Daily Current Affairs :  22-11-2020

Table of Contents

1. SATAT
2. Unnat Bharat Abhiyan (UBA)
3. One Health Global Leaders Group on Antimicrobial Resistance(AMR)
4. Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology released Backend code of Aarogya Setu
5. Seismic Survey Campaign in Mahanadi Basin
6. Direct Seeded Rice(DSR) Technique
7. Ancient Hindu temple discovered in northwest pakistan
8. Coordinated Patrol (CORPAT) exercise
9. Reverse Bank of India (RBI)
10. Ministry of Labour and loyment notifies draft of the occupational safety,health and working condition code(OSH) Rules,2020.

1.sustainable Alternative Towards Affordable Transportation (SATAT)Initiative

• Petronet LNG signed a pact with the Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas (MoPNG) for setting up compressed biogas (CBG) plants under the SATAT initiative.
• This will give a big fillip to the clean energy initiative in India
• SATAT is an initiative aimed at setting up CBG production plants and make it available in the market for use in automotive fuels by inviting Expression of Interest from potential entrepreneurs.
• It envisages setting up of 5000 CBG plants by FY 2023-24.
• It was launched by MoPNG in 2018.

2.Unnat Bharat Abhiyan (UBA)

• Recently, the Ministry of Education reviewed the progress of Unnat Bharat Abhiyan.
• UBA connects higher education institutions with villages for the economic and social betterment of rural communities.
• It aims to create a virtuous cycle between society and an inclusive academic system by providing knowledge and practices for emerging professions.
• llT Delhi is the NationalCoordinatingInstitute for the UBA.

3.One Health Global Leaders Group on Antimicrobial Resistance(AMR)

• Group was recently launched by the Food and Agriculture Organization, World Organisation for Animal Health, and the World Health Organization.
• I t was created in response to a recommendation from the interagency Coordination Group on AMR (IACG).
• IACG was convened by Secretary-General of l)N after the UN high-level meeting on AMR in 2017.
• It will elevate the need to prioritize best practices to address AMR at global, regional, and national levels.
• It will work for policies and legislation to govern the importation, manufacture, distribution and use of quality antimicrobial drugs across all sectors.

4.Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology released Backend code of Aarogya Setu

• The step is expected to increase transparency and dispel privacy concerns and will also help people understand how to contact tracing mobile applications functions.
• It is released on a government platform called open forge that has been set up to promote sharing and reuse of e-governance application source code.
• Aarogya setu app aimed at informing users of the potential risk of the COVID-19 infection by alerting people when they come in contact with someone infected with COVID-19.

5.Seismic Survey Campaign in Mahanadi Basin

• It will help in establishing the Mahanadi basin as a hub of exploration & production operations building hydrocarbon reserves and also in the socio-economic development of the region.
• A seismic survey is a low impact, non-invasive method of gathering information about the location and characteristics of geological structures beneath the Earth's surface.
• This information is used to produce maps of structures identifying areas where gas deposits may be found.
• Also, the government is implementing the National Seismic Programme for appraising unappraised areas of Indian sedimentary basins.

6.Direct Seeded Rice(DSR) Technique

• Recently, owing to labor shortage over 20% of the area under paddy cultivation in Punjab was brought under the DSR technique.
• DSR refers to the process of establishing a rice crop from seeds sown in the field rather than by transplanting seedlings from the nursery.
• It is a less labor-intensive method of sowing the crop.
• Benefit:  DSR helps reduce water consumption by 30% and labor needs by 60 % especially when the groundwater table has declined in about 85% of the state between 1984 and 2016.

7.Ancient Hindu temple discovered in northwest Pakistan

• A Hindu temple of Lord Vishnu has been discovered in northwest Pakistan's Swat district.
• It was built 1,300 years ago during the Hindu Shahi period.
• Hindu Shahis of Kabul Shahis (850-1026 CE) was a  Hind u dynasty that ruled the Kabul Valley  (eastern Afghanistan), Gandhara (modern-day Pakistan), and present-day northwestern India.
• Term Hindu Shahi was a royal title of this dynasty and not its actual clan or ethnological name.
•  Dynasty descended from the Kushana Empire (Modern Afghanistan), or Turks (Tarushkas).

8.Coordinated Patrol (CORPAT) exercise

• Recently, the 30th corporate naval exercise was held between  India & Thailand.

9.Reverse Bank of India (RBI)

• RBI had constituted an Internal Working Group (IWG) under P.K Mohanty to review extant ownership guidelines and corporate structure for Indian private sector banks.
• RBI has been reluctant to allow business houses to establish banks because of
• issues like worries over governance, the concentration of economic powers, and conflict of interest.

Key recommendations  of the IWG

• Large corporate/industrial houses may be allowed as promoters of banks only after necessary amendments to the Banking Regulation Act, 1949.
• It is aimed at preventing connected lending and exposures between banks and other financial and non-financial group entities.
• Well run large Non-banking Finance Companies (NBFCs), with an asset size of 50,000 crore and above, including those which are owned by a corporate house, may be considered for conversion into banks.
• For Payments Banks intending to convert to a Small Finance Bank, a track record of 3years of experience as a Payments Bank may be considered a.s sufficient.

10.Ministry of Labour and employment notifies draft of the occupational safety, health and working condition code(OSH) Rules,2020

• OSH Code was passed by Parliament in September. It subsumed 13 labor laws regulating health, safety, and working conditions of workers like the Factories Act, 1948; Mines Act, 1952, etc.
• Dra rules provide for operationalization of provisions in the OSH code 2020 relating to safety, health, and working conditions of various categories of workers including Dock Workers, Building or other construction workers, Mines workers, Inter-State Migrant workers, Contract labor etc.

Salient features:

• No employee shall be employed unless he has been issued a letter of appointment
• Raising the spread of overtime for a worker to 12hours a day from the current limit of 10.5 hours. Weekly working hours capped at 48 hours.
• Spread over time refers to working hours plus time for lunch and other breaks.
• Journey allowance once in a year for to & fro journey for an interstate migrant worker.
• Single electronic registration, license and annual integrated return for an establishment.
• Mandatory Safety committees for every establishment employing 500 or more workers.
• Rules relating to the safety of women employment in all establishments for all types of work before 6 a.m. and beyond 7 p.m. with their consent.                   

  Jai Hind!

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