1. 3rd Khelo India Youth Games begins today in Guwahati
On January 10, 2020, the 3rd Khelo India Youth Games 2020 started at Indira Gandhi Stadium in Guwahati, Assam.
Khelo India Youth Games event is a National level multidisciplinary games conducted every year.
Six thousand five hundred athletes from 37 teams will take part in the event.
Cycling and LawnBall have been introduced as new disciplines in the games.
The games include two categories namely under-17-year school students and under-21-year college students.
Under the event, an annual scholarship of Rs 5,00,000 is given for 1000 kids to prepare them for international sporting events.
The Games will continue till January 22.
Note:
The third edition of Khelo India Youth Games-2020 is advocating for the elimination of single-use plastics this time.
2. Ladakh won 7th National Ice Hockey Championship Women trophy
Ladakh has won the 7th National Ice Hockey Championship Women trophy. The match was held at the Karzoo Ice Hockey Rink in Ladakh.
The tournament was organized by the Ice Hockey Association of India (IHAI) in association with the Ladakh winter sports club.
Four women teams representing Chandigarh, Delhi, Maharashtra, and Ladakh participated in the tournament.
Banking and Economy
3. SBI lowers GDP estimates for FY20 to 4.6% from 5%
The State Bank of India’s research desk has released its ‘Ecowrap’ report on January 09, 2020.
In its report, the SBI has lowered its GDP growth forecast for FY20 to 4.6 percent from the earlier 5 percent.
Also, the latest SBI Ecowrap report even predicted the growth rate to remain below 6 percent for the two years in a row.
For FY20, the budgeted nominal GDP growth rate was 12 percent which has now been revised downwards to 7.5 percent.
Based on this GDP revision, the impact on fiscal deficit is around 12 basis points for FY20.
The SBI Ecowrap report clarified this estimate has a shelf-life of two months and is only used as an input for budget calculations.
The Central Statistics Office (CSO) will release the first revised estimate of FY17, FY18, and FY19 on January 31, the report said, and based on that, GDP and GVA for FY20 would be revised further downwards in the second advance estimate for FY20 on February 28 and on May 29.
4. Paytm launches unified QR code for merchants to enable unlimited payments
India's leading digital payments company Paytm announced the launch of its all-in-one QR for merchants across the country.
The QR code will enable the business to accept unlimited payments through Paytm Wallet, Rupay Cards and all UPI-based payment apps directly into their bank account at zero percent fee
The platform offers a single reconciliation of all payments through its 'Paytm for Business' app
Paytm also launched ‘Paytm Business Khata’, a new service to promotes the Paytm merchant partners to maintain digital ledgers of all their customer transactions including cash and credit.
Along with this, the company has also launched QR codes into the calculator, power bank, watch, pen stand and radio for the convenience of businessmen.
5. In a first, HDFC Bank launches myApps to boost digital payments
India’s leading private sector lender HDFC Bank launched myApps application to boost digital payments in India on January 09, 2020.
myApps is a unique customized suite of banking products to benefit urban local bodies, housing societies, local clubs and gymkhanas, and religious institutions.
At present HDFC Bank is offering four types of applications — mySociety, myClub, myPrayer and myCity.
myApps will allow institutions to customize their branding and content. Moreover, the app can be customized in over 20 languages starting with Hindi and English.
Note:
HDFC Headquarters– Mumbai, Maharashtra
Managing Director– Aditya Puri
Tag line– We Understand Your World
6. World Bank cuts India's FY20 growth estimates to 5% from earlier 6%
The World Bank in its “January 2020 Global Economic Prospects: Slow growth, policy challenges”, report cut India’s GDP growth forecast for FY 2020 to 5% from earlier 6% estimate in October 2019.
The multilateral development lender also expects India's growth to pick up slightly to 5.8 percent in the next fiscal.
As per the report, the reason behind this is weakness in credit from non-banking financial companies (NBFCs).
The State Bank of India also reduced the GDP growth forecast for FY20 to 4.6 percent from the earlier 5 percent.
The SBI Ecowrap report has predicted the growth rate to remain below 6 percent for two years in a row.
Recently, the government's Central Statistics also forecast that India's nominal GDP is expected to grow by 5 percent in FY20.
International Affairs
7. Henley & Partners releases ‘Henley passport Index 2020’
The Henley Passport Index 2020 was released by Henley & Partners. The report is being published every year based on the data obtained from the International Air Transport Association (IATA).
According to the index, Indian passport ranked at the 84th spot among the world’s most powerful passports list, which is a drop by 2 places as it ranked 82nd in 2019.
For the third consecutive year, Japan secured the top spot on the Henley Passport Index, with a score of 191. It was followed by Singapore in the second position, while Germany and South Korea shared the third spot.
Note:
Prepared by Henley and Partners, a London-based global citizenship and residence advisory firm, the Henley Passport Index claims to be the “original ranking of all the world’s passports”.
The index covers 227 destinations and 199 passports.
The International Air Transport Association is a trade association of the world’s airlines and its Headquarters is located in Montreal, Canada
8. Economist Intelligence Unit released the world’s fastest-growing cities Survey
The Economic Intelligence Unit (EIU) has released a survey that ranks the world's fastest-growing urban regions/ fastest-growing cities in the world.
As per the report, 3 of the cities in Kerala were ranked in the top 10 places. Malappuram city of Kerala was ranked 1st in the list, while Kerala’s Kozhikode and Kollam cities were ranked in the 4th and 10th place respectively.
