AssamExam

Assam Current Affairs & GK – June 8 - 14, 2020

( Covers all important Assam Current Affairs & GK topics for the week of June 8 – 14, 2020 )

June 2020 Current Affairs Monthly PDF  |  Assam 2020 Yearbook  | June 2020 Quiz Monthly PDF

Go To Assam Current Affairs                      Go To Assam Current Affairs Quiz

June 08, 2020

Assam CM urged for innovation to add value to traditional products

• Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal called for innovation to add value to the traditional products of the State to capture global markets. He was taking part as chief guest at ‘Udyam Assam – celebrating success, supporting startup dreams’, a celebratory event commemorating the success of Assam Startup–The Nest at Ambari.
• Assam Startup–The Nest under the aegis of the Industry and Commerce department, in the first year of its foundation, has incubated 75 startups, which cumulatively have a turnover of around Rs 11 crore and generated 1,690 direct and over 40,000 indirect employment so far.
• Underlining the uniqueness of traditional textiles, bell metal products, etc. of the State, CM Sonowal said those products have all the ingredients to draw people’s attention. To match the changing consumer behaviour, there is a need to be more innovative and IT-enabled services would help give marketing advantages to these products.
• Initiatives like Startup India, Skill India, Digital India and Make in India set the ball rolling for a level playing field for Indian entrepreneurs in the global platform. These programmes have started to deliver results now with Indian startups making a strong presence in the global market.
• CM handed over cheques of the first instalment of financial grants to 31 startups incubated by the centre under the My Assam Startup ID. He also launched a new initiative named ‘Udyam – Youth Entrepreneurship programme’ for the homecoming migrant workers.

Haryana to have NABL labs in all districts

• Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar has accorded an approval to a proposal for setting up a centralized testing facility accredited by the National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL) in every district.
• This will ensure that all tests related to agriculture, food, soil, environment, health, water, etc, can be carried out under one roof.
• At present only four NABL accredited labs are operational in Karnal, Gurugram, Kurukshetra and Kaithal.
• But labs are conducting testing of potable water quality only. With the Chief Minister”s consent these labs will be upgraded to multifarious testing labs.
• At the meeting, the Chief Minister was apprised that four NABL accredited labs are already functional and these are to be set up in 18 districts.
• The Chief Minister had instead directed the officers for setting up a centralized or multifarious testing facility in 18 districts and upgrading these four labs too.

Bande Utkala Janani gets state anthem status in Odisha

• The Odisha Cabinet approved a proposal to give state anthem status to ”Bande Utkala Janani”.
• This patriotic poem was written by Kantakabi Laxmikanta Mohapatra in 1912. It was the opening song of Utkal Sammilani during the fight for the formation of a separate province.
• It will now be played at all government functions and state Assembly without instruments. All government schools and colleges, functions can play this song with instruments.

FACTFILE – Bande Utkala Janani

• Bande Utkala Janani is an Odia patriotic poem written by Laxmikanta Mohapatra. When Odisha became a state on 1 April 1936.
• Odisha Cabinet on 7 June 2020, accorded this poem as STATE ANTHEM status. It was a long standing demand of people of the State to accord state song status to this poem.
• The poem envisages a Utkala who maintains her self-respect and dignity from a position of confidence and strength rather than insecurity and fear.
• Once Rabindra Nath Tagore wrote in one of his essays i.e. “A Vision of India’s History” that ‘the history of India has been the history of a struggle between the mechanical spirit of conformity in social organization and the creative spirit of man which seeks freedom and love in self-expression’ justifies Laxmikanta as a true patriotic poet.
• This song was first sung at the Utkal Sammilani’s Conference at Balasore in 1912. This song was used as a weapon by the Utkal Sammilani to emancipate Odisha.
• It was made compulsory at the end of any Odisha Legislative Assembly Session and in the beginning of school prayer in State Govt. schools in Odisha during the 1990s.

Govt. of India inaugurated The Urban Learning Internship Programme(TULIP)

• Union human resource development (HRD) minister Dr Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank and minister of housing and urban affairs (MoHUA) Hardeep Singh Puri jointly inaugurated The Urban Learning Internship Programme (TULIP) to provide internship opportunities to thousands of fresh graduates and engineers of the county under the ‘Smart City’ projects. 
• Under the internship programme, students will get to work for 100 smart cities under ministry of housing and urban development. According to the TULIP portal, there are a total of 295,200 internships under 23,970 companies. 
• Objective of the program to provide a platform for Short-term exposure to fresh graduates to enhance their professional development through experiential learning with ULBs and smart cities.
• Harnessing fresh energy and ideas towards ULBs and smart cities endeavours to solve critical challenges.
• The duration of the internship will be a minimum of 8 weeks up to 1 year. Amount of stipend/subsistence allowance/expenses would be payable at the discretion of the ULB/ smart city and there shall be no liability of providing any employment on the ULB or smart city, whatsoever.
• A digitally signed and shareable certificate regarding successful completion of internship shall be issued jointly by MoHUA, State Government, AICTE and the ULB/smart city.

June 09, 2020

Singaporean experts arrive to check Assam oil well gas leak

• A three-member expert team from a Singapore-based emergency management firm reached Assam’s Tinsukia district from where gas is “uncontrollably” flowing out from a well.
• State-owned Oil India Limited (OIL) brought the foreign experts to control their gas well blowout at the Baghjan village in Tinsukia, around 550 km east of Guwahati, after natural gas started spewing.
• The experts from Singapore”s ”Alert Disaster Control”, led by Michael Ernest Allcorn, along with the OIL team, reached Baghjan well site.
• They emphasised that safety of the local people in the area and the technical team working at the well site will be their prime concern while carrying out the operations.
• As many as 650 families, comprising 2,500 people, have been shifted to three relief camps after the OIL”s oil well at the Baghjan village started releasing natural gas into the air. OIL will pay Rs 30,000 as immediate relief to each impacted family.

IIT Guwahati students develop mobile app for seamless air travel

• Students of the Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati (IIT-G) have developed a mobile application, ‘Flyzy’, to provide seamless air travelling experience to passengers during the current COVID-19 pandemic.
• The application has been developed by IIT-G’s Deepak Meena, third year B Tech student of the Department of Chemistry and Hansraj Patel, third year B Tech student of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering along with Arjit Singh, fourth year B Tech student of the Department of Electrical Engineering of Seth Jai Parkash Mukund Pal Institute of Engineering and Technology (JMIT).
• Flyzy has been developed as per International Air Transport Association (IATA) guidelines.
• The application seeks to provide contactless boarding, taking into account easier baggage drop, manageable parking and better shopping experience, besides providing necessary updates during the whole journey.
• The students also seek to build Flyzy into an aviation information technology company for providing stress-free and safe journey to flyers.
• The idea behind the mobile-based software is because majority of the people have smart phones.
• Moreover, it is hybrid software which will support face-biometric recognition in the future, without even changing the complete software system of the airport.
• It said that the idea is not only relevant during the present pandemic situation but will also be of use during the non-crisis time.
• The main idea behind the application is to provide a seamless journey to passengers as they move through the airport, especially to the first-time flyers.
• The application will guide them thoroughly and provide them with an easy understanding and implementation of several airport functions.
• Passengers can shop from the airport using the application and can also pay from the application. They can either opt for the takeaway or gate delivery option. The application also supports multi-currency payments.

