Daily Current Affairs: January 27, 2022

Daily Current Affairs (January 27, 2022) like many other sections is inevitable and this also helps to score in the Banking awareness, Static GK, and Financial Awareness sections. Remember, Banking Awareness, and Static Awareness Questions are asked from the General Awareness section. This will also help you to ride your preparations for the forthcoming exams.

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Important Days

International Holocaust Remembrance Day – 27 January

• The International Holocaust Remembrance Day was established by the United Nations General Assembly on 27 January to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust, which wiped out roughly two-thirds of Europe’s Jewish population between 1933 and 1945.
• The theme of the International Holocaust Remembrance Day for 2022 is ‘Memory, Dignity and Justice’.

National News

Prime Minister Narendra Modi virtually hosts the first meeting of the virtually India–Central Asia Summit

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi virtually hosted first India–Central Asia Summit to deliberate on steps to take forward relations to newer heights as well as the evolving regional security situation.
• This virtual summit will see the participation of five presidents of the Central Asian countries — Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and the Kyrgyz Republic.
• This will be the first engagement of its kind between India and the Central Asian countries at the level of leaders.
• This summit is a reflection of India’s growing engagement with the Central Asian countries, which are a part of India’s extended neighbourhood.

State News

Karnataka Government launches the Grama One programme

• Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai launched the ‘Grama One’ programme to offer various government departments services’ in rural areas of 12 districts in Karnataka.
• The documents, such as income, caste, residency certificates, RTCs (Rights, Tenancy & Crops) and other documents, will now be issued at the Grama One centres.
• Grama One centre at the gram panchayat would be linked to Tahsildar, Assistant Commissioner offices and Atal Seva Kendras to provide these services.
• A separate cell is set up with equipment and data entry operators in the offices of Tahsildars to receive these applications.
• The E-Governance Department will be monitoring and reviewing this programme. This programme will prevent people in villages from going to the Taluk offices and reduce corruption.

Karnataka        

• Capital: Bengaluru
• Chief Minister: Basavaraj Bommai
• Governor: Thaawarchand Gehlot
• National Parks: Anshi National Park, Kudremukh National Park, Bandipur National Park, Bannerghatta National Park, Rajiv Gandhi (Nagarahole) National Park

Andhra Pradesh is set to get 13 new districts

• Andhra Pradesh Government issued draft notifications for carving out 13 new districts out of the existing 13, taking the total number of districts to 26 for better administration and development of these areas.
• According to a notification issued by the Andhra Pradesh Government, the reorganisation of the districts is being done under Section 3 of the Andhra Pradesh Districts (Formation) Act, 1974.
• Andhra Pradesh has 25 Lok Sabha constituencies and each is supposed to be made into a revenue district.
• The Lok Sabha constituency of Araku is being split into two new districts as the size is too large and spread over many districts.
• The two new tribal districts will be: Manyam with headquarters in Parvathipuram and Alluri Sitarama Raju named after the legendary Telugu freedom fighter with its headquarters in Paderu.

Andhra Pradesh

• Capital: Amaravati
• Chief Minister: S.Jagan Mohan Reddy
• Governor: Biswa Bhushan Harichandan
• Folk Dances: Kuchipudi, Vilasini Natyam, Bhamakalpam, Veeranatyam
• National Parks: Sri Venkateswara National Park, Rajiv Gandhi National Park, Papikonda National Park

Kerala is set to establish India’s first graphene innovation centre

• India’s first innovation centre for graphene will be set up in Kerala by the Digital University Kerala (DUK), along with the Centre for Materials for Electronics Technology (C-MET) in Thrissur, for an investment of ₹86.41 crores (over $11.5 million).
• Tata Steel Limited is set to be the industrial partner of the graphene innovation centre.
• Graphene is known for its extraordinary electrical and electronic properties and as per the latest research, it could replace indium and bring down the cost of organic light-emitting diode (OLED) screens in smartphones.

Kerala

• Capital: Thiruvananthapuram
• Chief Minister: Pinarayi Vijayan
• Governor: Arif Mohammed Khan
• National Parks: Anamudi Shola National Park, Eravikulam National Park, Mathikettan Shola National Park, Pambadum Shola National Park, Periyar National Park, Silent Valley National Park

International News

India and France sign an MoU with scope for cooperation in health research

• India and France have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with scope for cooperation in health research. This MoU was signed between the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and Institut Pasteur of France.
• CSIR and Institut Pasteur will collaborate to research and focus on emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases and inherited disorders, allowing for the implementation of effective and inexpensive healthcare solutions for the benefit of not only the people of India and France but the entire world.
• This MoU provides for developing potential scientific and technological cooperation and networking in advanced and emerging areas of human health.

India and Israel launch a commemorative logo to mark the thirtieth anniversary of their diplomatic ties

• India and Israel launched a commemorative logo to mark the thirtieth anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between India and Israel.
• This logo features the Star of David and the Ashoka Chakra, the two symbols that adorn the national flags of both countries and form the numeral 30 depicting the thirtieth anniversary of their bilateral relations.
• This unique design represents the strong bonds of friendship, love and admiration that exist between Israelis and Indians and also depicts the growing strategic partnership between the two sides.
• This winning design of the commemorative logo was created by an Indian student, Nikhil Kumar Rai.

Banking & Economy

RBI conducts overnight Variable Rate Repo auction of ₹75,000 crores

• Reserve Bank of India conducted an overnight Variable Rate Repo (VRR) auction under liquidity adjustment facility (LAF) for an amount of ₹75,000 crores to augment the liquidity shortfall in the economy.
• The RBI had conducted an overnight VRR auction of ₹50,000 crores on 20 January.
• The RBI will continue to rebalance liquidity conditions in a non-disruptive manner while maintaining adequate liquidity to meet the needs of the productive sectors of the Indian economy.
• For the unversed, the RBI borrows money from the banks at the Reverse Repo rate. It borrows money in two parts, one at a fixed rate of interest and the other at a variable rate of interest.
• The RBI would focus more on the variable rate of interest for a maturity of 14 days.

