Current GK

decemBER 2020
SNIPPETS (01 TO 15)
 Awards & Honors
Veteran actor, Naseeruddin Shah, received the Aditya
Vikram Birla Kalashikhar Puraskar 2020 at the Sangit
Kala Kendra Awards virtual function.
Popular Indian music composer, A.R.Rahman, has been
roped in as ambassador of BAFTA’s (British Academy of
Film and Television Arts) ‘Breakthrough’ initiative in India
for 2020-21.
Indian-American Gitanjali Rao, a “brilliant” young scientist,
has been named by TIME magazine as the first-ever ‘Kid
of the Year’.
India’s Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT), located
at Pune, has been selected as a ‘Milestone’ facility by the
U.S.-based Institute of Electrical and Electronics
Engineers (IEEE), which is the world’s largest technical
professional organization dedicated to advancing
technology in all areas related to electrical and electronics
engineering.
British Indian author, journalist and broadcaster, Anita
Anand, won the PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize 2020 for her
‘genuine historical classic’ The Patient Assassin: A True
Tale of Massacre, Revenge and the Raj.

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 Business & Corporate
Indian-American business executive and Adobe CEO,
Shantanu Narayen, has been ranked 8th by Fortune on its
‘Businessperson of the Year 2020’ list.
India’s homegrown dairy giant Amul has emerged as the
8th largest milk processor globally in the list of top 20
released by the International Farm Comparison Network
(IFCN), a global dairy research network.
Sandeep Kataria has been appointed as the global CEO of
multinational footwear and fashion accessory
manufacturer and retailer, Bata.
Indian engineering and manufacturing company, Bharat
Heavy Electricals Limited, set a new record by
successfully manufacturing and testing India’s highest-
rated auto transformer, a new benchmark in the global
transformer industry.
Facebook-backed Libra cryptocurrency recently changed
its name to Diem, in an attempt to reinforce the project’s
growing maturity and independence.
India’s oldest industry body, FICCI (Federation of Indian
Chambers of Commerce and Industry), elected Uday
Shankar as its new president, the first time ever that a
media and entertainment executive will lead a national
industry chamber.

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Roshni Nadar, the chairperson of HCL Technologies, has
been named India’s wealthiest woman for 2020,
according to the Kotak Wealth Hurun - Leading Wealthy
Women list.
Consumer goods major HUL appointed Bollywood actor,
Akshay Kumar, as the brand ambassador of its
relaunched adult nutrition brand, Horlicks Protein Plus.
IOC, a public sector oil and gas company, launched the
nation’s first 100 Octane petrol, helping India join a select
league of nations globally that have such superior quality
fuel.
Chairman of Indian Oil Corporation, Shrikant Madhav
Vaidya, has been appointed as the first Vice President of
the World Liquefied Petroleum Gas Association (WLPGA),
an authoritative voice of the LPG industry across the
globe which represents the complete LPG value chain.
Global cybersecurity firm, Kaspersky, signed a pact with
the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-
In) to assist the Indian cybersecurity agency in cyber
incident management, critical information protection,
capacity building and enhancing users’ trust in digital
technologies.
Noted Indian industrialist and owner of the MDH Masala
brand, Dharampal Gulati, often called the grand old man
of spices, passed away at 97.

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Chinese hydropower company, PowerChina, will construct
the first downstream dam on the lower reaches of the
Brahmaputra River, or Yarlung Zangbo as it is known in
Tibet, marking a new phase in China’s hydropower
exploitation of the river with potential ramifications for
India.
RIL topped the 2020 Fortune 500 list of Indian companies.
Senior business journalist Amrit Raj authored his new
book “Indian Icon: A Cult Called Royal Enfield”, which
maps the gripping story of the homegrown auto brand
with a strong presence in the global market.
Adar Poonawalla, the chief executive of the world's
largest vaccine manufacturer Serum Institute of India, is
among six people named "Asians of the Year" by
Singapore's leading daily, ‘The Straits Times’ for their
work in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.
Elon Musk, a global business magnate and founder & CEO
of SpaceX, topped ‘Fortune 2020 Businessperson of the
Year’ for a second time.
Leading sales coach, business consultant and India’s first
woman author on sales, Nidhi Vadhera, authored the book
“Romancing Targets: Get Closer to Selling in 7 Steps”.
Nidhi is the founder director of Vertical Hyphen Sourcing
Inc.