Indian Energy Exchange launches real-time electricity market

• Energy trading platform Indian Energy Exchange launched the real-time electricity market (RTM) on its platform, a move that will help utilities buy and sell power just an hour before the requirement.
• The RTM enables consumers, including distribution companies (DISCOMs) and captive users, to buy power on exchanges just an hour before delivery.
• The real time market is an endeavour by the regulator, CERC, to make the power market dynamic by enabling trade in electricity through half-hourly auctions, Indian Energy Exchange (IEX) said in a regulatory filing.
• There will be 48 auction sessions during the day with delivery of power within one hour of closure of the bid session.
• With the fast-paced shift towards renewable energy, the real-time electricity market will facilitate the distribution utilities to manage the challenge of intermittency associated with renewables

FACTFILE – Indian Energy Exchange

• The Indian Energy Exchange is an electronic system based power trading exchange regulated by the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC).
• IEX started its operations on June 27, 2008. It pioneered the development of power trading in India and provides an electronic platform to the various participants in power market, comprising State Electricity Boards, Power producers, Power Traders and Open Access Consumers (both Industrial & Commercial).
• IEX is one of the two operational Power Exchanges in India. Ever since its incorporation, it has held an influential market share.

India, Denmark sign MoU to boost cooperation in power sector

• India and Denmark have signed an MoU to develop strong and long-term cooperation between the two countries in the power sector.
• The MoU provides for collaboration in areas like offshore wind, long term energy planning, forecasting, flexibility in the grid, consolidation of grid codes to integrate and operate efficiently variable generation options, flexibility in the power purchase agreements, incentivise power plant flexibility, variability in renewable energy production etc.
• The Indian electricity market would benefit from cooperation with Denmark in these areas.
• The MoU signed by Sanjiv Nandan Sahai, Secretary (Power) from the Indian side and Freddy Svane, Ambassador of Denmark to India from the Danish side, provides for establishment of a Joint Working Group (JWG).
• The JWG will be co-chaired by Joint Secretary-level officials and will report to a Steering Committee, jointly chaired by the Secretary-level officers from both sides.
• The governments will endeavour to take necessary steps to encourage and promote strategic and technical cooperation in the power sector for mutual benefit in the identified areas through the MoU.

IIT Madras researchers demonstrate role of microRNA in tongue cancer

• Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT-M) said its researchers have identified a specific microRNA (miRNAs) called ”miR-155 that is over-expressed in tongue cancer.
• Mirnas affect cancer growth by inhibiting or enhancing the functions of certain proteins.
• It has been seen that a type of protein called ”programmed cell death 4” –pdcd4– helps in stopping cancer cells from growing and spreading.
• Inhibition of this protein has been known to cause the spread of oral, lung, breast, liver, brain and colon cancers.
• IIT Madras collaborated with researchers from Cancer Institute and Sree Balaji Dental College and Hospital at Chennai and Indian Institute of Science at Bengaluru.
• MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are short non-coding RNAs containing 20–24 nucleotides that participate in virtually all biological pathways in animals.
• According to the researchers, many of the oncomirs affect cancer by suppressing the performance of tumour suppressing agents that can prevent growth and spread of cancer cells, although some oncomirs are also involved in preventing tumour growth itself.
• It is therefore important to identify the types of miRNAs that are associated with both suppression and proliferation of cancer cells.
• They have also shown that knocking out miR-155 causes death of cancer cells, arrests the cell cycle, and regresses tumour size in animal models and reduces cell viability and colony formation in benchtop assays.
• The research team has shown beyond doubt that miR-155 is overexpressed in tongue cancer cells and tongue tumour tissues.
• Their study has shown that the restoration of Pdcd4 levels through molecular manipulation of miR-155 can lead to potential therapeutic developments for cancers, especially of tongue cancer.

June 2020 Current Affairs Monthly PDF  |  Assam 2020 Yearbook  | June 2020 Quiz Monthly PDF

Go To Assam Current Affairs                      Go To Assam Current Affairs Quiz

June 10, 2020

Publication Board of Assam organised Online poetry conference

• Publication Board of Assam’s magazine Prakash organised an online poetry conference ‘Echo of Hope’.
• Altogether eight poets from Assam, Odisha, Jharkhand and Bangladesh participated in the conference.
• PBA Secretary Pramod Kalita said that Barun Kumar Biswas from Bangladesh, Agnivesh Mahapatra from Odhisa, Rashmi Sharma from Jharkhand and Lutufa Hanum Selima Begum, Pranjit Bora, Rajiv Bora, Dipak Borgoyary and Kaushik Kisholoi from Assam recited poems at the conference. They also engaged in a discussion related to poetry.
• Renowned linguist Dr Bhaskarjyoti Sarma moderated the conference. Secretary of Prakash Mihir Deori welcomed the guest poets at the beginning of the online conference.

PM Modi launches grievance redressal technology platform ‘CHAMPIONS’ for MSMEs

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched a technology platform CHAMPIONS (Creation and Harmonious Application of Modern Processes for Increasing the Output and National Strength) which aims at making the smaller units big by solving their grievances, encouraging, supporting, helping and handholding.
• The portal is basically for making the smaller units big by solving their grievances, encouraging, supporting, helping and handholding. It is a real one-stop-shop solution of MSME Ministry.
• This ICT based system is set up to help the MSMEs in present difficult situation and also to handhold them to become national and international champions.
• The detailed objectives of the platform is to grievance redressal, to help them capture new opportunities, and to identify and encourage the sparks. Through grievance redressal, it will try to resolve the problems of MSMEs including those of finance, raw materials, labor, regulatory permissions etc particularly in the Covid created difficult situation.
• It also aims to help them capture new opportunities including manufacturing of medical equipment and accessories like PPEs, masks, etc and supply them in National and International markets.
• It is a technology packed control room-cum-management information system. In addition to ICT tools including telephone, internet and video conference, the system is enabled by Artificial Intelligence, Data Analytics and Machine Learning.

Indian scientists develop AI to enhance brain tumour diagnosis

• Scientists in India and Japan have developed a highly accurate machine tool to help clinicians choose the most effective treatment strategy for patients with glioma brain tumour.
• A new machine learning approach classifies a common type of brain tumour into low or high grades with almost 98 per cent accuracy.
• According to the researchers, gliomas are a common type of brain tumour affecting glial cells, which provide support and insulation for neurons.
• Much of the data available in the MRI scans cannot be detected by the naked eye, such as details related to the tumour shape, texture, or the image”s intensity. Artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms help extract this data.
• Medical oncologists have been using this approach, called radiomics, to improve patient diagnoses, but its accuracy still needs to be enhanced.
• Kyoto University”s Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences (iCeMS, Japan) bioengineer Ganesh Pandian Namasivayam collaborated with Indian data scientist Raman to develop a machine learning approach that can classify gliomas into low or high grade with 97.54 per cent accuracy.
• The choice of patient treatment largely depends on being able to determine glioma”s grading.
• The team, including Rahul Kumar, Ankur Gupta and Harkirat Singh Arora, used a dataset from MRI scans belonging to 210 people with high-grade glioma and another 75 with low-grade glioma.
• They developed an approach called CGHF, which stands for: A computational decision support system for glioma classification using hybrid radiomics and stationary wavelet-based features.
• They chose specific algorithms for extracting features from some of the MRI scans and then trained another predictive algorithm to process this data and classify the gliomas.
• They then tested their model on the rest of the MRI scans to assess its accuracy. The method outperformed other approaches for predicting glioma grades from brain MRI scans.

Rajasthan govt interacts with 30 European companies in webinar

• The Rajasthan government held a web interaction with representatives of 30 European companies, offering them the best opportunities for making investments.
• State Chief Secretary D.B. Gupta and several senior bureaucrats participated in this webinar with ambassadors, diplomats and business representatives from several European countries, and invited them to invest in the state.
• Gupta briefed the participants about the opportunities and USPs of Rajasthan as well as the transparent and attractive policy frameworks of incentives and concessions provided by the state.
• He also highlighted the advantages of Rajasthan with regard to connectivity, the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor, skilled manpower availability, resource advantages as well as infrastructure strength.
• The webinar was attended by representatives of European Business and Technology Centre (EBTC) and European Economic Group (EEG).
• Diplomats from various European countries, including Czech Republic, Denmark, Italy, Switzerland, Bulgaria and Belgium, among others, along with representatives of many multinationals operating in Europe participated in the discussion.
• More than 30 companies across various sectors like pharmaceutical, agro product, fertilisers, cement, skill development, power and tourism participated in the Webinar.

