinema with films like:Equinox, the Garden of the Roses, Los dioses de agua&Aphrodite,the Garden of the Perfumes.Other jury members:Sri Lanka's Prasanna,Austria's Abu Bakr, Bangladesh''s Rubaiyat Hossain & Priyadarshan
IFFI will be held from January 16 to January 24.
154-year-old Observatory is among the earliest observatories set up in 1867 by the then British Corps of Engineers.World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) has awarded the status recognising its long-term meteorological observation.
WMO:
HQ:Geneva;
President: Gerhard Adrian;
Established:1950.
It was started by French body, SOS Enfants en Detresse to bring attention to plight of children who are left distraught in events of a war &other conflict. UNICEF defines an orphan as a child under 18 who has lost one or both parents to any cause of death.
Acc to UNICEF, almost 10,000 children become orphans everyday.
Union Minister Shri Piyush Goyal inaugurated the toy testing facility at BIS central laboratory and announced the launch of Certificate courses on Assaying & Hallmarking & quality control personnel.
BIS(1986):
DG: Pramod Kumar Tiwari;
HQ: New Delhi
