Daily Current Affairs 26 December 2020

1. GOOD GOVERNANCE DAY

Good governance day is celebrated annually on 25 December, the anniversary of the birth of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

Role of Atal Bihari Vajpayee in good governance:

He implemented the reform agenda and delivered good governance to the nation amidst great challenges. Good governance to him was providing a responsive administration to the people, especially to the most vulnerable sections of the society.
He brought systematic changes in the governance of the country through technology, innovation and research to improve the lives of people.
Initiatives like ‘Pradhan Mantri Grameen Sadak Yojana’, ‘Golden Quadrilateral project’, ‘Telecom Revolution’, ‘Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan’ etc. led to socio-economic development of India.
In 2014, Good Governance Day was established to honour Prime Minister Vajpayee, by fostering awareness among the Indian people of accountability in government.

Source : Business Standard

2. LOUIS KAHN-American Architect

The board of the Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad has decided to demolish the dormitories built by legendary American architect Louis Kahn on its campus triggering a controversy.

About:

Louis Isadore Kahn (1901 – 1974) was an American architect, based in Philadelphia.
While continuing his private practice, he served as a design critic and professor of architecture at Yale School of Architecture from 1947 to 1957. From 1957 until his death, he was a professor of architecture at the School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania.
Kahn created a style that was monumental and monolithic; his heavy buildings for the most part do not hide their weight, their materials, or the way they are assembled.
Famous for his meticulously built works, his provocative proposals that remained unbuilt, and his teaching, Kahn was one of the most influential architects of the twentieth century.

Important Info :

Why are the dorms being demolished?

The IIM-A plans to bring down at least 14 of 18 dorms which were built between 1968 and 1978 have problems of leakages from the roof, dampness in walls, leakages in toilet walls, slabs etc.
Besides this, the earthquake of 2001 caused major structural damages to these buildings.

Source : Indian Express

3. WATER QUALITY TESTING INNOVATION CHALLENGE

The National Jal Jeevan Mission has launched an innovation challenge in partnership with Department of Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade to develop portable devices for water testing.

About:

Water quality testing is one of the priority areas under Jal Jeevan Mission, the flagship programme of Union Government.
The aim of the innovation challenge is to ensure that water sources are tested at various locations, at different levels; thereby, helping the policy framers to design programs which address the water contamination issues.
Jal Jeevan Mission is under implementation in partnership with the States to enable every rural home to have tap water connection by 2024.

Important Info :

The Uniform Drinking Water Quality Protocol, 2019 has specified some important parameters to be monitored for assuring portability of drinking water as per BIS IS 10500:2012 and subsequent amendments.

Source : The Hindu

4. e-HRMS

Home Secretary and Secretary DoPT, A K Bhalla released the progress report of e-HRMS (Electronic-Human Resource Management System).

About:

e-HRMS was launched by Minister for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions on 25th December, 2017 and it had 25 applications of 5 modules of the system.
e-HRMS is also known as Manav Sampada (appropriately name for Human Capital, being the most important factor for the success of any Government, Organisation or Company).
It is a standard ICT solution for the Government sector, addressing maximum requirements of State Governments related to personnel management.
It further assists the top management in knowing the exact number of employees, the retirement pattern, additional requirements in coming year for planning recruitments, funds required for retiring employees, re-allocation of surplus employees to other Departments/organisations within the State, ACR/Property Return status, seniority lists etc.

Source : Economic Times

5. WHALE SONG

In a paper published in the journal Endangered Species Research, authors described a new whale song, suggesting the existence of a population that was previously unknown.

About:

Researchers have recorded the unique song off the coast of Oman in the northern Arabian Sea, off the western Chagos Archipalego, and off Madagascar in the southwestern Indian Ocean.
Since it is the only blue whale song identified by them in the western Arabian Sea, researchers have called it the “Northwest Indian Ocean”.
Researchers believe the source is either the blue whale or Bryde’s whale since both species have been documented off Oman previously.
Significance: Given that this song-type has not been reported before, the presence of it across a large geographic region indicates the likely existence of a previously undefined population of blue whales in the Western Indian Ocean.