June 11, 2020

IIT Guwahati ranked 470^th in QS World University rankings 2021

• Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati (IIT-G) has been ranked 470th globally in the QS World University rankings 2021.
• This marks an improvement of 21 places by the institute, which was ranked 491st in the 2020 edition of the QS World University rankings.
• IIT Guwahati has improved from 71.2 in 2020 (Global Rank 89th) to 77.9 in 2021 (Global Rank 55th).
• The QS World University rankings 2021 announced were based on six metrics – academic reputation, employers’ reputation, faculty-student ratio, citation per faculty, international faculty and international students.

ICAR, IFFCO sign MoU for collaborative research

• The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and Indian Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative Ltd (IFFCO) signed an MoU for collaborative research, test and validation of different products through ICAR institutes and Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVKs).
• To disseminate technological advancements through training, awareness programmes, campaigns, field trials and demonstrations for the benefit of farmers.
• Dr T. Mohapatra, Secretary DARE & DG, ICAR stressed the need for reducing use of fertilisers.
• He emphasised that with collaborative research and extension, if consumption of fertilisers could be reduced to even 15 per cent, it will be a significant contribution.
• He emphasised technology validation and commercialisation. He said that the Action Plan should be discussed and finalised.
• Dr Udai Shanker Awasthi, Managing Director, IFFCO praised ICAR for its tremendous achievements in the field of agriculture.

India plans to reduce weapons imports and focus on domestic manufacturing

• Under its “Aatma Nirbhar Bharat Abhiyan”, the government has decided to soon initiate procurement of arms and ammunition from local industries to reduce import dependence on foreign Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs).
• The Union Home Ministry (MHA) which is responsible for the country’s internal security will urge private industries to come forward to meet the expectations of the government so that procurement of arms and ammunition from foreign countries could be curtailed.
• This is an attempt to achieve the vision of “Aatma Nirbhar Bharat Abhiyan” as India has been for the last many years dependent on outside OEMs.
• To promote indigenous defence manufacturing and reduce imports, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, last month, had announced that a list of weapons and equipment banned for import would be made in consultation with the Department of Military Affairs headed by the Chief of Defence Staff.
• In a bid to boost domestic manufacturing of arms and ammunition under the government”s ”Make in India” initiative, the MHA in 2017 had notified new Arms rules that allow arms manufacturing licences to be valid for the lifetime of the licensee company.
• There are nearly 100 firms licensed by the MHA for the manufacture of guns (single barrel/double barrel) and around 30 firms manufacturing cartridges (blank or live cartridges or both) up to the quota permitted in their licences.

Centre allots Rs 4,000 crore to states under ”Per Drop More Crop”

• The Central government has allocated Rs 4,000 crore as annual allotment to states for the current financial year under ”Per Drop More Crop” component of Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana (PMKSY-PDMC). The Department of Agriculture Cooperation and Farmers” Welfare is implementing the ”Per Drop More Crop” component of PMKSY-PDMC, which focuses on enhancing water efficiency at farm level through micro irrigation technologies such as ”drip and sprinkler” irrigation.
• The drip micro irrigation technique not only helps in saving water but also reduces fertilizer usage, labour expenses and other input costs.
• Micro Irrigation Fund corpus of Rs 5,000 crore has been created with National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD), an apex development financial institution in India.
• The objective of the fund is to facilitate the states in mobilizing the resources for expanding coverage of micro irrigation by taking up special and innovative projects and also for incentivising micro irrigation beyond the provisions available under PMKSY-PDMC to encourage farmers to install micro irrigation systems.
• So far, micro irrigation funds have been released to Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu for Rs 616.14 crore and for Rs 478.79 crore, respectively, through NABARD.
• The area covered under these projects is 1.021 lakh hectare in Andhra Pradesh and 1.76 lakh hectare in Tamil Nadu.

June 2020 Current Affairs Monthly PDF  |  Assam 2020 Yearbook  | June 2020 Quiz Monthly PDF

Go To Assam Current Affairs                      Go To Assam Current Affairs Quiz

June 12, 2020

IIT Guwahati ranks 7^th best in NIRF rankings 2020

• Indian Institute of Technology-Guwahati (IIT-G) has been ranked 7th among all top higher educational institutions in the country in the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) Ranking 2020 released by Union HRD minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank.
• IIT-G has achieved its best ever rank with a score of 68.81 in the ‘overall’ category of the NIRF this year. Last year, the institute was ranked 9th in the ‘overall’ category with a score of 65.47.
• IIT-G has also been ranked 7th among all the engineering institutes in India. It has improved its score from 70.87 in 2019 to 74.90 this year.
• The main reason for the improvement in the rankings in both the categories is the strong growth seen across three parameters assessed – Research and Professional Practice (RPC), Graduation Outcomes (GO) and Perception.
• Most of the state and central universities from the NE region, including the Gauhati University, Tezpur University and the North Eastern Hill University (NEHU) have slipped in the overall rankings.

National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) Rankings 2020

• IITs have emerged as the top institutes in India’s NIRF rankings 2020. Once again, IIT-Madras has gained the top rank in the overall category. IISc has secured the second rank this year again and the third top-ranked institute is IIT-Delhi.
• In the fifth NIRF ranking, in the university category, top rank is obtained by the IISc followed by Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and at third rank is Banaras Hindu University (BHU).
• Miranda House is the top college in India and in the Pharma category, Jamia Hamdard has once again claimed the top position.
• The education institutes and universities all over India are ranked across several parameters including teaching, learning and resources, research and professional practices, graduation outcome outreach and inclusivity, and perception.

Top engineering institutes in India

The top rank is obtained by IIT-Madras once again.

Rank 1: IIT-Madras

Rank 2: IIT-Delhi

Rank 3: IIT-Bombay

Top medical colleges in India

Rank 1: All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS, New Delhi)

Rank 2: Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER Chandigarh)

Rank 3: Christian Medical College, Vellore

Top management colleges

Indian Institute of Ahmedabad has taken over the Indian Institute Bangalore. The tussle between IIM A and IIM B continuous for the top rank for this year, IIM-A is the top management institute.

Rank 1: IIM-Ahmedabad

Rank 2: IIM-Bangalore

Rank 3: IIM-Calcutta

FACTFILE – NIRF Ranking

• The NIRF is a methodology adopted by the Ministry of HRD to rank institutions of higher education in India. The Framework was approved and on 29 September 2015.
• There are separate rankings for different types of institutions depending on their areas of operation like universities and colleges, engineering institutions, management institutions, pharmacy institutions and architecture institutions.
• The ranking framework evaluates institutions on five broad generic groups of parameters, i.e. Teaching, Learning and Resources (TLR), Research and Professional Practice (RP), Graduation Outcomes (GO), Outreach and Inclusivity (OI) and Perception (PR).
• Rankings help universities to improve their performance on various ranking parameters and identify gaps in research and areas of improvement.

Railways successfully runs double stack container trains in electrified territory

• The Indian Railways created a world record by commissioning the first high rise Over Head Equipment (OHE) and successfully running double stack containers in electrified territory on the Western Railway.
• The Railway Ministry said that Indian Railways created a new world benchmark by successfully running the first double stack container train in high rise OHE electrified sections, which has contact wire height of 7.57 metre.
• The operations successfully commenced from Palanpur and Botad stations in Gujarat.
• With this remarkable development, Indian Railways has proudly become the first Railway to run double stack container train with high reach pantograph in high rise OHE territory.