The list was compiled on the basis of the data provided by the United Nations Population Division (UNPD).
Malappuram was followed by Can Tho region in Vietnam at 2nd spot and Suqian in China in the 3rd spot.
9. Election Commission of India Mauritius renewed MoU on Cooperation
The Election Commission of India (ECI) has renewed its Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Electoral Commissioner of Mauritius on cooperation in electoral management.
The memorandum of understanding, which was in existence from April 2013 to April 2018, was renewed between the two sides at Port Louis, the capital city of Mauritius
The MoU was signed by Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora and Mohd Irfan Abdool Rahman, Electoral Commissioner of Mauritius.
Note:
Capital of Mauritius - Port Louis
Currency- Mauritian rupee
Prime minister- Pravind Jugnauth
Source: Business Standard.
National Affairs
10. Naval Exercise 2020 will be host by Visakhapatnam
Vishakhapatnam the proposed executive capital city of Andhra Pradesh will host the International naval exercise ‘MILAN’ in March 2020.
The theme of the exercise for the year 2020 is ‘Synergy Across the Seas’.
The Milan exercise which will be hosted by Eastern Naval Command (ENC) the objective of this exercise is to enhance professional interaction between foreign navies and also make use of the best practices in the maritime domain.
India has invited 41 navies of different countries of which 30 navies have confirmed their participation in MILAN 2020.
Note:
Andhra Pradesh is considering the three capitals for the state Visakhapatnam one among them. Other two are Amaravati (de facto) and Kurnool (Judicial Capital)
Governor- Biswabhusan Harichandan.
CM: YS Jagan Mohan Reddy
11. Indian Railways to Install IP based Video Surveillance System (VSS) at stations
Indian Railways in an effort to improve the overall security of the passengers traveling in the trains has decided to install Internet Protocol (IP) based Video Surveillance System (VSS) at stations.
Railway Board has approved works for the provision of a Video Surveillance System covering 983 stations over Indian Railways under Nirbhaya funds.
This year a budget of Rs. 250 crore was allotted to Indian Railways from the Nirbhaya fund for installation of the video surveillance system.
Railways has entrusted RailTel, a Miniratna PSU under the Ministry of Railways with the work of providing IP based VSS with video analytics and facial recognition system.
Under VSS, four types of full HD cameras namely Dome type, Bullet type, Pan Tilt zoom type, and Ultra 4k-HD cameras will be installed.
Each HD camera at the station consumes approximately 1TB of data and 4k camera consumes 4 TB data per month
Source: LiveMint
12. Crime in India increased by 1.3% in 2018: NCRB
The National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) has released its report on Crime in India for the year 2018 on January 09, 2020.
As per the report, a total of 50.74 lakh crimes, including 31.32 lakh under the IPC and 19.41 under the Special Local Laws was registered in 2018
The report says that there was an overall rise of 1.3% in the registration of cases in 2017, but the crime rate per lakh population was down to 383.5 in 2018 from 388.6 in 2017.
A total of 1.05 lakh cases of kidnapping and abduction across the country was registered in 2018, showing an increase of 10.3% over 95,893 such cases in 2017
Note:
NCRB works under the Ministry of Home Affairs.
13. Hudco appoints M Nagaraj as Chairman, Managing Director
M Nagaraj has been appointed as the Chairman and Managing Director (CMD) of the state-owned Housing and Urban Development Corporation (HUDCO).
He will replace Ravi Kanth. Nagaraj is also the Director (Corporate Planning) of the company.
HUDCO provides loans for housing and urban infrastructure projects.
14. South Asian Trade and Travel Exchange Expo 2020 held at Greater Noida
The 27th edition of South Asian Trade and Travel Exchange Expo (SATTE) 2020 was held from 8th January to 10th of January 2020 at India Expo Mart, Greater Noida – Delhi NCR.
It is an annual three-day B2B trade show designed to bring together the key travel industry leaders in the region.
It convenes Indian & International exhibitors and buyers to forge new partnerships and strengthen the business.
The SATTE expo was supported by the Ministry of Tourism, Government of India and sponsored by Jammu & Kashmir Tourism Department.
The expo was inaugurated by Chief Guest, Shri Prahalad Singh Patel Ji, Union Minister for State for Tourism & Culture (I/C), Government of India.
The SATTE witnessed the participation of over 50 countries and 28 Indian states.
State Affairs
15. AP govt, German bank ink Rs 711 cr loan pact for natural
The Andhra Pradesh government has signed an Rs.711 crore loan agreement with Kfw, a Germany Development bank.
The Loan Agreement is for expanding the climate-resilient Zero-Budget Natural Farming (ZBNF) in the state for the next five years.
The state government will spend another Rs 304 crore on the project under which 2.39 lakh farmers in 591 village panchayats will be encouraged to take up ZBNF.
The ZBNF project is being undertaken by the state government, dovetailing the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY) and Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana (PKVY) of the Centre, with the Azim Premji Philanthropic Initiatives extending technical support.
KfW will also provide an Rs 7.9 crore grant for financing independent verification and audit; baseline-midline-end line review and evaluation and related studies of the ZBNF project.
Important Days
16. World Hindi day being celebrated across the world today
The World Hindi day being celebrated across the world every year on 10th January to create awareness about the language of Hindi across the World.
Hindi is the fourth most spoken language in the world.
The first World Hindi Conference was organized in Nagpur on 10th January 1975.
Note:
The National Hindi Divas is being observed on 14th September every year across India.
