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1. Delhi AIIMS’ Professor Suresh Chandra

Sharma was recently appointed as the first
Chairman of NMC (National Medical
Commission). 

2.  4. Major General Qassem Soleimani, the

Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander,  was
recently killed in a US strike at Baghdad
International Airport.

He was the long-serving head of Iran’s Quds (“Jerusalem”) Force and has
been seen as a deadly adversary by America and its allies.

1. Union Minister of Finance released a report of

the task force on National Infrastructure
Pipeline for 2019-2025 (NIP 2019-25)
inorder to achieve the $5 trillion economy
by 2024-25.

Based on the recommendations of the task force

headed by Economic Affairs Secretary Atanu
Chakraborty, Rs 102 lakh crores has been projected on the capital
expenditure in infrastructure sectors in India during the fiscals 2020
to 2025. 

The capital expenditure will be shared by the Centre, States and the
private sector in the ratio 39:39:22 respectively.

3. The central government has formed a 7-member group of

ministers (GoM) headed by Defense Minister Rajnath Singh to
review the crop insurance scheme, “Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana
(PMFBY)” & make suggestions to improve it according to the needs of the
farmers.

4. Union Health Minister has launched NetSCoFAN, a network of eight

research & academic institutions working in the area of food & nutrition.

1. Interest rates on Small Savings Schemes

(SSS) of the post office for the fourth quarter
of the FY  2019-20 (January – March 31):

Public Provident Fund (PPF):     7.9%

National Savings Certificate (NSC):     7.9%

Kisan Vikas Patra (KVP):  7.6% (113 months

maturity)

Sukanya Samriddhi Account:     8.4%

2. Reserve Bank of India launched a mobile app named “MANI”

(Mobile Aided Note Identifier) that would help visually impaired people
to identify the denomination of currency notes correctly. The app,
however, does not authenticate whether a note is either genuine or
counterfeit.

3. Recently Uttar Pradesh based Shivalik Mercantile Co-operative Bank

Ltd became the first Co-operative bank to convert to a small
finance bank (SFB) after RBI gave it’s the required approval.

4. RBI has enabled Category-I banks (banks which are authorized under
Section 10 (1) of FEMA) to offer 24×7 trading in the Indian rupee to
allow Indians to safeguard their foreign exchange (Forex) risks at
any time.

5. Indian bank has signed an MoU with Women Entrepreneurs

Welfare Association (WEWA) of Tamil Nadu to provide training and
credit linkage to its women entrepreneurs to establish business.

1. According to the data released by the

Department for Promotion of Industry and
Internal Trade (DPIIT), FDI in India rose 15%
to $26 billion in the first half of FY2020.
Singapore continued to be the largest source of
FDI followed by Mauritius.

2. IRDAI has mandated all the health and

General Insurance Companies (GICs) to offer 1st of its kind
standardized health insurance products (SHIP) in the name “Arogya
Sanjeevani” policy with effect from April 1, 2020. All the health products
offered by those companies will be succeeded by this name.

Under the Arogya Sanjeevani plan, the minimum sum insured will be
Rs. 1 lakh while the maximum sum insured limit will be Rs. 5 lakhs
(in multiples of 50,000).

3. National Stock Exchange (NSE) launched ‘NSE Knowledge Hub’ an

Artificial Intelligence-powered learning platform to enhance skills for
their employees.

1. Piyuus Jaiswal has been awarded the Global

Bihar Excellence Award 2019 for his
invaluable and outstanding contribution towards
social welfare, women empowerment and
introducing new talent in the field of arts and
culture.

2. A Dubai-based Indian girl, Sucheta Satish,  who sings in 120

languages, has won the ‘100 Global Child Prodigy Award 2020′ in the
category of singing.

1. Geneva headquartered World Health

Organisation (WHO) has designated 2020 as
the International Year of Nurse and
Midwife.

2. Prime Minister inaugurated 107th Indian

Science Congress (ISC) at the University of Agricultural Sciences (UAS) in
Bengaluru.

The theme of ISC for the year 2020 was “Science and Technology: Rural
Development”.

3. Indo-Oman bilateral naval exercise ‘Naseem-Al-Bahr’ was held off

Mormugao port, Goa recently.