Wipro partners with CloudKnox for Cloud security solutions

• In partnership with CloudKnox Security, IT major Wipro announced new solutions to enable enterprises to proactively protect and manage their hybrid and multi-Cloud infrastructure by continuously detecting and remediating over-permissioned identities.
• As part of the partnership, Wipro will offer an Access Governance for Hybrid Cloud “as-a-service” offering, powered by CloudKnox. This offering provides continuous protection of critical Cloud resources.
• Wipro Ventures, the corporate investment arm of Wipro, invested in CloudKnox through it’s recently announced $150 million Fund II, to strengthen the strategic partnership.
• With the proliferation of hybrid and multi-Cloud workloads and identities (be it humans, service accounts, bots or resources), the problem of managing authorizations and entitlements related to permissions for identities is becoming more complex and critical.
• While adoption of private and public Cloud is increasing, existing security solutions are inadequate to manage identities and resources across such a hybrid environment.
• With this partnership, Wipro has a first-mover advantage offering Identity Governance and secure Cloud Workloads for customers who are migrating and managing Hybrid Cloud infrastructures.

June 13, 2020

Assam NGO Touch of Humanity to promote sign language learning

• Touch of Humanity, an NGO, in collaboration with the Assam Association of the Deaf started an initiative to enhance awareness and stress the importance of understanding and learning the sign language.
• In the initiative, tutorial videos on the sign language will be provided on the Facebook page of Touch of Humanity.
• Founder president of Touch of Humanity Hirakjyoti Bora said, if each and every person of the world learns the language, it will be very easy for the deaf and mute persons to communicate with other people.
• And their soul motto is to reach each and every individual, especially the students, and our dream is to have Sign Language as a regular subject in our academics as we have German and other languages.

UP CM Yogi Adityanath launches schemes for child labourers in UP

• Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath launched the ”Bal Shramik Vidya Yojana”, a scheme to educate child labourers in the state.
• The chief minister said that the scheme would help children who are forced to work as labourers due to compelling circumstances in the family.
• Under the scheme, unsupported children in the age group of 8 to 18 years would be entitled to school education. These children would be given admission in the Atal residential schools in the state.
• The Atal residential schools are under construction in 18 divisions of the state.
• Boys would be given a stipend of Rs 1,000 per month while the girls would get Rs 1,200 per month.
• Those studying in class 8,9 and 10 would an additional amount of Rs 6,000 per year to encourage them.
• The government will identify children labourers who are orphan or whose parent is physically challenged and they are landless.
• The state government has identified 2,000 such children form 57 districts.
• These children and their families will get the benefit of all government welfare schemes
• Children who are not academically inclined will be sent for skill development.

MGNREGA support for migrant labourers, got 84% more work

• Under the MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) the daily wage labourers in the villages got 84 per cent more work in June than in the corresponding period last year.
• Under the scheme, an average of 3.42 crore people have been offered daily work across the country in June, which is 83.87 per cent higher than the corresponding period last year.
• According to statistics from the Union Rural Development ministry, an average of 2.51 crore people got work under MGNREGA in May, which is 73 per cent higher than the average figure of 1.45 crore in the corresponding period last year.
• Therefore, in May employment under the scheme increased by 73.1 per cent.
• The average number of daily wage labourers working under the MGNREGA scheme in June has been 3.42 crore, while 1.86 crore people benefitted under the scheme in June last year.
• Under MGNREGA, employment is calculated on the basis of man days. On an average, in June, this figure has been 3.42 crore man days.
• The wages paid to the labourers under the MGNREGA are directly deposited into their bank accounts and nearly Rs 31,500 crore were released to the states from the amount allocated for the scheme.
• The total budgetary allocation under the MGNREGA in the current financial year 2020-21 was Rs 61,500 crore, but on May 17, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced an allocation of additional amount of Rs 40,000 crore for the scheme.
• Under MGNREGA, 60 per cent of the allocated amount is spent on providing work to unskilled labourers while up to 40 per cent is included in the project along with the cost of the material used in the work and wages paid to the skilled labour.
• MNREGA pays special attention to water conservation and irrigation infrastructure development, which strengthens agriculture and rural economy.

3 firms operating from Hyderabad selected for NASA’s Covid ventilator

• The three Indian companies selected by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to manufacture VITAL ventilators to treat Covid-19 patients are operating from Hyderabad.
• Alpha Design Technologies Pvt Ltd, Bharat Forge Ltd and Medha Servo Drives Pvt Ltd, which are among 21 companies picked up worldwide by NASA to manufacture Ventilator Intervention Technology Accessible Locally (VITAL) ventilators to treat critically-ill Covid-19 patients.
• According to NASA”s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, manufacturers were selected to make Covid-19 specific ventilator VITAL.
• It’s simpler and more affordable than traditional ventilator, freeing the latter for more severe symptoms. Its design can be used in the field hospitals.

June 2020 Current Affairs Monthly PDF  |  Assam 2020 Yearbook  | June 2020 Quiz Monthly PDF

Go To Assam Current Affairs                      Go To Assam Current Affairs Quiz

June 14, 2020

Centre asks 8 NE states to set up e-offices in a fixed time

• The central government has advised to all the eight northeastern states to set up e-office in a fixed time and all technical and financial support to achieve the e-office mission to be implemented right from civil secretariat to district level in all the states would be provided by the centre.
• The implementation of e-office in state secretariats of northeastern states would result in creation of paperless state secretariats in a time bound manner where officers would be empowered with virtual private networks, digital signature certificates and promote less contact governance.
• The workshop on e-office for northeastern states was attended by Chief Ministers of Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Sikkim and Meghalaya and the IT Ministers of Assam, Manipur, Mizoram, and Tripura. Chief Secretaries and senior officials of NE states have also attended the workshop.

AP govt signs Bhogapuram airport deal with GMR

• The Andhra Pradesh government and GMR group have signed an agreement to build an international airport at Bhogapuram in the state.
• The greenfield airport project to come up at Bhogapuram near Visakhapatnam, is being developed as a crucial gateway to the northern part of Andhra Pradesh.
• The agreement was inked in the presence of Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy at his camp office by representatives of both sides.
• While Special Chief Secretary, Industries, Kari Kalavan signed the pact on behalf of the state government, GMR Chairman, G.B.S. Raju signed on behalf of GMR Airports Ltd (GAL).
• The Bhogapuram airport project was cleared by the state government on Thursday. As against the original plan of providing 2,700 acres, the developer will now get 2,200 acres. The state government would be developing the remaining 500 acres.
• The connectivity between Vizag and the airport will be developed and all steps will be taken for laying a Metro train line from the airport to city.

Govt unveils PM SVANIDHI scheme to provide affordable loans to street vendors

• Union Government launched PM SVANIDHI – Pradhan Mantri Street Vendor’s Atmanirbhar Nidhi – a special micro-credit facility scheme for providing affordable loan to street vendors.
• The scheme is aimed at enabling the street vendors to resume their livelihoods that have been adversely affected due to COVID-19 lockdown. Street vendors play significant role in ensuring availability of the goods and services at affordable rates at the door-step of the city dwellers.
• The scheme targets to benefit over 50 lakh street vendors, who had been vending on or before 24th March this year, in urban areas.
• The vendors can avail a working capital loan of upto ten thousand rupees, which is repayable in monthly instalments in the tenure of one year.
• On timely and early repayment of the loan, an interest subsidy at the rate of seven per cent per annum will be credited to the bank accounts of beneficiaries through Direct Benefit Transfer on six monthly basis.
• If the vendor will repays the instalments in time or earlier, they will develop his credible credit score that makes him eligible for higher amount of term loan to 20 thousand rupees and so on. Urban Local Bodies will play pivotal role in the implementation of the scheme.
• The lending institutions under the Scheme include Scheduled Commercial Banks, Regional Rural Banks, Small Finance Banks, Cooperative Banks, NBFCs, Micro Finance institutions and Self Help Group banks.