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 Committees/Schemes/Meetings/Agreements
 The union government announced the third
stimulus package of Rs. 900-crore for India’s Covid-
19 vaccine development mission, namely Mission
COVID Suraksha.
 India and France launched a bilateral fast track
mechanism in investments.
 ‘Sahakar Pragya’, a union government initiative
launched recently, intends to ‘train farmers in
primary cooperatives in rural areas’.
 ‘Orunodoi’, a massive beneficiary scheme covering
almost 22 lakh households across the state, was
launched by state governments of Assam.
 NABARD (National Bank for Agriculture and Rural
Development) signed an MoU (Memorandum of
Understanding) with SBI (State Bank of India) to
take up joint intervention projects in Karnataka.
 HDFC Life in association with Ketto India has
initiated a nationwide crowdfunding campaign
‘PromisewalaDabba’, with an aim to help the
Dabbawalas of Mumbai stand on their feet once
again after being hit hard by the coronavirus
pandemic.

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  Sequoia Spark is the name of the one-year-long
programme launched by equity financing firm
Sequoia India in partnership with NITI Aayog’s
Women Entrepreneurship Platform (WEP) to
promote women entrepreneurship in India and
Southeast Asia.

 Economy & Finance

 As per recent data released by the Department for
Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT),
Singapore was the biggest source of FDI (Foreign
Direct Investment) into India during April-September
2020.
 During the six-member Monetary Policy Committee
(MPC) meeting of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI)
held from December 2-4, 2020, the banking
regulator decided to keep ‘repo rate’ unchanged at
4.00%.
 Bengaluru-based fintech start-up, Finin, became
India’s first full-fledged consumer neobank in
partnership with SBM Bank India.
 Indian e-commerce major Paytm partnered with
Suryoday Small Finance Bank to empower MSMEs
(Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises) with
collateral-free instant digital loans.

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 ICICI Bank launched ‘iMobile Pay’, a first-of-its-kind
mobile banking app that provides payments and
banking services to customers of any bank.
 Kotak Mahindra launched the country’s first
diversified REIT (Real Estate Investment Trusts)
Fund of Funds.
 The Organization for Economic Co-operation and
Development (OECD) currently raised prospects of
India’s economy by pegging contraction at 9.9%,
against 10.2% it projected earlier in September
2020.
 The Finance Ministry approved capital expenditure
(capex) proposals of 27 states worth Rs. 9,879.61-
crore.
 The government has recently launched the
Quarterly Return filing & Monthly Payment of Taxes
(QRMP) scheme for small taxpayers under the GST
system. Taxpayers who have aggregate annual
turnover of up to Rs. 5-crore in the preceding
financial year and have filed their October GSTR-3B
(sales) return by November 30, 2020 are eligible for
this scheme.

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 People in News
 Distinguished Indian scientist, A. Sivathanu Pillai,
authored “40 Years with Abdul Kalam-Untold
Stories”, a book on the life of the former President
of India, Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam.
 German Chancellor Angela Merkel topped Forbes
2020 list of the World’s 100 most powerful women.
Christine Lagarde, President of the European
Central Bank, maintained her position at No. 2 on
this year’s ranking. New to the top three was the
U.S. Vice-President Elect Kamala Harris, who will
serve as the first female Vice President of the
United States and is the first Black and Indian
American to hold the position.
 Indian-origin global health expert, Anil Soni, was
appointed as the first CEO (Chief Executive Officer)
of the newly established ‘The WHO Foundation’.
 Dave Prowse, British weightlifter-turned-actor
famous for playing Darth Vader in the original “Star
Wars” trilogy, died at 85.
 Of the 4 Indian women who featured in the Forbes
2020 list of the World’s 100 most powerful women,
Nirmala Sitharaman ranks the highest, at 41. Others
are: Roshni Nadar Malhotra, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw
and Renuka Jagtiani.
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  Raja Jon Vurputoor Chari, an Indian-American US
Air Force colonel, is among 18 astronauts who have
been selected by the National Aeronautics and
Space Administration (NASA) for its ambitious
manned mission to the Moon and beyond.
 Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal
Nishank penned down the book “Pioneer of
Humanity: Maharishi Arvind”.
 Under the stewardship of Rameshwar Prasad
Gupta, the Secretary of the Ministry of Environment,
Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC), the Union
Environment Ministry constituted a high-level inter-
ministerial Apex Committee for Implementation of
Paris Agreement (AIPA) to ensure that India was
“on track” towards meeting its obligations under the
Paris Agreement including its Nationally
Determined Contributions (NDC).
 Zafarullah Jamali, former (15th) Prime Minister of
Pakistan, passed away at 76.