Important Info :

Not all whales sing. Only some, such as the baleen whale, have been found to sing songs.
Whales use songs to communicate and socialise. Their songs can be characterised as clicks, whistles and pulsed calls or a composition of “moans, snores, chirps and cries”.
- Whales use clicks to navigate and identify their surroundings as the sound bounces off objects, helping whales determine their shapes.
- Whales use whistles and pulses, on the other hand, during social activities.
Whale songs can last between 6-35 minutes, and some individual whales have been found to sing for 22 hours.
Can humans hear whale songs? Whale songs are typically below 4 kHz in frequency (human hearing range is between 20 Hz to 20 kHz), thus being inaudible to human ears.

Source : Indian Express

6. E-SAMPADA

The Directorate of Estates, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs dedicated to the nation, a new Web Portal and Mobile App, e-Sampada.

About:

The new application provides a single window for all these services including allotment for over one lakh government residential accommodations, office space allotment to government organisations, booking of 1,176 holiday home rooms and venues like 5, Ashoka Road for social functions etc.
In its endeavour to provide ‘One Nation, One System’, the erstwhile four websites (gpra.nic.in, eawas.nic.in, estates.gov.in, holidayhomes.nic.in), and two Mobile Apps (m-Awas & m-Ashoka5) of the Directorate of Estates have been integrated into one.

Source : PIB

7. CHANDRAYAAN-2

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) released to public the initial data from Chandrayaan-2, India’s second Moon mission, which was launched on July 22, 2019.

About:

The Orbiter, which was injected into a lunar orbit on September 2, 2019, carried eight experiments/payloads, all of which have been performing well and sending data received.
The public release data archived at the Indian Space Science Data Center (ISSDC) in Byalalu, near Bengaluru is prepared in the standard, globally followed planetary data system-4 (PDS4) format for public release.
The set released recently is basic data — what ISRO calls Level-0 and Level-1 datasets — prepared using PDS4 standards. The ISSDC is the nodal center of planetary data archive for planetary missions of ISRO.

Source : Times of India

8. SHAMSUR RAHMAN FARUQI

Urdu author S.R. Faruqi passed away.

About:

Shamsur Rahman Faruqi (1935 – 2020) was an Indian poet and an Urdu critic and theorist.
He formulated fresh models of literary appreciation. He absorbed western principles of literary criticism and subsequently applied them to Urdu literature, but only after adapting them to address literary aesthetics native to Arabic, Persian, and Urdu.
Dastangoi is a 16th-century Urdu oral storytelling art form. Shamsur Rahman Faruqi has played significant role in its revival in the 21st century.
His greatest feat, perhaps, was his mammoth novel Kai Chaand The Sare Asmaan (The Mirror of Beauty), a work that he began writing at the age of 70.

Awards:

He was awarded the Saraswati Samman in 1996.
The Government of India awarded him the civilian honour of Padma Shri in 2009.

Source : The Hindu

9. INDIA’S FIRST DRIVERLESS METRO

India’s urban mass rapid transit will mark a milestone on December 28 when Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to flag off the country’s first ‘driverless’ metro in Delhi.

INDIA’S FIRST DRIVERLESS METRO

(Image Credit : Indian Express )

About:

The first ‘driverless’ train will roll out on the 38-km Line 8 or Magenta Line of the Delhi Metro, which has a 390-km-long network spread across the national capital and adjoining cities such as Noida, Gurugram, Faridabad, Ghaziabad and Bahadurgarh.
The Centre has also notified changes in the Metro Railways General Rules, 2020 as the previous norms did not allow driverless services.
The trials of DMRC's new 'driverless trains' were started in December 2017, along the 20-km stretch on Pink Line.
The trials were to test the automation of the new metro trains, that were equipped with Unattended Train Operations (UTO) and CBTC (Communication Based Train Control) signalling systems.

Important Info :

Will all Delhi Metro trains become driverless from December 28?

No, the driverless train operation (DTO) will only be applicable for Line 7 and Line 8 of the DMRC network which comes under the Phase III expansion.
These corridors are equipped with an advanced signalling technology which makes the transition possible.

Source : Indian Express

10. INDIAN INSTITUTE OF SKILLS

Union Minister for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship inaugurated the first batch of Indian Institute of Skills in Mumbai.

About:

The institute is a joint initiative between Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship (MSDE), Government of India and Tata Indian Institute of Skills.
Formal agreement for setting up institute has been signed between MSDE and TATA IIS on 11th November, 2020.
The first batch at TATA-Indian Institute of Skills will commence training with two courses in Factory Automation, envisaged to be the foundation for future courses and Smart Manufacturing (Industry 4.0) technology and applications.

Source : PIB

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Daily Current Affairs 26 December 2020

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