About:

• The decentralised energy model involving a large number of small generation devices can generate energy in every household and the excess energy thus produced can be evacuated to energy-deficient areas nearby.
  
  
• The team employed “electro-kinetic streaming potential” to harvest energy from flowing tap water and “contrasting inter-facial activities” entailing different types of semiconducting materials to generate power from stagnant water.
  
  
• Under it, when fluids stream through tiny channels that are charged, they can generate an electrical voltage, which may be harnessed through miniaturised generators.
  
  
• The electro-kinetic materials have not been harnessed until now.
  
  

States Reorganisation Act of 1956:

• The dispute between Maharashtra and Karnataka over Belgaum and other border areas is a longstanding issue between the two states.
  
  
• The erstwhile Bombay Presidency, a multilingual province, included the present-day Karnataka districts of Bijapur, Belgaum, Dharwar and Uttara-Kannada (previously North Kanara).
  
  
• However, the States Reorganisation Act of 1956, which divided states on linguistic and administrative lines, made Belgaum a part of the then Mysore State (renamed Karnataka in 1973).
  
  

Mahajan commission:

• The Maharashtra government contested the inclusion and lodged a protest with the Centre in September 1957. This led to the formation of the Mahajan Commission under former Chief Justice Mehr Chand Mahajan in October 1966.
  
  
• The Commission, which submitted its report in August 1967, recommended that 264 villages be transferred to Maharashtra and that Belgaum and 247 villages remain with Karnataka.
  
  
• Maharashtra rejected the report and continues to claim over 865 villages along the border, as well as Belgaum city, which are currently part of Karnataka.
  
  

Key findings of the report:

• The total tree and forest cover in the country has increased by 5,188 square kilometres in the last two years which includes an increase of 3,976 sq. km (0.56 per cent) of forest cover and 1,212 sq. km (1.29 per cent) of tree cover.
  
  
• The total tree and forest cover is around 25 per cent of the geographical area of the country.
  
  
• Karnataka tops the list of states followed by Andhra Pradesh and Kerala in terms of increase in forest cover.
  
  
• Forest cover in the hill districts of the country is 2,84,006 sq. km, which is 40.30% of the total geographical area of these districts. The current assessment shows an increase of 544 sq. km (0.19 per cent) in 140 hill districts of the country.
  
  
• There has been a decrease of forest cover to the extent of 765 sq. km (0.45%) in the north-east region. Except Assam and Tripura, all states in the region show a decrease in the forest cover.
  
  

About:

• The index documents the progress made by India’s States and Union Territories towards achieving the 2030 SDG targets.
  
  
• It has been developed by NITI Aayog in collaboration with the Ministry of Statistics, United Nations in India, and Global Green Growth Institute.
  
  
• The 2019 Index spans 16 out of 17 SDGs with a qualitative assessment on Goal 17. This marks an improvement over the 2018 Index, which covered only 13 goals.
  
  
• Classification criteria based on SDG India Index score is as follows:
  • Aspirant: 0–49
    
    
  • Performer: 50–64
    
    
  • Front Runner: 65–99
    
    
  • Achiever: 100
    
    
  
  
  
• If a State/UT achieves a score of 100, it signifies it has achieved the 2030 national targets. The higher the score of a State/UT, the closer it is towards achieving the targets.
  
  

Key findings:

• India’s composite score has improved from 57 in 2018 to 60 in 2019, thereby showing.
  
  
• The maximum gains been made in Goals 6 (clean water and sanitation), 9 (industry, innovation, and infrastructure) and 7 (affordable and clean energy).
  
  
• Kerala achieved the first rank in the composite SDG Index with a score of 70, followed by Himachal Pradesh at 69.
  
  
• The biggest improvers since 2018 are UP (which has moved from the 29th position to the 23rd), Orissa (23rd to 15th), and Sikkim (15th to 7th).
  
  

About:

The eGCA project is being implemented with TCS as Service Provider and PWC as Project Management Consultant.
The project has been conceptualized for automation of the processes and functions of DGCA.
The project envisages an end-to-end solution including various software applications, connectivity with all the regional offices, a ‘portal’ for dissemination of information and for providing online and speedy service delivery in a secure environment.
The eGCA project is expected to be completed by the end of year 2020.
With this launch, the issue of Commercial Pilot License (CPL-A) with Flight Radio Telephony Operators License (FRTOL) and Instrument Rating has been automated.
 The services were launched on the new DGCA website (www.dgca.gov.in).

