Daily Current Affairs – 23 December 2021 | Gkseries
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Daily Current Affairs 23 December 2021
PV Sindhu among 6 appointed members of BWF Athletes Commission till 2025
PV Sindhu among 6 appointed members of Badminton World Federation Athletes’ Commission till 2025 – PV Sindhu, the Former Badminton world champion, has been elected as a member of the Badminton World Federation’s (BWF) Athletes’ Commission. The Chair and Deputy Chair will be decided among the six members. The Chair of the BWF Athletes’ Commission, following a vetting process as required for all Council members, will become a member of the Council until the next elections in 2025.
Other members:
Iris Wang (USA), Robin Tabeling (NED), Greysia Polii (INA), Kim Soyeong (KOR), Pusarla V Sindhu (IND) and Zheng Si Wei (CHN) are the ones appointed as members of the BWF Athletes’ Commission.
About PV Sindhu:
Sindhu, who won the silver medal at the Rio Olympics in 2016, created history by bagging the bronze medal in the Tokyo Games earlier this year. At the prestigious world championships, Sindhu has won two silvers, besides two bronze and the coveted gold in 2019.
She has also begged two silvers, besides two bronze and the coveted gold in 2019 at world championships.
Atul Dinkar Rane appointed as BrahMos Aerospace CEO & MD
Outstanding DRDO Scientist Atul Dinkar Rane has been appointed as the CEO & MD of BrahMos Aerospace, the India-Russia JV entity producing the world-class BRAHMOS supersonic cruise missile system. Rane assumed charge as the new DG of BrahMos Aerospace on December 20. His pioneering contributions and techno-managerial leadership has been transformative for the successful development and induction of BrahMos Supersonic Cruise Missile into Armed Forces.
Rane is renowned for his decades of sustained R&D contributions in the indigenous design and development of mission-critical Onboard Computers (OBC), hardware in loop simulation studies, systems analysis, development of mission software and avionics technologies for defence applications, has been associated with the prestigious BRAHMOS (PJ-10) missile programme since its inception.
His pioneering contributions and techno-managerial leadership has been transformative for the successful development and induction of BrahMos Supersonic Cruise Missile into Armed Forces.
Equitas Small Finance Bank became Partner of Maharashtra state govt
Equitas Small Finance Bank Limited has announced its association with the Government of Maharashtra as a banking partner with a view to offer its services to the state government employees. The Bandhan Bank, Karur Vysya Bank, and the South Indian Bank have been assigned the role of distributing salaries and allowances to the government employees.
This partnership will enable the ESFBL to distribute salaries and allowances to the existing employees apart from making provision of pension to pensioners. The state government has authorized the Equitas SFB to open salary and pension accounts for the existing and retired employees across 58 branches of the bank across the state.
CCI approves acquisition of a shareholding in Air India by Tata Sons
Competition Commission of India (CCI) has approved Tata Group’s acquisition of Air India, Air India Express, and Air India SATS Airport Services. The regulator also approved stake acquisition by Talace in Air India Express and Air India SATS Airport Services along with the acquisition of shares in Air India. Currently, Air India is wholly owned by the government.
Key Points
- Air India SATS Airport Services is engaged in providing ground handling services at airports in Delhi, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Mangaluru and Thiruvananthapuram. It also provides cargo handling services at Bengaluru airport.
- Air India, along with AIXL, is primarily engaged in the business of providing domestic scheduled air passenger transport service, air cargo transport services and international scheduled air passenger transport service.
Tata’s Bid:
Tata Sons’ subsidiary Talace emerged as the highest bidder for AIR India, under the divestment process. The government on October 8 had announced that Tatas have won the bid to acquire debt-laden national carrier Air India for ₹18,000 crore. The amount includes payment of ₹2,700 crore in cash and take over ₹15,300 crore of the carrier’s debt.
Pradeep Kumar Rawat appointed as India’s new envoy to China
Senior diplomat Pradeep Kumar Rawat was appointed as India’s next Ambassador to China. Rawat’s appointment comes amid the lingering border stand-off in eastern Ladakh. Rawat is currently the country’s envoy to the Netherlands.
The career of Pradeep Kumar Rawat:
- An Indian Foreign Service (IFS) officer of 1990 batch, Mr Rawat is currently serving as Indian envoy to the Netherlands. He was joint secretary (East Asia) in the MEA when the Doklam border stand-off took place in 2017. He was involved in the negotiations during the early days before he moved to Indonesia as ambassador.
- Rawat served as India’s envoy to Indonesia and Timor-Leste from September 2017 to December 2020. He had earlier served in Hong Kong and Beijing and speaks fluent Mandarin.
