Daily GA Updates

Scottish writer Douglas Stuart wins Booker prize for novel Shuggie Bain

Scottish writer Douglas Stuart has won the 2020 Booker Prize for fiction with his debut novel Shuggie Bain, which described a boy growing up in Glasgow in the 1980s with a mother battling addiction. The Booker Prize shortlist also included Indian-origin writer Avni Doshi’s novel ‘Burnt Sugar’. The Booker Prize is considered one of the leading prizes for literary fiction written in English. The list of former winners features several of the literary giants of the last five decades: from Iris Murdoch to Salman Rushdie, Kazuo Ishiguro to Hilary Mantel.

Second wave of COVID-19 to be fought without vaccines: WHO

World Health Organization's emergencies director Michael Ryan has warned that vaccines will not arrive in time to defeat the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic. He said, vaccines should not be seen as a unicorn magic solution and countries battling a resurgence of the virus will once again have to climb this mountain without them. The WHO director said, he thinks it's at least four to six months before we have significant levels of vaccination going on anywhere.

Daily GA Updates

Mission Sagar II: Indian Naval Ship Airavat arrives at Port of Mombasa, Kenya

In continuation of the ongoing humanitarian mission ‘Sagar-II’, Indian Naval Ship Airavat arrived at Port of Mombasa, Kenya. The Government of India is providing assistance to Friendly Foreign Countries to overcome natural calamities and COVID-19 pandemic, and towards the same INS Airavat is carrying food aid for the people of South Sudan. The Mission Sagar-II is aligned with Prime Minister’s vision of SAGAR -Security and Growth for All in the Region.

Australia to temporarily host ISRO satellite tracking facilities

As part of steps to deepen cooperation in civil space activities, the space agencies of India and Australia were working together to position temporarily Indian tracking facilities in Australia. This would support India’s planned human space flight programme. These include earth observation and data analytics, robotics, and space life sciences. This mission will see India become just the fourth nation to send a crew into space.India, Australia space cooperation is underpinned by a formal Memorandum of Understanding signed between the two countries in 2012.

Daily GA Updates

India's CAG Murmu elected as External Auditor of Inter Parliamentary Union, Geneva

Comptroller & Auditor General (CAG) of India, Girish Chandra Murmu has been elected as External Auditor of Inter Parliamentary Union (IPU), Geneva for a three-year term. He will take charge of this position from Supreme Audit Institution of Switzerland. The election took place at the virtual meeting of 284th session of the IPU, which is a 179 countries Parliamentarians body, also having 13 Associate Members. The IPU has permanent observer status at the United Nations General Assembly.

World Fisheries Day being celebrated on Nov 21

World Fisheries Day is observed every year on 21st of November to demonstrate solidarity with all fisher-folk communities, fish farmers and concerned stakeholders throughout the world. Fisheries sector in India provides direct employment to about 28 million fishers and fish farmers besides meeting the food and nutritional security and foreign exchange earnings. India contributes about 7.7 per cent to the global fish production and it ranks 4th in global exports of fish products.

Daily GA Updates

NHAI to collaborate with over 200 premier institutes to leverage local expertise

The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has received overwhelming response from many reputed Institutes for its initiative of collaborating with Premier Institutes to leverage local expertise. According to NHAI, as many as 18 IITs , 26 NITs and 190 other reputed Engineering colleges have agreed to collaborate with NHAI. Out of which, about 200 Institutes have already signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). Adoption of NH stretch by an Institute would facilitate stakeholder engagement and help to mitigate the routine local problems such as traffic hindrance, congestion, and immediate identification of accident-prone sites.

Health Minister chairs an event to mark National Newborn Week 2020

Health Minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan has chaired an event to mark the National Newborn Week 2020, being observed from 15th to 21st November to reinforce the importance of newborn health as a key priority area of the health sector and to reiterate the commitment at the highest level. This year, the theme of National Newborn Week is ‘Quality, Equity, Dignity for every newborn at every health facility and everywhere.

Daily GA Updates

Over 50,000 Ayushman Bharat Health & Wellness Centers set up across country reaching over 25 crore people

India touched a landmark milestone with operationalization of more than 50,000 Ayushman Bharat Health & Wellness Centres. This has led to improved access to affordable primary health care services for more than 25 crore people in the country. Ayushman Bharat Scheme was launched in 2018 which aimed at providing Comprehensive Primary Health Care services to the communities closer to their homes.

