Current Affairs for BANK, IBPS Exams - 01 March 2021

::NATIONAL::

India came out strongly at the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) against the statement of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) on Jammu and Kashmir, saying the body has no locus standi to comment on the issue. India also slammed Pakistan for "misusing the august forum".
"We reject the reference to union territory of Jammu and Kashmir in the OIC statement. It has no locus standi to comment on matters related to J&K, which is an integral and inalienable part of India," Pawankumar Badhe, First Secretary, Permanent Mission of India to UN, said at the UNHRC, according to news agency ANI.
"Pakistan’s deliberate misuse of this august forum for its malicious propaganda against India, aimed at diverting Council's attention from its own serious violations of human rights, has remained a constant," ANI further quoted him as saying.
Badhe also said that it is regrettable that the OIC continues to allow itself to be exploited by Pakistan to indulge in anti-India propaganda.
This comes almost a week after India rejected Pakistan minister Shireen Mazari's criticism of the human rights situation in Jammu and Kashmir.

The telecom giant has not just launched a 1GBPS fiber connection as part of Airtel Xstream fiber, but also a router that can deliver this over Wi-Fi, while others are only able to do this via a LAN cable. The whole family can enjoy ultra-fast internet, no matter how speed-intensive the tasks are.
Technology is changing the way we live and work, and 2020 was proof enough. The pandemic had forced physical office spaces to shut down, causing businesses to embrace the ‘work from home’ model. If there’s one thing the world heavily relied on, it was the home internet connection, which has been stretched beyond capacity. Whether it’s children taking online classes, or parents attending their Zoom meetings, never has there been a time, when the entire house has been constantly connected to the Wi-Fi, and that, too, on multiple devices!
Unsurprisingly, a lot of Wi-Fi connections haven't been able to keep up, leaving consumers disappointed. As always, Airtel has been ahead of the curve when it comes to understanding the need of the consumers. Providing innovative solutions has always been their mission and today, it enjoys a favourable position as one of the world’s largest telecommunication companies offering mobile, fixed broadband, digital TV solutions, and mobile commerce to over 400 million customers across India, South Asia and Africa.

German unemployment still largely steady despite lockdown German unemployment held more or less steady in February despite the impact of lockdown measures, according to official data released.
Extensive use of a short-term salary support program is still keeping the figures in check.
The unadjusted jobless rate, the headline figure in Germany, was unchanged from January at 6.3 per cent. Just over 2.9 million people were registered as unemployed in the nation of 83 million — 4,000 more than the previous month and 509,000 more than a year earlier.
In seasonally adjusted terms, unemployment remained at 6 per cent, though 9,000 more people were out of work than in January, the Federal Labour Agency said.
While that was the first increase in seasonally adjusted unemployment in February since 2014, it was “probably more the result of the harsh winter weather in February than the lockdowns,” ING economist Carsten Brzeski said.

The plastics processing sector has sought immediate government intervention to ensure raw material supply by Indian petrochemical companies and free imports of raw material that are not produced in the country.
Plastics processing sector have urged the government to streamline the supply of raw materials as the industry is grappling with raw material shortage which will lead to the closure of many units across the country.
"The industry is facing acute shortage of polymers, the main raw material for plastics goods production, which has varied application in nation-building including agriculture, healthcare, food and toy sector," All India Plastics Manufacturers Association (AIPMA) President Chandrakant Turakhia said in a statement.
The plastics processing sector has sought immediate government intervention to ensure raw material supply by Indian petrochemical companies and free imports of raw material that are not produced in the country.
Around 50,000 units in the plastics processing sector, which offer employment to about 50 lakh workers in the country, are already operating below 50 per cent of their capacity, Turakhia said adding that if the crisis prolongs, then thousands of MSME's will have to close down.

India's central bank wants banks to limit ownership stakes in capital intensive insurance companies at a maximum 20%, less than half of what the current regulations permit, three sources with knowledge of the discussions told Reuters.
Reserve Bank of India (RBI) rules allow banks to hold up to 50% stakes in insurers and on a selective basis equity holdings can be higher but must eventually be brought down within a certain period.
The sources, who asked not to be named as the discussions are private, however said the central bank in 2019 unofficially advised banks seeking to acquire stakes in insurers, to limit such stakes to a maximum of 30%, and more recently directed them to cap stake purchases in insurers at 20%.
"Unofficially, banks have been told that the regulator is not comfortable with lenders increasing their stakes because the insurance business is seen as a money guzzler," one source said.

The PM’s picture was engraved on the top panel of the spacecraft Satish Dhawan Sat (SD-SAT) from Chennai-based Space Kidz India (SKI). “This is to show solidarity and gratitude for his (PM’s) Aatmanirbhar initiative and space privatisation,” SKI had said earlier.
A photograph of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and a copy of the Bhagavad Gita was sent to space aboard an Indian start-up satellite, which was one of the 18 co-passengers launched with Brazil’s earth observation satellite Amazonia-1 in a one hour 55 minutes long mission.
The PM’s picture was engraved on the top panel of the spacecraft Satish Dhawan Sat (SD-SAT) from Chennai-based Space Kidz India (SKI). “This is to show solidarity and gratitude for his (PM’s) Aatmanirbhar initiative and space privatisation,” SKI had said earlier.
SKI said besides the picture of Modi, it was also sending 25,000 names aboard the SD-SAT.
Congratulating Isro, the PM said it ushered in a new era of space reforms in the country.
This was one of the longest Isro missions, beaten only by the PSLV-45 mission that launched an Indian reconnaissance satellite along with 28 customer satellites and three payloads on the fourth stage of the launch vehicle in three hours in April 2019.