 Sports
 Belgium was crowned FIFA’s team of the year for
the third straight time in the latest global rankings
released by soccer’s world governing body.

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  Indian cricketer, Hardik Pandya, was adjudged the
‘Man of the Series’ for the three-match T20I contest
against Australia.
 Promising Indian driver, Jehan Daruvala, created
history by becoming the first Indian to win a
Formula 2 race during the Sakhir Grand Prix.
 Kuldeep Handoo, the first Dronacharya awardee
from Jammu & Kashmir, was appointed as the
ambassador of the ‘Fit India’ movement.
 Swedish Pole Vault legend, Mondo Duplantis, was
crowned the youngest-ever Male Athlete of the Year
(2020).
 Legendary Senegalese footballer, Papa Bouba Diop,
passed away at the young age of 42.

 Miscellaneous
 India has the highest rate of bribery and use of
personal links to access public services such as
healthcare and education in Asia, according to a
survey released by global civil society Transparency
International.
 India made impressive gains in the global fight
against Malaria, recording the largest reduction in
cases in South-East Asia from 20 million in 2000 to

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 about 5.6 million last year, according to the World
Health Organization.
 ‘National Pollution Control Day’, which is observed
on December 2 annually to instill awareness among
people about environmental pollution and its
disastrous consequences, commemorates those
who lost their lives in the Bhopal Gas Tragedy of
1984, considered one of the biggest industrial
pollution disasters.
 Vice President Venkaiah Naidu released a
commemorative postage stamp in honour of former
Prime Minister of India, I K Gujral.
 The newly-built Majerhat Bridge in Kolkata has been
named as Jai Hind Bridge to commemorate the
125th birth anniversary of Subhas Chandra Bose.
 Maharashtra state government cleared a proposal
to rename all residential colonies in the state having
caste-based names, in order to maintain social
harmony and national unity.
 On the occasion of Navy Day i.e. December 4, 2020,
the Indian Navy conducted a two-day Passage
Exercise (PASSEX 2020) with the Russian Navy in
the Eastern Indian Ocean Region (IOR), aimed at
enhancing interoperability, improving understanding

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 and imbibing best practices between both the
navies.
 India’s iconic Western Ghats, inscribed by UNESCO
in 2012 as a natural world heritage site, is
threatened by population pressure, urbanization and
climate change, according to a new report by the
International Union for Conservation of Nature
(IUCN).
 The Asian Development Bank (ADB) released a new
book titled, 'Future of Regional Cooperation in Asia
and the Pacific'.
 National University of Singapore topped the ‘QS
(Quacquarelli Symonds) Asia University Rankings
2021’ for the third consecutive year.
 Lahore ranks the most polluted city in the world,
according to air pollution data released by the US
Air Quality Index 2020.
 December 1 is observed annually across the globe
world as World AIDS Day.
 As per the 8th edition of the ‘Global Terrorism Index
(GTI)’ released by the Institute for Economics &
Peace (IEP), Afghanistan was the most affected in
the world due to terrorism in 2019.

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 Britain became the first country to roll out the
Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine.
 In a historic vote, the United Nations passed a
resolution to remove Cannabis from the category of
'most dangerous substances' and India has
supported the move by voting in favor of the
proposal.
 The United Nations (UN) celebrated December 4,
2020 as the first-ever ‘International Day of Banks’, in
recognition of the significant potential of
multilateral development banks and other
international development banks in financing
sustainable development and providing know-how;
and also, in recognition of the vital role of the
banking systems in Member States in contributing
to the improvement of the standard of living.

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