Around 1.5 lakh Health and Wellness Centres are to be established by the year 2022.

Govt releases backend code of Aarogya Setu App to enhance transparency

Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has released the backend code of Aarogya Setu App in open domain. The source code of the Android and iOS versions were released earlier and the backend source code is also being released as per the policy of Government of India to share all code repositories with developer community. The Ministry said, the App has been downloaded by more than 16.43 crore users and has greatly augmented the efforts of front line health workers in the fight against COVID19.

Daily GA Updates

‘Elephant Man’ Ajay Desai passes away in Belagavi

Field biologist and wildlife conservation expert Ajay Adrushyappa Desai passed away in Belagavi. He was 62. He was a pioneer in the study of elephant movements using radio collar and also a consultant to some State govts. He was currently part of a Supreme Court-constituted committee to study and prepare a report on Sigur elephant corridor. Desai was a member of the Asian Elephant Specialist Group of IUCN. He was part of the Project Elephant Task Force in 2010, where he along with another elephant expert and IISc Prof R Sukumar brought out the report ‘Gaja’.

RBI panel proposes to raise promoters cap to 26% in private banks

An Internal Working Group (IWG) of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has recommended raising the cap on promoters’ stake in private sector banks to 26% in the long run (15 years). The holding is currently mandated at 15% of the paid-up voting equity share capital of the bank. RBI panel moots allowing large corporates to start private banks after amending bank regulation law

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Competition Comm clears Reliance-Future Group deal

The Competition Commission has approved Reliance's proposed acquisition of retail, wholesale, logistics and warehousing businesses of Future Group. The Rs 24,713 crore deal that would boost Reliance Industries' fast growing retail business was announced in August. The regulator said it has approved "acquisition of retail, wholesale, logistics & warehousing businesses of Future Group by Reliance Retail Ventures Limited and Reliance Retail and Fashion Lifestyle Limited. Deals beyond a certain threshold require approval of the Competition Commission of India (CCI), which keeps a tab on unfair business practices across sectors.

SEBI moots easier dilution norms for large IPO issues

Markets regulator SEBI proposed to reduce the minimum offer size in an initial share sale, whereby companies with a post-issue capital of above Rs. 10,000 crore would be required to offer at least 5% stake in IPO. At present, all companies with a post-issue capital above Rs 4,000 crore are compulsorily required to dilute at least 10% shareholding in initial public offering. Accordingly, the regulator recommended that minimum public shareholding of 10% should be achieved in 18 months by such issuers and 25% within 3 years from the date of listing.

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Cricket: ICC postpones 2022 women's T-20 world cup till February 2023

The International Cricket Council has postponed the South African edition of the Women's T20 World Cup by three months to February 2023 to avoid a cluster of big-ticket events in 2022. The tournament, which was scheduled in November 2022, will now be held from February 9 to 26, 2023. In August this year, the ICC had postponed the 50 over Women's World Cup slated in New Zealand from 2021 to 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and women's T20 cricket is also set to make its debut in the 2022 Birmingham Commonwealth Games.

Tennis: Spain's Rafael Nadal beat defending champion Stefanos Tsitsipas to qualify for Semi finals of ATP Finals

Spain's Rafael Nadal beat defending champion Stefanos Tsitsipas 6-4 4-6 6-2 to qualify for the Semi finals of ATP Finals in London. The last round-robin match in the London Group had become a straight knockout with both the players having lost to Dominic Thiem and beaten Andrey Rublev earlier. Nadal will now face Daniil Medvedev in semi-finals with the Russian already assured of top spot in the Tokyo Group

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Siddhant in doubles final

Siddhant Banthia and Aidan Mchugh of Britain beat fourth seeds Kelsey Stevenson of Canada and Sidharth Rawat 6-3, 6-4 in the doubles semifinals of the $15,000 ITF men’s tennis tournament. Banthia and Mchugh, who had earlier beaten the top seeds Vladyslav Orlov and Arjun Kadhe, will play the final against Aldin Setkic of Bosnia & Herzegovina and Yaraslav Shyla of Belarus.