About:

• Barring Mizoram, Lakshadweep, Himachal Pradesh and Bihar, none of the governments used even half of the sum granted in the past three years.
  
  
• The five best performers in terms of fund utilisation were Mizoram (65.12%), Lakshadweep (61.08%), Bihar (55.17%), Himachal Pradesh (53.29%) and Meghalaya (48.37%).
  
  
• The worst five performers were Punjab (0.45%), Karnataka (0.74%), Kerala (8.75%), Jharkhand (13.94%) and Assam (23.01%). 
  
  

About:

• Objective: The probe named Aditya-L1 will be sent by PSLV-XL from Sriharikota to observe the solar corona, the outer layers of the Sun.
  
  
• Its main payload is Visible Emission Line Coronagraph (VELC) which will study the diagnostic parameters of solar corona and dynamics and origin of Coronal Mass Ejections (3 visible and 1 Infra-Red channels).
  
  
• Features: It will be inserted in a halo orbit around the Lagrangian point 1 (L1) of the Sun-Earth system, which is 1.5 million km from the Earth.
  
  
• Significance of Mission:
  • A Satellite placed in the halo orbit around the Lagrangian point 1 (L1) of the Sun-Earth system has the major advantage of continuously viewing the Sun without any eclipses.
    
    
  • Only NASA and ESA have successfully placed satellites at the L1 point as of date.
    
    
  • This will be the first Indian space mission to study the Sun.
    
    
  • It will be India’s third big extra-terrestrial outing after Moon and Mars. 
    
    
  
  
  

About:

• According to RBI, Rating shopping refers to how, a company or a debt paper manages to get same or better rating from another agency within three months of it getting a poor rating.
  
  
• In the 25th edition of the Financial Stability Report, RBI has warned of 'rating shopping' by companies for long-term bank loans based on indicative ratings given by CRAs which are not available to the banks or investors.
  
  
• Rating agencies have been largely blamed for their lax policies and oversight for the 2008 global financial crisis.
  
  
• A fortnight before IL&FS went belly up in September 2018, rating agencies India Ratings, Icra and Care had given its debt papers AAA/AA+ ratings. 
  
  

About:

• From 2020, people in the UT of Jammu and Kashmir will have a public holiday on October 26 for the first time.
  
  
• The day, which will be observed as Accession Day, marks the signing of the Instrument of Accession by the last Dogra ruler of J&K, Maharaja Hari Singh, with the then Governor-General of India, Lord Mountbatten.
  
  
• Like the UT of Ladakh, J&K has also dropped Martyr’s Day — which the erstwhile state observed on July 13 to mark the deaths of the 22 people who lost their lives when the Maharaja’s forces opened fire on them — and December 5, which marks the birth anniversary of Sheikh Abdullah, former prime minister and chief minister of J&K. 
  
  

About:

• The Drake Passage is located between Cape Horn at the tip of South America and the Antarctic Peninsula. The passage is named after Sir Francis Drake, who was the first Englishman to circumnavigate the globe.
  
  
• It is also the narrowest stretch in the Southern Ocean and spans approximately 800 km between the southern tip of South America and the northern tip of the West Antarctic Peninsula.
  
  
• It is considered one of the roughest waterways in the world because here, layers of cold seawater from the south and warm seawater from the north collide to form powerful eddies.
  
  

Do you know?

• The six men rowed for 12 days, 1 hour and 45 minutes, making it the first completely human-powered crossing of the passage, which was confirmed by the Guinness World Records (GWR).
  
  
• As per the GWR, the row represents, among other firsts, the first row on the Southern Ocean, the first row across the Drake Passage and the first row to the Antarctic continent. 
  
  

About:

• The original Preamble, adopted by the Constituent Assembly in 1949, declared India a “Sovereign Democratic Republic”.
  
  
• By the 42nd Amendment of 1976, the words “Socialist” and “Secular” were inserted; the Preamble now reads “Sovereign Socialist Secular Democratic Republic”.
  