Rural mart launched to promote local products

• A rural mart under the NABARD’s Krishak Samridhi Project, implemented by the Ajagar Social Circle, an NGO based in Agia, was inaugurated at Agia town, Goalpara.
• Inaugurating the rural Mart Goalpara AGM-DD Rajkumar Metei said  the aim behind the mart is to provide a market for domestic products produced by rural people of the area.
• The rural mart will provide a market linkage to the local people and artisans engaged in producing indigenous items to fetch competitive prices.
• The rural mart will act as an aggregate of the collective market products produced by rural artisans and weavers besides the farmers from where they will be able to get farm inputs at lower prices.
• Moreover, around 1,200 rural people, including women entrepreneurs will be benefited from the project.
• Various handicraft items including bamboo products, handloom items, vegetables and fruits and small farm tools are available at the rural mart currently.

June 2020 Current Affairs Monthly PDF  |  Assam 2020 Yearbook  | June 2020 Quiz Monthly PDF

Go To Assam Current Affairs                      Go To Assam Current Affairs Quiz

Assam Current Affairs & GK – June 1 - 7, 2020

( Covers all important Assam Current Affairs & GK topics for the week of June 1 – 7, 2020 )

June 2020 Current Affairs Monthly PDF  |  Assam 2020 Yearbook  | June 2020 Quiz Monthly PDF

Go To Assam Current Affairs                      Go To Assam Current Affairs Quiz

June 01, 2020

Centre sanctions Rs 1,407 crore to Assam under Jal Jeevan Mission

• The Government of India has sanctioned Rs 1,407 crore for 2020-21 under the Jal Jeevan Mission, in response to a proposal submitted by the Assam government to provide tap connection to 13 lakh households.
• Realisation of the goal of Jal Jeevan Mission in Assam is not difficult taking into account the abundant water resources in the State, both ground water and surface water.
• The State government plans to immediately provide household tap connection to remaining households belonging to weaker and marginalised sections on priority.
• A detailed road map has also been prepared giving priority on covering households in quality-affected habitations, aspirational districts, SC, ST dominated villages and habitations.

Asiatic Lion population increased by 29% in last five years

• The population of the Asiatic Lion, the pride of Gujarat, has grown from 523 in 2015 to 674 in 2020, a growth of about 29% as per the latest census. The territory of the big cat has also increased by 36% from 22 thousands square kilometre to 30 thousands km during the same period.
• The Forest Department conducted an exercise ”Poonam Avlokan” on June 5 and 6, during the two-day census, the department counted a total of 674 lions. Among them are 161 males and 260 female adults and 45 male and 49 female along with 22 unidentified sub-adults. Plus, 137 cubs were also identified.
• The lion census in Gujarat is conducted every five years.
• There has been a steady growth in lions” population from 284 in 1990 to 359 in 2005. But from there, it just climbed with 411 in 2010 to 524 in 2015 and 674 in 2020.
• The growth in population is directly related to the expanding distribution area or the territory of beasts. During 1990, the area was around 13,500 sq.km, which is expanded to around 30,000 sq.km across nine districts of Saurashtra, in 2020.
• The Forest Department used the ”Direct Beat Verification” method, also known as Block Count Method. The exercise was carried out exclusively by the Forest Department’s staff from 13 administrative divisions, involving around 1,400 personnel.
• During the 2-day census, data was recorded using modern technology such as GPS for location, time, number of individuals, individual identification marks, radio collar numbers, images and forest data. The collected data was extracted and analysed using GIS and statistical software.

 FACTFILE – Asiatic lion

• The Asiatic lion is a Panthera leo leo population found in India’s Gir National Park and environs of Gujarat.
• The lion is one of five pantherine cats inhabiting India, along with the Bengal tiger (P. tigris tigris), Indian leopard (P. pardus fusca), snow leopard (P. uncia) and clouded leopard (Neofelis nebulosa).
• On the IUCN Red List, it is listed under its former scientific name Panthera leo persica as Endangered because of its small population size and area of occupancy.
• Until the 19th century, it occurred in Saudi Arabia eastern Turkey, Iran, Mesopotamia, and from east of the Indus River to Bengal and Narmada River in Central India.
• Since the turn of the 20th century, it is restricted to the Gir Forest National Park and surrounding areas.
• This lion population has steadily increased since last couple of decades.
• In June 2020, an estimation exercise counted 674 Asiatic lions in the Gir forest region, an increase of 29 per cent over the 2015 census figure.

SGPGIMS develops cheaper, faster test for COVID-19

• The Department of Molecular Medicine and Biotechnology at the Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences (SGPGIMS) has developed a faster and much cheaper test for COVID-19 infection.
• The technology is the first rapid RNA (Ribonucleic acid)-based test that can detect COVID-19 infection within a lab time of 30 minutes and will cost only around Rs 500.
• The test is a single-tube lab test which takes less than 30 minutes of laboratory time and has high specificity and sensitivity. It does not require sophisticated instrumentation or any expertise for result interpretation.
• This point-of-care test will have a direct impact on mass screening, and will especially benefit the people in screening/holding areas of various service centres such as hospitals and airports.

Union Cabinet approves distressed asset fund of Rs 20,000 crore for MSMEs

• The Union Cabinet approved a distressed asset fund for MSMEs to facilitate provision of Rs 20,000 crore as subordinate debt.
• The scheme was announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman last month under the ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’ economic package.
• The government contribution to the distressed asset fund is Rs 4,000 crore through its investment in the Credit Guarantee Trust for Micro and Small Enterprises (CGTMSE) set up by it along with SIDBI.
• Functioning MSMEs which have become non-performing assets or are stressed will be eligible for access to the fund.
• Under the scheme, the Centre will provide guarantee coverage of up to 85 per cent for loans up to Rs 5 lakh and 75 per cent for loans beyond Rs 5 lakh to MSMEs from financial institutions.
• It provides a debt facility of up to 15 per cent of promoter contribution or Rs 75 lakh to the promoters, who, in turn, will infuse the amount in the MSME unit as equity.

June 02, 2020

Assam CM forms 3-member panel on State’s economy

• The Advisory Committee for revitalization of economy of Assam in the backdrop of the situation arising out of COVID-19 pandemic and consequent lockdown submitted its report to Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal.
• The Chief Minister announced constitution of a three-member ministerial committee under the chairmanship of Finance Minister Dr Himanta Biswa Sarma to study the recommendations of the report and suggest broad roadmap for their implementation.
• Industry Minister Chandra Mohan Patowary and Agriculture Minister Atul Bora will be its members.
• The Advisory Committee with seven members, headed by retired IAS officer Subash Chandra Das, assessed the macro-economic and socio-economic impact as well as sector specific impact of COVID-19.
• The committee made the sector specific recommendations on agriculture and allied sector, industries, trade and commerce, transport, tourism and hospitality, construction sector, employment including migrant labours.
• The committee observed that as the economy needs to be made fully functional gradually, standard operating protocols, rules and guidelines need to be made for the sectors which are still closed with special emphasis on the opening of tourism and hospitality industry including hotels, restaurants with other personal care services and industries.