Harjinder Singh was named India’s Chef de Mission for Beijing Olympics
Indian Olympic Association (IOA) Has been appointed as the General Secretary of the Ice Hockey Association of India, Harjinder Singh, In form of the Country’s Chef De Mission casual for the next 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. Singh was the Chef de Mission of the Indian contingent for the 23rd Winter Olympic Games too, which was held in Pyeongchang, South Korea in 2018.
Harjinder Singh is the general secretary of the Ice Hockey Association and has also led the Indian contingent at the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea, where India had two representatives – cross-country skier Jagdish Singh, and six-time Olympian luger Shiva Keshavan.
PM Jan Dhan Yojna accounts surpass the 44-cr mark
The total number of beneficiaries under the financial inclusion scheme of the Centre, Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY), has crossed 44 crore mark. The total number of accounts opened under PMJDY was 44.05 crore, with the total balance amounting to 1,47,812 crore as on 8 December. Uttar Pradesh Tops the list with the most accounts A state in Eastern India. Since its launch in 2014, the scheme has been continuously expanding its base.
The PMJDY was launched on August 28, 2014, with an aim to provide universal access to banking facilities to the people in the country. According to the Reserve Bank of India’s guidelines, savings and current accounts will be classified as dormant if there are no transactions in the account for two years. The average balance in Jan Dhan accounts across all banks is around ₹2,700.
Indian National Farmer’s Day: 23 December
National Farmer’s Day is celebrated every year on 23 December, on the birthday of the 5th Prime Minister of India, Choudhary Charan Singh, also a farmer’s leader, who introduced many policies to improve the lives of the Indian farmers. The National Farmers Day in India is also known as Kisan Divas in Hindi. He was the fifth Prime Minister of India and served the country as Prime Minister from 28 July 1979 to 14 January 1980.
About the Chaudhary Charan Singh:
- In 2001, the government of India declared December 23, the day Chaudhary Charan Singh was born, to be celebrated as National Farmers’ Day and for all the right reasons. Chaudhary Charan Singh breathed his last on January 14, 1980.
- A memorial dedicated to him was built at Raj Ghat and is called ‘Kisan Ghat.’ He played an important role in raising issues of the small and marginal farmers.
- In the 1950s, he drafted and ensured the passage of revolutionary land reform laws. In 1959, he first opposed the then PM Jawaharlal Nehru’s ‘socialistic and collectivist land politics.’ In 1967, he defected from the Congress and became the first non-Congress Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh.
Odisha CM inaugurated Odisha’s longest bridge ‘T-Setu’ in Cuttack
Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik inaugurated Odisha’s longest bridge T-Setu over Mahanadi River. The bridge will greatly benefit the people of Cuttack and Khurda districts, connecting Gopinathpur in Baramba with Baidweswar in Banki. The bridge in the shape of the English alphabet ‘T’ was constructed at a cost of Rs 111 crore. The 4-km-long bridge connecting Gopinathpur in Badamba, Baideswar in Banki to Singhanath Pitha in Cuttack, will cut the distance between Badamba and Banki Baideshwar by almost 45 km.
Chief Minister had laid the foundation stone T-setu on February 28, 2014. But, due to some technical issues, construction work was delayed and started in 2018. The bridge will facilitate communication for some 5 lakh people from nearby localities. It will also improve agriculture, business and tourism activities in the area. It will benefit devotees, who are visiting Baba Singhanath’s Bali Makar Jatra in Badamba block.
IOCL acquired 4.93% stake in Indian Gas Exchange
Oil marketing company Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) informed that the company has acquired 4.93% stake in Indian Gas Exchange (IGX). It is hereby informed that the Board of Indian Oil at its meeting held on 20 December 2021 has accorded approval for the acquisition of 36,93,750 equity shares of the face value of Rs.10/- each equivalent to 4.93% of the share capital in the Indian Gas Exchange Limited (IGX.
IGX is India’s first automated national level Gas Exchange, which ensures transparent price discovery in natural gas and facilitates growth of natural gas in India’s energy basket.
GIS-based ‘Automatic Water Supply System’ launched
The GIS-based ‘Automatic Water Supply System’ for citizens of Cantonment Boards was recently launched by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on the occasion of Defence Estates Day 2021. The module of GIS-based Water Supply system for Cantonment Boards has been developed by Bhaskaracharya Institute for Space Applications and Geoinformatics under the guidance of Defence Secretary and Director General of Defence Estates, Delhi.
It is completely automated which provides a facility to its citizen to identify the location of the water supply connection. It automatically determines the nearest water pipeline. It is the first of its kind in the country.
DPIIT is conducting a workshop on Next Phase for Reducing Compliance Burden
Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) is conducting National Workshop on ‘Next Phase of Reforms for Reducing Compliance Burden’ to realize the nation’s goals. It will witness wide participation from across Central Ministries.
It will have three sessions with the theme:
- Breaking Silos and Enhancing Synergies among Government Departments.
- National Single Sign-on for Efficient Delivery of Citizen Services.
- Effective Grievance Redressal.