4. 4th   edition of the Buxa Bird Festival 2020 was held in Buxa
National Park in the Alipurduar district of West Bengal.
5. Recently, the 80th  session of the Indian History Congress (IHC)
was held at Kannur, Kerala. It was called upon political and
administrative authorities to pursue the constitutional duty of promoting
composite culture, which is vital to promoting the territorial unity of India.

6. 202nd anniversary of the Bhima-Koregaon battle of 1818 was

observed on January 1, 2020.

Battle was fought in Bhima Koregaon, a district in Pune with a strong

historical Dalit connection, between the Peshwa forces and the British
on January 1, 1818.

7. The birth anniversary of Guru Gobind Singh was celebrated on

January 2nd  this year. He was the 10th Sikh guru. He was born at Patna,
Bihar, India, on December 22, 1666.

World Braille Day: January 4

1. According to the India Meteorological

Department (IMD), 2019 was the 7th
warmest year in India since 1901. Most
warming observed was 2016.

Awards

1. Hardeep Singh Puri announced the results of

Swachh Survekshan League 2020. Among
the cities with more than 10 lakh population
category, Indore was ranked first in both the
first and second quarters.

2. Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)

has inked a pact with Indian Institute of
Astrophysics (IIA) to pave the way for collaboration in establishing
optical telescope facilities under Project ‘NETRA’ for tracking space
objects.

3. ISRO Chairman K. Sivan has announced that the second launch

port of ISRO will be established in Thoothukodi district of Tamil
Nadu to launch small satellite vehicles.

4. Department of Heavy Industries had sanctioned 2636 EV (Electric

Vehicles) charging stations in 62 cities across 24 State/UTs under
FAME India (Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Electric Vehicles in
India) scheme phase II to clean the mobility in Road Transport Sector.

5. Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) opened its first Silk
Processing Plant in the Surendranagar district of Gujarat to increase
the production of Gujarat Patola Sarees.

6. Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has set up a New, Emerging and

Strategic Technologies (NEST) division which helps to deal with
new and emerging technologies. NEST helps to partner with 5G and
artificial intelligence areas of other countries.

7. Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) sets its fourth Regional

Academic Centre for Space (RAC-S) at the National Institute of
Technology (NIT), Karnataka at Surathkal in Mangaluru. First RAC-S in
Jaipur, second at Guwahati and third at Kurukshetra.

8. Union Government has announced to establish new World- Class

facility center for training astronauts at Challakere in Chitradurga
district of Karnataka.

9. The Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) will observe 2020 as the
‘Year of Mobility’. It aims for the creation of more residential units and
the implementation of various welfare measures for the troops.

10. Uttar Pradesh became the first state in India to conduct an

exercise to shortlist migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and
Afghanistan for eligibility under the new Citizenship Amendment Act
(CAA) 2019.

11. Political Parties Registration Tracking Management System (PPRTMS),

a new online tracking system for political parties was launched
recently by the Election Commission of India.

1. Maharashtra has become the first state

in the country to integrate its land records
with the web portal of the Pradhan Mantri
Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY). This will help in
checking the cases of “over-insurance” —
insurance of more land than in possession — as
well as insurance of ineligible people.

2. The government of Delhi has renamed Pragati Maidan metro

station as Supreme Court metro station.

The committee has also decided to rename Mukarba Chowk and its flyover
after Kargil war martyr Captain Vikram Batra, MB Road as Acharya Sri
Mahapragya Marg and The Lajpat Nagar flyover to Jhulelal Setu.

3. Malavath Poorna from Telangana (CM: KCR Rao, Governor: Dr.

Tamilisai Soundararajan) scaled Mt Vinson Massif, the highest mountain
peak in Antarctica and becomes the first and youngest tribal women in
the World to scale six mountain peaks in six continents.

4. “Lai Haraoba”, a ritualistic festival observed by Manipuri meitei

communities since ancient times was held in Agartala, Tripura (CM:
Biplab Kumar Deb, Governor: Ramesh Bais) recently.

5. President Ram Nath Kovind, launched a mobile app named

“Telangana Red Cross” of the Red Cross Society of India in Hyderabad,
Telangana. Access to blood bank and red Cross membership will be made
easy through this app.