Union Government approves the merger of Punjab and Maharashtra Co-operative Bank with Unity Small Finance Bank Limited

• The Punjab and Maharashtra Co-operative (PMC) Bank merges with Unity Small Finance Bank Limited (USFBL) under the approval of the Union Government with effect from 25 January 2022.
• The branches of PMC Bank will operate as Unity Small Finance Bank branches.
• This scheme of amalgamation envisages the USFBL taking over the assets and liabilities of PMC Bank, including deposits in terms of the provisions of this scheme.
• As per the Banking Regulation Act of 1949, a draft scheme of amalgamation is required to be placed before the Union Government for its sanction and the government may sanction the scheme without any modifications or with such modifications as it may consider necessary.
• Unity Small Finance Bank is the twelfth small finance bank in India and opened its first branch in Mumbai on 1 November 2021 with over ₹1,100crores of equity capital.

Bank of Maharashtra and Lendingkart partner to offer co-lending MSME loans

• Bank of Maharashtra has partnered with Lendingkart to offer co-lend business loans to micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME).
• Through this partnership, Lendingkart aims to make economical credit available to MSME borrowers at their doorstep powered by the ‘zero touch’ technology platform Lendingkart ‘2gthr’.
• Lendingkart’s ‘2gthr’ platform enables banks and non-banking financial companies (NBFC to seamlessly onboard and disburse unsecured business loans up to ₹10 lakhs to MSME borrowers.
• Under this arrangement, the Bank of Maharashtra will also leverage Lendingkart’s origination platform ‘xlr8’ to distribute MSME loans sourced through multi-channel strategies supporting its vision of financial inclusion.

Ranks and Indices

TCS becomes the second most valuable IT services brand globally

• According to Brand Finance, Tata Consultancy Services became the world’s second most valuable IT services brand, while Infosys (3^rd) and Wipro (7^th), HCL (8^th), Tech Mahindra (15^th) and LTI (22^nd) have solidified their positions among the top 25 IT services brands.
• Accenture has retained the title of the world’s most valuable and strongest IT services brand in the Global 500 IT Services Ranking report for the fourth consecutive year.
• Apple has retained its top position in the annual Brand Finance Global 500 rankings, followed by Amazon and Google.

Virat Kohli retains the second spot in the ICC Men’s ODI batting rankings

• Virat Kohli retained the second spot in the ICC Men’s ODI batting rankings followed by Rohit Sharma at the third spot.
• Pakistan skipper Babar Azam topped this list and South Africa’s Quinton De Kock jumped four spots to be ranked fifth, while his compatriot Rassie van der Dussen jumped 10 spots to break into the top 10.

India ranks 85^th in the Corruption Perception Index of 2021: Transparency International

• India was ranked in the 85^th spot from the 86^th rank in 2020 among 180 countries in the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) of 2021, according to a new report by Transparency International.
• Denmark, Finland and New Zealand topped the 2021 index.
• This index ranks 180 countries and territories by their perceived levels of public sector corruption according to experts and business people. It uses a scale of 0 to 100, where 0 is highly corrupt and 100 is very clean.
• Among those with weak scores are some of the world’s most populous countries such as China (45) and India (40) and other large economies such as Indonesia (38), Pakistan (28) and Bangladesh (26), according to a report by Transparency International.

Defence News

Indian Navy conducts a 20-day joint maritime exercise ‘Paschim Lehar’at the Arabian Sea

• The Indian Navy conducted a 20-day joint maritime exercise Paschim Lehar at the Arabian Sea to validate operational plans of the Western Naval Command and enhance inter-service synergy among the Indian Navy, Indian Air Force, Indian Army and Indian Coast Guard.
• This exercise is called XPL-22 and this intra-theatre exercise included mobilisation and participation of over 40 ships and submarines of the Indian Navy.
• This exercise provided all participating forces an opportunity to operate together under realistic conditions, responding to contemporary maritime challenges, across the areas of the Western Command’s responsibility.

Iran, China and Russia navies conduct the joint naval drill exercise named ‘CHIRU-2Q22’ in the Gulf of Oman

• China has sent its naval missile destroyer Urumqi to the Gulf of Oman as part of CHIRU-2Q22 joint drills with the Russian and Iranian navies to practice actions on ensuring international shipping safety and combating sea pirates.
• This is the third joint naval drill involving Iran, Russia and China since 2019 that will cover some 17,000 square kilometres and aims at boosting marine security.

Science & Technology

Meta builds the world’s fastest supercomputer named RSC

• Meta (formerly Facebook) has built the world’s fastest artificial intelligence (AI) supercomputer named RSC as a part of its ambitious plan to build a virtual metaverse in order to boost its capacity to process data.
• RSC will assist Meta’s AI researchers in developing new and improved AI models that can learn from trillions of examples, work across hundreds of languages, analyse text, photos and video in real time and develop new augmented reality (AR) capabilities, among other things.

Obituary

Olympic gymnastic gold medallist Szilveszter Csollany passed away

• Olympic gymnastic gold medalist Szilveszter Csollany from Hungary passed away at the age of 51 due to COVID-19.
• He won the gold medal in the men’s rings at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney.
• He won the title Hungarian Sportsman of the Year in 2000.
• He was again chosen as Sportsman of the Year in 2002 after winning a gold medal at that year’s World Artistic Gymnastics Championships.

Daily CA- 27 January One-Liners

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