  
• The Preamble is based on the Objective Resolution moved by Jawaharlal Nehru in the Constituent Assembly on December 13, 1946. The Resolution was adopted on January 22, 1947. 
  
  

About:

• Dadasaheb Phalke award, India's highest award in cinema, is presented annually by the Directorate of Film Festivals (an organisation set up by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting).
  
  
• The award prize consists of a golden lotus, a cash prize of ₹10 lakh and a shawl.
  
  
• The award is given to people for their "outstanding contribution to the growth and development of Indian cinema".
  
  
• It was first presented in 1969. The first recipient of the award was actress Devika Rani, “the first lady of Indian cinema.” 
  
  

About:

• Public Sector Banks (PSBs) have attached assets worth over Rs. 2.3 lakh crore over the last three financial years.
  
  
• To enable online auction by banks of attached assets transparently for improved realisation of value, eBक्रय, a common e-auction platform has been launched by the Finance Minister.
  
  
• The platform is equipped with property search features and navigational links to all PSB e-auction sites, provides single-window access to information on properties up for e-auction as well as facility for comparison of similar properties. 
  
  

About:

• The global trend has largely been to move away from executions and death sentences.
  
  
• According to Amnesty International, at least 690 executions were carried out in 20 countries in 2018, which is a decrease of over 31 per cent compared to 2017. The most executions were carried out in China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam and Iraq.
  
  
• The methods used to execute people included beheading, electrocution, hanging, lethal injection and shooting.
  
  
• In 2018, while Burkina Faso abolished the death penalty, Gambia and Malaysia both declared an official moratorium on executions and in the US, the death penalty statute in the state of Washington was declared unconstitutional in October 2018.
  
  
• As of 2018, while over 106 countries abolished the death penalty in law for all crimes, roughly 142 countries abolished the death penalty in law or practice. 
  
  

About:

• The high-level panel under Pronab Sen will review and develop the country’s surveys on employment, industry and services sector amid criticism of official statistics.
  
  
• It will review the existing framework of data sources, indicators and definitions of index of industrial production, periodic labour force survey, time use survey, economic census and unorganised sector statistics, among others.
  
  
• The SCES will subsume in it the four standing committees on labour force statistics, industrial statistics, services sector and unincorporated sector enterprises.
  
  
• Earlier, in March this year, expressing concern over “political interference” in influencing statistical data in India, as many as 108 economists and social scientists had called for restoration of “institutional independence” and integrity to the statistical organisations. 
  
  

About:

• The Centre has the power to deport foreign nationals staying illegally in the country under Section 3(2)(c) of The Foreigners Act, 1946.
  
  
• State governments have also been entrusted under Article 258(1) of the Constitution to take similar steps.
  
  
• In 1998, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) asked all States/UTs to restrict the movement of convicted foreign nationals who had completed their jail sentence and confine them detention centres/camps, pending confirmation of their nationality from the country concerned.
  
  
• The centres are also used to hold foreigners who have been caught overstaying their visa term.
  
  
• in January 2019, a detailed manual on “model detention centres” was circulated to make a distinction between “jails and detention centres”. 
  
  

About:

• The PPI-MD is being modified to introduce this new type of PPI. The other instructions contained in the PPI-MD will be applicable to this type of PPI also.
  
  
• The directive is issued under Section 18 read with Section 10(2) of Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007 and is effective from the date of issuance of this circular. 
  
  

Salient features:

• Such PPIs shall be issued by bank and non-bank PPI Issuers.
  
  
• These PPIs shall be reloadable in nature and issued in card or electronic form. Loading / Reloading shall be only from a bank account.
  
  
• The amount loaded in such PPIs during any month shall not exceed ₹ 10,000 and the total amount loaded during the financial year shall not exceed ₹ 1,20,000.
  
  
• The amount outstanding at any point of time in such PPIs shall not exceed ₹ 10,000.
  
  
• These PPIs shall be used only for purchase of goods and services and not for funds transfer.
  
  
• The minimum detail PPIs existing as on the date of this circular can be converted to the above type of PPI, if desired by the PPI holder.
  