CCEA clears 50-83% MSP hike for 14 kharif crops

• The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA), approved 50-83 per cent rise in the minimum support price (MSP) of 14 kharif crops for the 2020-21 marketing season.
• The highest MSP rise was proposed for nigerseed (Rs 755 per quintal), followed by sesamum (Rs 370 per quintal), urad (Rs 300 per quintal) and long staple cotton (Rs 275 per quintal).
• The increase was in line with the 2018-19 budget announcement of finalising MSPs at least 1.5 times of the All-India weighted average cost of production (CoP) to allow reasonably fair return to farmers.
• The expected returns for farmers will be the highest for bajra (83 per cent), followed by urad (64 per cent), tur (58 per cent) and maize (53 per cent). For other crops, the return is estimated to be at least 50 per cent.
• The MSP for common grade of paddy has been set at Rs 1,868 a quintal and grade-A paddy, Rs 1,888 per quintal for the crop year 2020-21 (July-June). Similarly, the MSP for jowar hybrid is Rs 2,620 per quintal and other jowar Rs 2,640 per quintal.
• The MSP for tur (pigeon pea) has been finalised at Rs 6,000 per quintal, moong (Rs 7,196 per quintal), urad (Rs, 6,000 per quintal), groundnut (Rs 5,275 per quintal), sunflower (Rs 5,885 per quintal), soybean (Rs 3,880 per quintal), sesame (Rs 6,855 per quintal) and nigerseed (Rs 6,695 per quintal).
• The MSP for medium-staple and long-staple cotton have been set at Rs 5,515 and Rs 5,825 per quintal, respectively. The new MSP for bajra is Rs 2,150 per quintal, ragi Rs 3,295 per quintal and maize Rs 1,850 per quintal.

Moody’s downgraded India’s sovereign rating to Baa3

• Moody’s Investor Service downgraded India’s sovereign rating to Baa3 from Baa2, with a negative outlook.
• The rationale for Moody’s first such downgrade in two decades was “policy-making institutions will be challenged in enacting and implementing policies which effectively mitigate the risks of a sustained period of relatively low growth, significant further deterioration in the general government fiscal position and stress in the financial sector”.
• The country’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth in FY20 is estimated at 4.2 per cent, the slowest rate since FY09. For FY21, Moody’s expects India’s economy to contract 4 per cent.
• Incidentally, Moody’s had upgraded India’s rating to Baa2 in November 2017 on expectation that the government would effectively implement key reforms.

Highest ever allocation of fund worth Rs 1,01,500 crore in MGNREGS for FY 2020-21

• A provision of Rs 1,01,500 crore has been made under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) in the current financial year 2020-2021. Out of which, a sum of Rs 31,493 crore has already been released.
• A total of 60.80 crore person days has been generated so far and work has been offered to 6.69 crore persons. And total of 10 lakh works have been completed so far during the current Financial Year 2020-2021.
• A sustained focus is on taking up works related to water conservation and irrigation, plantation, horticulture and Individual Beneficiary works for livelihood promotion.

June 2020 Current Affairs Monthly PDF  |  Assam 2020 Yearbook  | June 2020 Quiz Monthly PDF

Go To Assam Current Affairs                      Go To Assam Current Affairs Quiz

  June 03, 2020

Assam Govt appoints Samudra Gupta Kashyap as SIC

• The Assam government appointed Samudra Gupta Kashyap as the State Information Commissioner (SIC), a first time the coveted post going to a journalist.
• A well-known name in Assam’s journalism, Kashyap has also been working as a State resource person for the RTI Act. He retired as a senior assistant editor from The Indian Express and is a regular columnist in many newspapers.
• As a journalist, he had also efficiently used the RTI Act as a tool to gather information in the last part of his career.

Govt transfers Rs 53,000 crore under PMGKP

• The Finance Ministry said, around 42 crore beneficiaries have been directly given cash support through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) amounting to Rs 53,248 crores under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Package (PMGKP).
• The government has transferred Rs 8,488 crore into the bank accounts of PM Ujjwala Yojana beneficiaries.
• Also, 8.58 crore free Ujjwala cylinders have been delivered while a total of 9.25 crore cylinders have been booked, under which, the government has decided to distribute free cooking gas cylinders to Ujjwala beneficiaries for three months till June 30.
• The government has also released First instalment of PM-KISAN (Rs 16,394 crore) and transferred it to 8.19 crore identified farmers who got Rs 2,000 directly in their account.
• The government has also disbursed Rs 20,344 crore to women Jan Dhan account holders till June 2. A sum of Rs 10,029 crore was disbursed to 20.05 crore Women Jan Dhan account holders (98.3 per cent beneficiary as first instalment of Rs 500 payment.
• Moreover, Rs 10,315 crore has also been credited to 20.63 crore women Jan Dhan account holders (100 per cent beneficiaries) as second instalment payment.
• The government has also released Rs 2,814 crore to about 2.81 crore old age persons, widows and disabled persons. Each beneficiary received an ex-gratia cash of Rs 500 under the scheme as the first instalment and another Rs 500 as second instalment.

Union IT Ministry launches schemes to boost electronic manufacturing

• Union Minister for Electronics and IT Ravi Shankar Prasad launched three major schemes to boost manufacture of electronics in the country. These schemes are expected to attract substantial investments, increase production of mobile phones and their parts or components to around Rs 10 lakh crore by 2025, and generate around 5 lakh direct and 15 lakh indirect jobs.
• The Minister launched the Production Linked Incentive Scheme (PLI) for large-scale electronics manufacturing, Scheme for Promotion of Manufacturing of Electronic Components and Semiconductors (SPECS), and Modified Electronics Manufacturing Clusters (EMC 2.0) Scheme.
• The PLI Scheme will extend an incentive of 4-6 per cent on incremental sales of goods manufactured in India and covered under the target segments to the eligible companies for five years subsequent to the base year.
• The SPECS will provide financial incentive of 25 per cent on capital expenditure for the identified list of electronic goods, including electronic components, semiconductor, and display fabrication units, among others.
• The EMC 2.0 will provide support for the creation of world-class infrastructure along with common facilities and amenities, including Ready Built Factory (RBF) sheds or Plug and Play facilities for attracting major global electronics manufacturers, along with their supply chains.
• The government aims to increase the domestic value addition for mobile phones by 35-40 per cent by 2025.
• According to the government the schemes will help offset the disability for domestic electronics manufacturing and hence strengthen the electronics manufacturing ecosystem in the country.

Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra topped FSSAI food safety index for 2019-20

• Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra have topped an index that ranked states ensuring food safety in 2019-20, Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI).
• The index ranks states on five parameters of food safety: human resources and institutional data, compliance, food testing facility, training and capacity building besides consumer empowerment.
• Among the smaller states, Goa came first followed by Manipur and Meghalaya.
• Among Union Territories, Chandigarh, Delhi and Andaman Islands secured top ranks.

  June 04, 2020

IIT Guwahati project on bamboo furniture designing for use at health centres

• The Department of Design of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Guwahati, has carried out a project involving designing of bamboo furniture for use in hospitals and health centres.
• The project is mainly aimed at strengthening sustainable infrastructure facilities and meeting the requirements of Primary Health Centres (PHCs) located in the rural areas of the State.
• It also aimed for a sustainable and participatory design approach by utilisation of locally available materials and craft skill manpower led by active participation of local government departments.
• The current pandemic crisis has brought to the fore the need for seeking self-reliance of sustainable solutions that are contextually appropriate for meeting the needs of the community.
• The designs developed by the department’s team could provide a sustainable solution to meet local infrastructure needs of PHCs and added that they are also cost-effective.
• Besides, it could also be an ideal way of creating employment opportunities for crafts persons who can use locally available bamboo and cane in this region.
• The design team is already in touch with two local entrepreneurs who have agreed to undertake the manufacture of a simpler version of the hospital bed. Around 200 beds can be manufactured per day.