7. Maharashtra cyber police launched ‘Cyber Safe Women’

campaign to mark the birth anniversary of a social reformer, Savitribai
Phule in Maharashtra.

8. Telangana government has declared 2020 as the year of Artificial

Intelligence (AI) and has signed MoUs with various companies and IIT-
Kharagpur to make way for technological advancements in the state.

9. First 20-ft tall smog tower in Delhi, which is used to purify the air,
has been installed at south Delhi’s Lajpat Nagar market.

10. Malayali novelist A Sethumadhavan’s ‘The Cuckoo’s Nest’   his

first novel was published recently.

11. Kerala government has announced to adopt Miyawaki (developed

by a Japanese botanist after whom it is named) method of afforestation
to come up on the government office premises, residential complexes,
school premises.

1. Palau (Capital: Ngerulmud, Currency: US

Dollar), a pacific country has become the first
nation to ban sun cream which damages the
coral reefs, sea life and are toxic to juvenile
wildlife species.

2. Export-Import (Exim) Bank, has given a

$75 million line of credit to Cuba (Capital:
Havana, Currency: Peso) for financing 75 MW (megawatt) Photovoltaic
Solar Parks.

3. A jury of 350 US linguists of the American Dialect Society (ADS) chose

‘they’ as their Word of the Decade to recognize its growing use to refer
to a person whose gender identity is non-binary. The most popular pick
for the Word of the Year 2019 was “my” pronoun.

4. Vietnamese capital city Hanoi recently joined the UNESCO Creative

Cities Network (UCCN). To date, the UCCN has granted membership to
246 cities around the world.

1. Cristiano Ronaldo of Portugal was

awarded by 11th Dubai Globe Soccer Awards
2019 as the best men’s player of the year in
the international football.

2. Cricketer Rohit Sharma laid the

foundation stone for international cricket
stadium and training centre at Heartfulness
Institute headquarters in Hyderabad.

Named as ‘Rohit Sharma Cricket Stadium’, the facility will help the
young Heartfulness practitioners to hone their cricketing skills.

3. In this year’s Khelo India Youth Games (to be held in Guwahati later
this month) two news sports “Lawn bowls” and “Cycling” have been
included.

4. India’s grandmaster Magesh Chandran Panchanathan from

Madurai won the prestigious Hastings International Chess title held in
Hastings, England.

5. Manav Thakar an Indian table tennis player from Uttar Pradesh

recently became the world’s No.1 player U-21 (Under-21) in Men’s
single category rankings of IITF (International Table Tennis Federation)
headquartered at Lausanne, Switzerland.

6. First edition of the 2020 Khelo India University Games (KIUG) would
be hosted by Bhubaneswar, Odisha.
7. Former Indian Cricketer Irfan Pathan announced retirement from all
forms of cricket recently.

8. 63rd  National Shooting Championship Competitions (NSCC) 2019

in Small Bore Rifle & Pistol events was held in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh.

Shooter Zeena Khitta of Himachal Pradesh has won the gold medal of
the 10-meter air rifle event. Manu Bhaker of Haryana has bagged 4 gold
medals in different events in the women’s 10-meter air pistol event.

Shooter Anish Bhanwala has clinched gold medal in the senior men’s 25-
meter rapid fire pistol event.  Saurabh Chaudhary has won the gold medal
in the men’s 10-meter air pistol event.

9. Leo Carter, the first New Zealand batsman, became the seventh
player in world cricket to hit 6 sixes across all formats in both
domestic and international levels.

1. General Secretary of the Nationalist Congress

Party (NCP)    former MP Devi Prasad Tripathi
passed away.and

2. Former Western Army Commander

Lieutenant General Prem Nath Hoon passed
away in Chandigarh.

3. Assamese dramatist, writer and social activist Ratna Ojha passed

away in Guwahati, Assam.

4. Freedom fighter Bhim Chandra Jana  passed away in Howrah, West

Bengal.

5, Renowned painter and artist Akbar Padamsee passed away

recently.

6. Former Karnataka Governor Triloki Nath Chaturvedi passed away

in Noida, Uttar Pradesh.

7. Former MP of the country’s first Lok Sabha – constituted in 1952

and Kamal Bahadur Singh passed away recently.

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