  

About:

• Nathu La is a mountain pass in the Himalayas connecting Sikkim with Chumbi Valley of the Tibetan Plateau in China.
  
  
• it is one of the three open trading border posts between China and India; the others being Shipkila in Himachal Pradesh and Lipulekh at the trisection point of Uttarakhand–India, Nepal and China.
  
  
• Nathu La pass was re-opened in 2006 to shorten the travel distance to important Hindu and Buddhist pilgrimage sites in the region and give a boost to Indo-China trade.
  
  
• It is also one of the five officially agreed Border Personnel Meeting points between the Indian Army and the People's Liberation Army of China for regular consultations and interactions between the two armies to improve relations. 
  
  

About:

• MyGov is a citizen engagement platform founded by the Government of India to promote the active participation of Indian citizens in their country's governance and development.
  
  
• It is aimed at creating a common platform for Indian citizens to "crowdsource governance ideas from citizens". Its users discuss and contribute to various government projects and plans.
  
  
• The website is hosted and managed by the National Informatics Centre (NIC).
  
  
• It was launched in 2014.
  
  

About:

• Earlier, on December 17, Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy had hinted that Andhra Pradesh could have three decentralised capitals, on the lines of South Africa.
  
  
• The new capital being developed at Amaravati, Reddy hinted, could become the “Legislative Capital”, port city Visakhapatnam the “Executive Capital” and Kurnool the “Judicial Capital”.
  
  

South Africa Model:

• Three cities serve as capitals of the country– Pretoria (executive), Cape Town (legislative), and Bloemfontein (judicial).
  
  
• This arrangement was a result of the Second Boer War (1899-1902) in which Britain annexed the two Afrikaner speaking states -– the Orange Free State and the South African Republic (also called Transvaal Republic).
  
  
• Cape of Good Hope then remained in the British Empire, becoming self-governing in 1872, and uniting with three other colonies to form the Union of South Africa in 1910. 
  
  

About:

• SnowEx is a five year program initiated and funded by NASA.
  
  
• The goal is to address the most important gaps in our snow remote sensing knowledge, and thus lay the groundwork for a future snow satellite mission
  
  
• The geographical focus of SnowEx is proposed as North America, which contains the six broad snow climate categories identified in the literature: tundra (alpine or Arctic), taiga (Boreal forest), warm (temperate) forest, maritime, prairie, and ephemeral.
  
  
• Within its geographic range, SnowEx assesses where snow has fallen, how much there is and how its characteristics change as it melts. 
  
  

About:

• Nehru wanted Indian engineering schools to be among the best in the world, so he enlisted some of the leading higher education institutions of the West to develop them.
  
  
• The first IIT at Kharagpur in West Bengal established in 1951 drew faculty members from the US, UK, Ireland, France, USSR, Germany, Norway, Sweden, and Poland.
  
  
• For the second IIT at Bombay, UNESCO arranged the donation of equipment and technical expertise from the Soviet Union and other Eastern bloc countries in 1956
  
  
• The third IIT was set up at Madras in 1959 after West Germany offered assistance to set up the institute during Prime Minister Nehru’s visit to the country in 1956.
  
  
• Established in 1959, IIT Kanpur was developed under a collaboration with American researchers. 
  
  

About:

• The RBI has created a CRILC of commercial banks, all India financial institutions and certain non-banking financial companies with multiple objectives, which, among others, include strengthening offsite supervision and early recognition of financial distress.
  
  
• With a view to building a similar database of large credits extended by primary (urban) co-operative banks (UCBs), it has been decided to bring UCBs with assets of ₹500 crores and above under the CRILC reporting framework.  
  
  

About:

• A cold-day condition is said to prevail when the maximum temperature during the day is at least 4.5°C below normal. If the maximum temperature is at least 6.5°C below normal, it is classified as a severe cold day.
  
  
• The cold wave usually arrives from the west, through the Western Disturbance wind system. This system is also responsible for causing rains in northern and northwestern parts, after having picked up moisture on its way from the Mediterranean Sea.
  
  
• The intensity of the cold also depends on the amount of snowfall that happens in Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh and nearby areas. 
  
  

About:

• Aadhaar is a 12-digit unique identity number that can be obtained voluntarily by residents or passport holders of India, based on their biometric and demographic data.
  