Bengal to plant 5 crore mangrove trees in Sundarbans

• West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee announced that the state government will plant 5 crore mangrove trees in Amphan-hit Sundarbans region within one month.
• Banerjee said that it is important to protect the natural mangrove cover in the region that protects people and the wildlife living in the biodiversity reserve.
• The state environment department would carry out the plantation of 5 crore mangrove trees in the region within one month starting from the World Environment Day observed on June 5.
• A large part of Sundarbans, spanning across Kolkata’s adjoining South 24-Parganas and North 24-Parganas district, was severely battered due to cyclone Amphan on May 20.

EESL, GAIL India sign MoU for ‘trigeneration’ projects

• Natural gas Company GAIL India and Energy Efficiency Services (EESL) signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU), for development of ”trigeneration” projects in India, with the aim to build a closer strategic partnership by jointly exploring business opportunities in ”trigeneration” segment in India.
• Under the MoU, GAIL and EESL shall jointly undertake studies and if found viable, 50:50 joint venture will be incorporated for undertaking trigeneration projects.
• The ”trigeneration” or ”combined cooling, heat and power” project involves natural gas-fired generators to produce electricity. Under this, the waste heat from fuel gas is recovered to produce steam, which is used for heating and also in absorption chillers for cooling.

Cabinet approves ordinance for ‘One India, One Agriculture Market’

• The Union Cabinet approved the Farming Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Ordinance, 2020, which will pave the way for creating ‘One India, One Agriculture Market’.
• Union Minister of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Narendra Singh Tomar, said the ordinance will create an ecosystem where farmers and traders will enjoy freedom of choice of sale and purchase of agri-produce.
• It will also promote barrier-free inter-state and intra-state trade and commerce outside the physical premises of markets notified under the state Agricultural Produce Marketing legislations, and this is a historic step in unlocking the vastly regulated agriculture markets in the country.
• There are restrictions for farmers in selling agri-produce outside the notified APMC market yards. The farmers are also restricted to sell the produce only to the registered licensees of the state governments.
• Barriers exist in free-flow of agricultural produce between various states owing to the prevalence of various APMC legislations enacted by the state governments.
• The ordinance basically aims at creating additional trading opportunities outside the APMC market yards to help farmers get remunerative prices due to additional competition.

New Microsoft programme to empower agritech startups in India

• Microsoft launched a new programme to help agritech startups in India build industry-specific solutions, scale and grow with access to deep technology, business and marketing resources.
• The three-tier programme offers tech and business enablement resources to Series C startups that can boost their businesses with Azure benefits (including free credits), unlimited technical support and help with Azure Marketplace onboarding.
• Startups with enterprise-ready solutions can scale quickly with joint go-to-market strategies, technical support and new sales opportunities with Microsoft’s partner ecosystem.
• Lastly, agritech startups that are looking to create digital agriculture solutions have the opportunity to co-build customized solutions with Azure FarmBeats without investing in deep data engineering resources.
• Available on the Azure Marketplace, Azure FarmBeats enables aggregation of agricultural datasets across providers and generation of actionable insights by building artificial intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) models based on fused datasets.
• Using Azure FarmBeats, startups can acquire, aggregate and process agricultural data and rapidly develop their own AI/ML models.
• Agritech startups in the country received more than $248 million funding in the first half of 2019, a growth of 300 per cent as compared to the same period in the previous year.
• Bringing together startups, corporates, industry bodies, governments and venture capital firms, the programme aims to create a shared platform for learning and innovation.

June 2020 Current Affairs Monthly PDF  |  Assam 2020 Yearbook  | June 2020 Quiz Monthly PDF

Go To Assam Current Affairs                      Go To Assam Current Affairs Quiz

June 05, 2020

NGO Help Earth launched website on Guwahati’s biodiversity

• NGO Help Earth has developed a website, wildguwahati.com, highlighting Guwahati city’s urban biodiversity.
• The website will be formally launched on the occasion of World Environment Day which it will celebrate in a digital way due to the ongoing lockdown restrictions and norms for social distancing.
• Going with the theme of this year’s World Environment Day ‘Time for Nature’, They have developed the website based on our comprehensive study on urban biodiversity of Guwahati spanning over six years, and which is still continuing.
• They have catalogued the vertebrate biodiversity of Guwahati which is now presented in a form of website and is freely accessible to all.
• The main aim of the initiative is to popularise and highlight the importance of urban biodiversity. The website presents a checklist of terrestrial vertebrates of Guwahati consisting of 26 species of amphibians, 57 species of reptiles, 214 species of birds and 36 species of mammals.

Gairsain declared the summer capital of Uttarakhand

• Gairsain town in Chamoli district of Uttarakhand was officially declared as the new summer capital of the hilly state.
• Uttarakhand Governor Baby Rani Maurya gave her nod to the state government’s move declaring Gairsain or Bhararisen as the new summer capital of the state.
• The Uttarakhand state is divided into two divisions Garhwal and Kumaon, with a total of 13 districts.
• The winter capital of Uttarakhand is Dehradun, the largest city of the state.

IIT-BHU develops anti-microbial mask

• The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in the Banaras Hindu University (BHU) has developed an anti-microbial multilayer face mask.
• The face mask has been developed to annihilate pathogenic micro-organisms stuck to the outer surface of the mask and limit further spread of secondary infections.
• The mask currently being sold in the market act as a filter to stop the entry of microbes to oral and nasal airways but are not effective on the microbe stuck to the mask surface.
• The mask has been developed by doctor Marshal and his team at the School of Biomedical Engineering in the IIT-BHU. According to Marshal, this shortcoming of masks could be very dangerous for medical and paramedical staff due to the presence of higher viral or bacterial load on their outer surface. They addressed this problem by stacking different layers of nano-metal conjugated with protonated amine matrix.
• Earlier, the institute had developed a prototype of UV-C light-based surface-cum-room sanitizer, full body sanitization device and several other innovations to fight against coronavirus.

Andhra Pradesh deploys IBM Watson chatbot to answer Covid-19 queries

• The Andhra Pradesh National Health Mission portal has integrated the IBM Watson virtual agent to help the residents quickly get answers to their queries about Covid-19.
• The chatbot is designed to understand and respond to common questions about Covid-19 in English, Telugu and Hindi.
• The objective of this type of advanced technologies — chatbots or virtual agents — is to help reduce the waiting times for calls that users make to the telephone lines of state services relating to the novel coronavirus.

RBI announces creation of Payments Infrastructure Development Fund

• The Reserve Bank announced the creation of a Payments Infrastructure Development Fund with an initial contribution of Rs 250 crore and contribution of same amount will be from card issuing banks and card networks operating in the country.
• The fund has been created to encourage the adoption of ‘Points of Sale’ machines by businesses in tier-3 to tier-6 centres and Northeastern states.
• The PoS machines allow businesses to accept e-payments, thereby, mitigating the need to deal in cash.
• The PIDF will also receive recurring contributions to cover operational expenses from card issuing banks and card networks. RBI will also contribute to yearly shortfalls, if necessary.
• The PIDF will be governed through an Advisory Council and managed and administered by the Reserve Bank.

June 06, 2020

Assam Governor launches project ‘Hariyali’ in BTAD

• Assam Governor Professor Jagdish Mukhi launched a project titled, ‘Hariyali’ by planting 1500 saplings at the headquarters of 15 Battalion of Shashtra Seema Bal (SSB) at Kajalgaon in the district.
• Under this project, a total of four lakh saplings will be planted in all the four districts (one lakh for each district) of BTAD till the month of August to enrich the green cover which is 36.5 per cent at present.
• Mukhi said, Although three protected areas – Manas National Park, Barnadi Wildlife Sanctuary and Chakrasila Wildlife Sanctuary have the potential to sustain wide varieties of flora and fauna, we have to work assiduously for the protection of the environment and our natural legacy of rich biodiversity.
• About 40 lakhs plants, including flowering, fruiting, medicinal and other plant varieties are to be planted in the BTAD areas within August.
• As a part of the above initiative, 10 lakh saplings will be planted in each of the four BTAD districts – Udalguri, Baksa, Kokrajhar and Chirang.

