General Awareness

NATIONAL AFFAIRS - December 2016

Dec 2016

Mar 10, 2020

Babulal Marandi's JVM(P) Merger with BJP Gets EC's Nod

The Election Commission of India (ECI) approved the merger of Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (Prajatantrik) party, led by Babulal Marandi with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Notably, JVM merged with the BJP at an event in New Delhi on February 17 in the presence of Union Home Minister and BJP leader Amit Shah.
Addressing the gathering, Shah had said, "I have been trying to bring Babulal Marandi into BJP since I was made BJP chief in 2014. Someone rightly said that he is quite stubborn. We couldn't persuade him easily. He has now joined BJP as per the wish of the people of Jharkhand."
The Union Home Minister had also stated that BJP will oppose attempts of encouraging Naxalism, terrorism and corruption.

Altaf Bukhari Launches New Political Party in J&K, 'Apni Party'

Former leader of People's Democratic Party (PDP) and Minister in Mehbooba Mufti's government, Altaf Bukhari, launched a new political party named 'Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) Apni Party'. He also said that the party would preserve the self-respect and dignity of the state and would ensure a dignified return of Kashmiri Pundits.
He also said that his party would want to end the mistrust between the state and New Delhi.
"We have to do business with Delhi, whosoever rules Delhi. We don't look at Delhi from the point of who is ruling in Delhi today. We look at it from the government of India. We have no hesitation in dealing with the government of India. There is an atmosphere of mistrust and we want to end the mistrust between New Delhi and J&K," Bukhari said.

Mar 09, 2020

Modi Launches 'She Inspires Us' Campaign

On the occasion of Women's Day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi handed over his social media accounts to women whose life, work inspire us. The Prime Minister made an announcement on his Twitter handle, as he launched the She Inspires Us campaign.

Mar 08, 2020

Centre Constitutes Delimitation Panel

The union government started the process of redrawing the Lok Sabha and assembly constituencies in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir and the northeastern states of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Nagaland. In 2002, the last delimitation was conducted across India but these states were left out due to various reasons.
A law ministry notification said that former Supreme Court judge Ranjana Prakash Desai has been appointed as the chairperson of the Delimitation Commission. In 2002, retd. Justice Kuldeep Singh acted as the chairman. Election commissioner Sushil Chandra and state election commissioners of J&K and the four states will be the ex officio members, the notificaiton said.
The Commission will delimit the constituencies of Jammu and Kashmir in accordance with the provisions the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, and of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Nagaland in accordance with the provisions of the Delimitation Act, 2002.
The delimitation in J&K comes nine months after the Article 370 was scrapped and the state was divided into two union territories. The Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019 which was cleared in Parliament in August 2019, mentioned new delimitation to redraw the constituencies of J&K according to section 62 of the Act.
In the four states of North East India, delimitation could not be carried out along with other Indian states due to prevailing security reasons. But now, the government thinks the situation has changed.

Agartala and Ghojadanga Authorised Land Immigration Posts

Tripura capital Agartala and West Bengal's Ghojadanga were designated by the government as authorised land immigration check posts to enter or exit India.
Both Agartala and Ghojadanga are located along the Indo-Bangladesh border.

Mar 07, 2020

Freedom in the World 2020 Report Ranks India among Least Free Democracies

According to the 'Freedom in the World 2020' report, which analyzes democratic values and people's freedom in 195 countries & 15 territories and ranks them category-wise, released by the Freedom House, a U.S (United States) -based watchdog that conducts research and advocacy on democracy, India ranked 83rd in the report along with Timor-Leste and Senegal in 'Free'category. Finland topped the list as the freest democratic country.

Railways Conducts Gender Euality Cmpaign

The Railways is conducting a ten-day long 'Each for Equal' campaign from March 1 to 10 across the Zonal Railways in view of the upcoming International Women's Day.
The International Women's Day will be celebrated across the world on Sunday.
"The theme of the Campaign is #EachforEqual signifying that collectively each one of us can help create a gender equal world and Railway is also focussing on #SheInspiresUs highlighting the inspiring stories of women achievers.
In this campaign, Indian Railways is highlighting the steps taken to provide exclusive facilities to women passengers, to empower women employees and enhance the role of women employees working in Indian Railways.

