Current Affairs for BANK, IBPS Exams - 05 February 2022

::National::

PM Modi to unveil ‘Statue of Equality’ in Hyderabad

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will 05-02-2022 unveil a statue of 11th century Vaishnavaite saint Sri Ramanujacharya near Hyderabad. The Prime Minister’s visit to Hyderabad was announced last month; the Chinna Jeeyar Swamy of Sri Ramanujacharya Ashram had met PM Modi in September last year urging him to visit the city.
Here’s everything you need to know about ‘Statue of Equality’:
The 216-ft statue has been erected on the 40-acre sprawling premises of Sri Chinna Jeeyar Swamy ashram.
According to Jeeyar Education Trust official Suryanarayana Yellapragada, the ‘Statue of Equality’ is the second tallest in seated position.
It has been built to commemorate the 1,000 years of his birth. The total cost of the project is around ₹1,000 crore.
The statue is made of five metals - gold, silver, copper, brass and tin. The structure was erected in 2017, but it took four years for the completion of works on the other constructions.
The statue has been positioned on a huge lotus built over a three-storied 54-ft structure called Bhadravedi. The ground floor comprising 63,444 square feet area has a pictorial presentation providing glimpses of Ramanujacharya’s life and his philosophy.
On the second floor, there is a temple of Ramanujacharya in nearly 300,000 sq ft area, where a 120 kg gold statue of him will be installed for daily worship.
On the top floor of 14,700 sq ft, there is a Vedic digital library and research centre.
Outside the Bhadravedi, the statue will be surrounded by 108 Divya Desa Kshetras (Vaishnavite temples located across the country) built in stone in a 34-acre land around the statue.
The functionaries of the ashram have said that they will install flags of all the countries of the world near the statue to give it a universal appeal. They say it is being done in accordance with idea of equality propagated by Sri Ramanujacharya in all aspects of living, including faith, caste and creed.
The statue has been conceptualised by Chinna Jeeyar Swamy.

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::International::

US backs India against Chinese torchbearer

The two most senior Senators dealing with foreign policy in the United States (US), across party lines, have condemned China’s decision to field an army commander involved in the Galwan clashes as a torchbearer for the Winter Olympics, and applauded India’s decision to not send a diplomatic representative to the opening ceremony of Games.
Separately, the US State department reiterated its concerns about China’s ongoing attempts to “intimidate its neighbours”, and said that it stands with its friends, partners and allies in the Indo-Pacific.
Bob Menendez, the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and among the most powerful voices on America’s foreign policy in Washington DC, tweeted: “I applaud India for joining the diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Olympics. We stand with all countries that reject the CCP’s heinous human rights abuses and cold-blooded effort to turn the #Olympics2022 into a political victory lap.”
The US, along with the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia, has diplomatically boycotted the Olympics to protest against China’s human rights abuses in Xinjiang. Their respective national sport contingents are, however, participating in the Games.
Jim Risch, the ranking member of the Senator Foreign Relations Committee, tweeted, “It’s shameful that Beijing chose a torchbearer for the #Olympics2022 who’s part of the military command that attacked India in 2020 and is implementing #genocide against Uygurs. The US will cont. to support Uyghur freedoms & the sovereignty of India.”
Menendez is a Democratic Senator from New Jersey and is currently involved in drafting a major sanctions package against Russia in case it invades Ukraine. Risch is a Republican Senator from Idaho.
Articulating India’s position, Arindam Bagchi, the spokesperson of the ministry of external affairs, said, “It is indeed regrettable that China has chosen to politicise an event like the Olympics. I wish to inform that our chargé d’affaires of the Embassy of India will not be attending the opening or closing ceremony of the winter Olympics in Beijing.”
Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, an influential voice in the Republican Party and a former presidential candidate, said that he stood with India, with his office tweeting that China’s decision was “another outrageous example of the #CCP’s flagrant politicization of #Beijing2022. Their decision to choose a soldier who participated in a 2020 ambush against Indian troops as torchbearer is appalling & deliberately provocative.”

::Economy::

Mark Zuckerberg below Adani, Ambani in billionaires list after Meta stock rout

Mark Zuckerberg, billionaire founder of social media platform Meta (formerly known as Facebook), lost $29 billion in net worth on Thursday after the company’s stock witnessed a record single-day plunge of 26 per cent, which erased over $200 billion.
Zuckerberg is now at the 13th spot in the Forbes global list of real time billionaires with a net worth of $82.5 billion, and ranks below Indian billionaires Gautam Adani and Mukesh Ambani.
Gautam Adani and Family is at the 10th spot in the list with a net worth of $91.1 billion, while Ambani, with $89.2 billion, at the 11th spot.
Meta Platforms Inc’s stocks crashed after the company reported weak earnings forecast, according to a report by Reuters. It is the biggest ever one-day market value wipeout for a US company. Zuckerberg owns close to 12.8 per cent of Meta.
Meta has reportedly blamed Apple Inc’s privacy changes and increased competitions from rivals like TikTok and YouTube for its weaker-than-expected forecast, a day earlier.
Zuckerberg had reportedly sold Meta shares worth $4.47 billion last year, before the tech rout. The stock sales were carried out as part of a pre-set 10b5-1 trading plan, which executives use to allay concerns about insider trading, according to the Reuters report.
Musk continues to top the list of global billionaires with a net worth of $234.7 billion, according to data from Forbes. French billionaire Bernard Arnault with $194.7 billion and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos with $181.1 billion hold the second and third positions, respectively.