  
• The data is collected by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), a statutory authority established in 2009 by the government of India, under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.
  
  
• The data is gathered under the provisions of the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and other Subsidies, benefits and services) Act, 2016.
  
  
• In September 2018, the Supreme court upheld the validity of the Aadhaar system. 
  
  

About:

• Several OCI card holders were not able to travel to India due to this and many were stopped by airlines and immigration authorities at various airports due to the mismatch.
  
  
• According to a recent order, an OCI card holder is required to re-register each time a new passport is issued till 20 years of age and once after 50 years of age but re-issuance of OCI registration is not mandatory each time a new passport is issued between the ages of 21 and 50.
  
  
• In order to facilitate OCI card holders, this requirement has been relaxed till 30th June 2020 as per MHA instructions dated December 17. The OCI cardholder should carry existing OCI card along with Old and New passport. 
  
  

About:

• The Russian origin aircraft was inducted in IAF in 1985 the IAF has flown 165 MiG-27 fighters and has been the backbone of ground attack fleet for the past four decades.
  
  
• Why it has been decommissioned? Every aircraft has a life and though it had been upgraded it has completed its operational life cycle. There have been several technical issues reported by the pilots.
  
  
• IAF has been gradually retiring the Russian MiG variants of fighters from service including the MiG-23 BN & MiG-23 MF and the pure MiG 27 have already retired earlier. The MiG-29 UPG will be operated by the IAF and the Indian Navy will operate two squadrons of the MiG-29K/KUB off its aircraft carriers. 
  
  

About:

• ‘Jana Gana Mana’ is the first stanza of the Bengali hymn ‘Bharoto Bhagyo Bidhata’, written by Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore.
  
  
• A slightly varied version of the song was adopted by Subhash Chandra Bose’s Indian National Army in 1941 as the national anthem, called ‘Shubh Sukh Chain’, which also became popular in India since.
  
  
• On August 15, 1947, Captain Thakuri of the INA, who had given music to the ‘Subh Sukh Chain’ version, was invited to play with members of his orchestra group.
  
  
• ‘Jana Gana Mana’ was adopted as the country’s National Anthem by the Constituent Assembly of India on January 24, 1950, the last day of its last session. 
  
  

About:

• Shraddhanand was born in 1856 at village Talwan in Jalandhar district in Punjab province. In the early 1880s, he came into contact with Swami Dayanand, the founder of the Arya Samaj.
  
  
• Shraddhanand wrote a book called “Hindu Sangathan”.
  
  
• By 1923, he focussed primarily on the shuddhi movement (re-conversion to Hinduism). In 1923, he became the president of Bhartiya Hindu Shuddhi Sabha, created with an aim of reconverting Muslims, specifically 'Malkana Rajputs' in the western United Province.
  
  
• This brought him into direct confrontation with Muslim clerics and leaders of the time. 
  
  

About:

• Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) has published an Indian Standard for identification, marking and labelling of Pashmina products to certify its purity in August this year.
  
  
• Two new National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) campuses will be set up at Panchkula (Haryana) and Ranchi (Jharkhand). At present, NIFT has 16 Campuses all over India.
  
  
• The Government is implementing the Scheme for Integrated Textile Park (SITP) which provides support for creation of world-class infrastructure facilities for setting up of textile units, with a Government of India grant up to 40% of the project cost. the share is 90% in North-east and hilly states.
  
  
• The Government has approved a skill development scheme titled SAMARTH, a Scheme for Capacity Building in Textile Sector, covering the entire value chain of the textile sector on pan India basis for a period of three years from 2017-18 to 2019-20.
  
  
• Under Powertex India 4797 looms have been upgraded under the in-situ Upgradation Scheme for Plain Powerloom.
  
  
• For the welfare of jute farmers the JUTE – ICARE (Improved Cultivation and Advanced Retting Exercise) has been launched to promote scientific practices related to Jute Cultivation for Quality & Quantity improvements.
  
  
• The Comprehensive Handloom Cluster Development Scheme (CHCDS) is targeted at development of Mega Handloom Clusters in clearly identifiable geographical locations covering at least 15000 handlooms with the Government of India.