India ranks 168^th on Environmental Performance Index

• India has been ranked 168^th out of 180 countries in the 2020 Environmental Performance Index (EPI), according to researchers at Yale and Columbia universities.
• Denmark has ranked first in the world, followed by Luxembourg, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, France, Austria, Finland, Sweden, Norway and Germany in the top 10 countries in the 2020 EPI, a biennial scorecard of national results on a range of sustainability issues.
• The EPI report has become the premier metrics framework for global environmental policy analysis, ranking 180 countries on 32 performance indicators across 11 issue categories covering environmental health and ecosystem vitality.
• India struggles to perform well on several of the 2020 EPI”s environmental issue categories. For air quality, India and Pakistan both rank at the very bottom of the 2020 EPI, at 179th and 180th places, respectively.
• On biodiversity and habitat, India places 148th in the world, failing to maximize the conservation potential of its protected areas, especially in marine ecosystems.
• Perhaps most critically, India places 106th in the world on climate change mitigation.
• Low EPI scores for India suggest a need for national sustainability efforts on a number of fronts, including air and water pollution, biodiversity protection, and the transition to a clean energy future.

President Kovind promulgates ordinances for agriculture market reforms

• President Ram Nath Kovind promulgated the ordinances for major agricultural reforms which aim to give freedom to the farmers to sell their agriculture produce anywhere in the country and pave the way for contract farming.
• The Union Cabinet had cleared Farmers” Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion & Facilitation) Ordinance 2020 and Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Ordinance 2020 which were notified.
• The amendment of essential goods act has also been given approval following which the agriculture commodities like onion, potatoes, oilseed, edible oil and cereals have been removed from the list of essential commodities.
• The President has promulgated the two ordinances with the aim of giving a boost to rural India for farmers engaged in agriculture and allied activities.
• By recognizing the bottlenecks preventing the holistic development of marketing of the agriculture produce, the Government drafted and circulated the Model Agriculture Produce and Livestock Marketing (APLM) Act 2017, and also the Model Agriculture Produce and Livestock Contract Farming Act of 2018, for adoption by the states.

Indian Railways has installed bio toilets across 68,000 coaches

• As part of its “Swachh Rail-Swachh Bharat” initiative, the Indian Railways has installed bio toilets across 68,000 coaches.
• A total of 49,487 bio-toilets have been installed in 14,916 coaches during 2019-20.
• This takes the cumulative number of bio-toilets to more than 2,45,400 fitted in 68,800 coaches with a coverage of 100 per cent.
• Integrated mechanised cleaning is also being provided at 953 railway stations pan India.
• More than 1,100 pairs of trains, including Rajdhani, Shatabdi, Duronto and other important long distance mail/express trains, have been equipped with the facility of Onboard House Keeping Service (OBHS) for cleaning of coach toilets, doorways, aisles and passenger compartments during the run of the trains.
• The Railways also informed that the OBHS service is also supported by SMS-based on demand “Coach-Mitra” service to cover over 1060 pairs of trains.
• At present, around 315 PBCMs have been installed at 229 stations including several district headquarters railway stations.
• Automatic coach washing plants (ACWP) have been installed in eight locations while quick watering facility at 29 locations have also been installed in order to reduce water filling time at the stations.

Centre to develop 200 ‘urban forests’ in five years

• On the occasion of the World Environment Day on June 5, the Central government announced the implementation of ”Nagar Van” scheme to develop 200 Urban Forests across the country in the next five years.
• World Environment Day is celebrated on June 5 every year. The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change celebrates the day by focusing on the theme declared by the United Nation’s Environment Programme and organises several events.
• India has eight per cent of world’s biodiversity, despite having many constraint like only 2.5 per cent of the world’s landmass, has to carry 16 per cent of human as well as cattle population and having only four per cent of freshwater sources.

June 2020 Current Affairs Monthly PDF  |  Assam 2020 Yearbook  | June 2020 Quiz Monthly PDF

Go To Assam Current Affairs                      Go To Assam Current Affairs Quiz

June 07, 2020

Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw named EY World Entrepreneur of the Year

• Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Executive Chairperson and Managing Director of Biocon Limited, has been named EY World Entrepreneur of the Year for 2020.
• The BioconMD was picked from among 46 nominations from 41 countries.
• She also becomes the second woman to hold the title, following Olivia Lum of Hyflux Limited from Singapore in 2011.
• Kiran, 67, founded Biocon, a bio-enzymes company, in 1978 with just two employees and $500. The company is now employs more than 11,000 people.
• She is the third award winner from India. Managing Director of Kotak Mahindra Bank, Uday Kotak (2014) and Infosys founder Narayana Murthy (2005) are the former recipients.

India to host 2022 AFC Women’s Asian Cup

• Asian Football Federation (AFC) has awarded the hosting rights of the 2022 Women’s Asian Cup for the second time to India.
• India had hosted the AFC Women’s Asian Cup for the first time in 1979.
• As hosts, India will get an automatic qualification to the tournament. Although India had not yet bagged an AFC Women’s Asian Cup till now, it had finished as runners-up in 1981 and 1983 and won a bronze medal in 1981.
• This year, the AFC committee has also decided to expand the Asian Cup from eight teams to 12.

ISRO signs MoU with ARIES for space situational awareness

• Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and Aryabhatta Research Institute (ARIES) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for cooperation in the field of Space Situational Awareness (SSA) and Astrophysics.
• This MoU will pave the way for future collaborations between ISRO and ARIES in establishing optical telescope observational facilities for space object tracking, R&D studies in space weather, astrophysics, and Near Earth Object (NEO).
• The MoU was signed by R. Umamaheswaran, Scientific Secretary, ISRO and Prof (Dr) Dipankar Banerjee, Director, ARIES.
• Space objects” orbital tracking, analysis and space weather studies are important aspects in Space Situational Awareness and Management to safeguard Indian space assets from critical conjunction threats like space debris.
• Future endeavours in space exploration depends on research and development (R&D) in astrophysics, solar sciences, and space environment.

National Digital Library caters to students in all languages

• A National Digital Library has been set up by the Human Resource Development (HRD) ministry for all students in the country.
• This portal covers all subjects from primary to post-graduate level, includes subjects such as elementary education, law, medicine and engineering. It provides more than 4.5 crore text resources.
• A major feature of this library is the diversity of its text content. Students from each state can study books in their own dialect or language. The library is essential for students engaged in research.
• Online books are also being provided to students pursuing higher education through another digital platform ”Shodh Sindhu”, which provides high quality research material. It provides 10,000 national and international journals as well as 31 lakh and 35,000 books to the students through the e-platform of the HRD ministry.

Union Finance Ministry releases Rs 36,400 crore as GST compensation to states

• The finance ministry has released Rs 36,400 crore to states as compensation for their revenue loss in the goods and services tax (GST) regime for the period from December, 2019 to February, 2020.
• With this the Centre has released its entire GST compensation due to states for financial year 2019-20 and also given extra compensation for February that is accounted for in the current fiscal FY21.
• GST compensation is released at the end of every two months’ period. So, for FY20, dues are actually paid only upto January with compensation for the February-March period getting settled in next fiscal.
• After the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime was put in place, the Centre assured the states, through legislation, that the revenue shortfall will be compensated fully for first five years. 2015-16 was assumed to be the base year for calculating the compensation amount for a financial year.
• The growth rate of revenue for a state during the five-year period is assumed at 14 per cent per annum. Any shortfall in this growth number is to be compensated by the Centre.

June 2020 Current Affairs Monthly PDF  |  Assam 2020 Yearbook  | June 2020 Quiz Monthly PDF

Go To Assam Current Affairs                      Go To Assam Current Affairs Quiz