PNB launches contactless credit cards with Patanjali in partnership with RuPay

Punjab National Bank (PNB), and Patanjali Ayurved Limited (PAL) have launched co-branded contactless credit cards in partnership with the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). The co-branded credit cards are offered on NCPI's RuPay Platform and are available in two variants - PNB RuPay Platinum and PNB RuPay Select.
Starting the new year on a positive note, both the co-branded cards come with a host of attractive benefits and spend-based waivers for customers. They offer a hassle-free credit service to purchase day-to-day Patanjali products, along with cash backs, loyalty points, insurance cover, and more. The cardholders may enjoy suitable cashback @2% for transactions over and above 2500, subject to ceiling of 50 per transaction at Patanjali Stores.
PNB RuPay Platinum and PNB RuPay Select cardholders will receive a welcome bonus of 300 reward points on activation. Additionally, the customers will get complimentary domestic and international airport lounge access, PNB Genie Mobile Application for card management, add-on card facility. lucrative reward points on spends, along with cash advance/revolve, EMI, and auto-debit facilities.
Platinum and Select cards come with attractive insurance cover of 2 lakhs and 10 lakhs respectively for Accidental Death and Personal Total Disability. Platinum Card offers a credit limit of 25,000 to 5 lakhs and Select Card 50,000 to 10 lakhs.
The Platinum version comes with a zero joining fee and an annual fee of 500, while the Select version offers a low joining fee of 500 and an annual fee of 750. The annual fees will be waived off in case of the card is used at least once in each quarter in the preceding year.
Acharya Balkrishna, Managing Director of Patanjali Ayurved Limited, said, "The synergies of this partnership will help accelerate the adoption of digital payments, especially amongst users in deeper tier-2 and tier-3 markets. Other than the attractive benefits, the most important feature is the interest-free purchases of Patanjali products for 20-50 days."

::Science and tech::

IISc commissions one of India's most powerful supercomputers 'Param Pravega'

Param Pravega, a supercomputer that is touted to be one of the most powerful in the country, has been installed at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bengaluru under the National Supercomputing Mission (NSM), the premiere academic establishment said in a statement.
According to IISc, Param Pravega has a total supercomputing capacity of 3.3 petaflops (1 petaflop equals a quadrillion or 1,015 operations per second).
“It has been designed by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC). A majority of the components used to build this system have been manufactured and assembled within the country, along with an indigenous software stack developed by C-DAC in line with the Make in India initiative,” the statement stated.
India has come a long way in developing its own systems after the US denied the sale of a supercomputer to India in the mid-1980s which was likely to be used for predicting weather. This led to the government of India setting up C-CDAC in 1988 with its first mission to deliver computer power exceeding 1,000 mflops (1 GigaFlops). In July 1991, with a mission effort of more than 300-man years, PARAM800 was delivered.
The supercomputer adds to capabilities in research and development (R&D) including developing platforms for genomics and drug discovery, studying environmental issues, establishing flood warning and predictions systems as well as optimising telecom networks.
“NSM is steered jointly by the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), and implemented by C-DAC and IISc. The Mission has supported the deployment of 10 supercomputer systems so far at IISc, IITs, IISER Pune, JNCASR, NABI-Mohali and C-DAC, with a cumulative computing power of 17 petaflops. About 3100,000 computational jobs have successfully been carried out by around 2,600 researchers across the country to date,” IISc said.
The premiere institute had already established a supercomputing facility several years ago and in 2015, installed SahasraT which at the time was the fastest in the country.

::Sport::

India moment at Winter Olympics opening ceremony: Skier Khan leads contingent

Skier Arif Khan led a small four-strong Indian contingent during the Winter Olympics opening ceremony here on Friday amid a diplomatic boycott of the event by the country.
The 31-year-old Arif will be the lone Indian competitor at the Games, having qualified in Slalom and Giant Slalom events. India sent a six-member contingent to the Games including a coach, a technician and a team manager.
Arif is the first Indian to secure qualification in two events of the same edition of the Games and his competitions are slated for February 13 and 16.
India was the 23rd contingent to walk in during the grand ceremony at the iconic Bird's Nest stadium here as China welcomed athletes from 84 countries amid a diplomatic boycott by powerful nations such as the USA and Britain over its alleged human rights violations in the Xinjiang region.