Govt. Reconstitutes National Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction

The government reconstituted the National Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction (NPDRR) with Union Home Minister Amit Shah as its chairperson and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, among others, as its members. The NPDRR is a multi-stakeholder and multi-sectoral decision making body on disaster management. In a notification, the home ministry said that the functions of the NPDRR will be to review the progress made in the field of disaster management from time to time, appraise the extent and manner in which the disaster management policy has been implemented by the central and state governments, and other agencies concerned, and advise on coordination between the central and state governments.
The minister of state in-charge of disaster management in the home ministry and the vice-chairman of the National Disaster Management Authority will be the NPDRR's vice chairpersons. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar, HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal 'Nishank', Health Minister Harsh Vardhan, Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Hardeep Singh Puri are among its members.
The minister of each state government and union territory dealing with disaster management, a member of the state disaster management authority, mayors of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad, and municipal commissioners of these cities will also be its members. Ten chairpersons of urban local bodies, to be nominated by the urban development ministry, 10 representatives of Panchayat Raj Institutions, to be nominated by the panchayat raj ministry, four Lok Sabha members, two Rajya Sabha members, and the Union home secretary and secretaries of departments concerned will be the NPDRR's ex-officio members, the notification said.

Mar 06, 2020

India & US Sign Deal for Missile Protection Suites for New Boeing-777 VVIP Planes

India signed Rs. 1,200 crore deal with the United States to procure the missile protection suites for two new Boeing-777 VVIP planes. The missile protection suites will be code named as 'Air Force One' and it will be expected to arrive India in middle of 2021 to begin VVIP planes.
Boeing-777 VVIP planes are being acquired for the purpose of President and Prime Minister's Domestic and International visits.
The features of self-protection suites include infrared and electronic warfare countermeasures suites, countermeasure dispensing systems, and missile warning sensors.
The aircraft will be operated by Indian Air Force pilots trained by Air India, which already maintained four Boeing 777 planes earlier.

Punjab Govt. to Install Statues of Religious Figures and Freedom Fighters

Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh approved the installation in the state statues of Hindu deity Parshuram, iconic king Maharaja Agrasen, legendary Sikh warrior Baba Banda Singh Bahadur, freedom fighter Baba Sohan Singh Bhakna and Father of the Indian Constitution Dr. B R Ambedkar. The decision has been taken to promote the nation's and the state's rich historical legacy.
The chief minister described the initiative as an instrument to connect the youth with the glorious past of their ancestors.
The Chief Minister gave approval to install a bronze statue of Lord Parshuram at Ludhiana and that of legendary Indian king of Agroha, Maharaja Agarsen, at Bathinda.
The statue of legendary Sikh warrior Baba Banda Singh Bahadur would be installed at Sirhind in Fatehgarh Sahib district, the statue of Ambedkar will be erected by Punjab Technical University in and around Phagwara or Jalandhar, while a bust in the memory of Baba Sohan Bhakna, to mark the 150th birth anniversary of the legendary freedom fighter, will be put up in Amritsar district.
Singh also gave in-principle approval for the installation of the statue of Baba Maharaj Singh in his native village Uchi Rabbon in Ludhiana district.
Recognising the immense contribution of Victoria Cross recipient and hero of Saragarhi battle Sepoy Ishar Singh, the CM also asked the steering committee to install his statue as a humble tribute to the iconic Sikh soldier in Ludhiana.

Maharashtra Government Renames Aurangabad Airport

The Maharashtra Government renamed the Aurangabad Airport as Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj Airport.
The airport has been renamed after Sambhaji Maharaj, the son of Maratha warrior Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj.
The decision was taken at a meeting of the state cabinet, chaired by Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray.
The BJP, a former ally of Shiv Sena, had reportedly demanded that the Shiv Sena-led Maharashtra government rename the city of Aurangabad as 'Sambhajinagar'.

MHA Approved Automated Facial Recognition System (AFRS)

The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) approved the automated facial recognition system (AFRS) by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) for better identification of unrecognized bodies, missing children, persons and criminals without violating the privacy. To provide this information, AFRS will use police records and it can be accessed only by law enforcement agencies.
Launched in 2019, AFRS is world's largest facial recognition system for automatic tracking, identification, and verification of person from digital images, photos, digital sketches, video frames and video sources by comparing selected facial features of the image from an already existing image database.
Currently, the leading face recognition software are Amazon Rekognition; Face Recognition and Face Detection by Lambda Labs, Microsoft Face API (application program interface); Google Cloud Vision and IBM Watson Visual Recognition, among others. In China, startup Megvii and AI unicorns like SenseTime, CloudWalk and Yitu have made facial recognition commonplace in China.

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