Current Affairs for BANK, IBPS Exams - 06 February 2022

::National::

Lata's Ram Bhajan became signature tune of rath yatra: Advani remembers singer

Veteran singer and icon Lata Mangeshkar passed away on Sunday at Mumbai's Breach Candy hospital after suffering multiple-organ failure. As a mark of respect, a two-day national mourning has been declared in the memory of the late singer.
As the country remembered and paid tributes to Mangeshkar, also called India's nightingale, veteran Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader L K Advani hailed the musician for leaving an indelible mark of excellence in the world of music and recalled that the Ram bhajan she had recorded in her voice became the signature tune of his 'Ram rath yatra' in 1990.
Advani also expressed anguish over the legendary singer's death as he noted that she was idolised worldwide and said the nation will truly miss her. "She will continue to inspire many generations of music lovers," news agency PTI quoted him as saying.
Calling Mangeshkar as one of his favourite singers, Advani, the former deputy prime minister, recalled his association with the iconic singer.
"That memorable song-- 'Ram Naam Mein Jaadu Aisa, Ram Naam Man Bhaaye, Man Ki Ayodhya tab tak sooni, jab tak Ram Na aaye' -- became the signature tune of my yatra," PTI further quote dhim as saying. he said.
The rath yatra in 1990 had triggered a mass movement in support of building a Ram temple in Ayodhya and brought the BJP many political dividends.
Advani said Mangeshkar was a fine human being and in all his interactions with her, he was touched by her simplicity, warmth and above all, her love for "our great country".

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::International::

Australia to allow foreign tourists by Feb-end after two-year lockout: Report

Australia may open its borders to foreign tourists by February end after a hiatus of almost two years due to the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic, local media reports said. The Herald Sun reported that the government could announce it as soon as Monday following a meeting of the national security committee.
A government minister told a TV news channel that the government plans to open the borders to overseas tourists as soon as possible.
“We are getting ready to open as soon as we can,” home affairs minister Karen Andrews told ABC TV in an interview. “We don’t have all the information we need to be able to take the decision, but we are very close.”
The hospitality sector in Australia has been hard-hit due to Covid-induced border restrictions and lockdowns. Prior to the pandemic, the tourism industry generated over $84.9 billion in annual revenue, according to Tourism Australia. The annual revenue was down by 41% in 2020-2021, the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Australia and New Zealand had to suspend the trans-Tasman travel bubble following the emergence of the highly contagious Delta variant, which drove a disastrous Covid wave in India. The variant prompted the cancellation of major events in Australia while the residents remained less confident about booking travel in advance, affecting domestic tourism as well.

::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.

Billionaire Rahul Bhatia to helm IndiGo after surprise swing to profit

IndiGo has appointed its co-founder Rahul Bhatia as managing director with immediate effect and he would oversee all aspects of the airline.
Fuelled by higher passenger revenues, the country's largest airline IndiGo on Friday posted a profit after tax of ₹129.8 crore in the three months ended December 2021 amid the pandemic clouds.
InterGlobe Aviation, the parent of IndiGo, had slipped into a loss of ₹620.1 crore in the year-ago period.
In a significant development, the company has appointed its co-founder Rahul Bhatia as managing director with immediate effect and he would oversee all aspects of the airline.
Reflecting signs of slow recovery in the pandemic-hit airline industry, IndiGo's revenue from operations jumped to ₹9,294.8 crore in the latest December quarter compared to ₹4,910 crore in the same period a year ago.
Total income surged 84.3 per cent on an annual basis to ₹9,480.1 crore in the third quarter of the current fiscal year.
"For the quarter, our passenger ticket revenues were ₹80,731 million, an increase of 98.4 per cent and ancillary revenues were ₹11,417 million, an increase of 41.3 per cent compared to the same period last year," it said in a statement.
At the end of the December quarter, the company had a total cash of ₹17,318.9 crore, including free cash of ₹7,814.1 crore.
The board of directors, during its meeting on Friday, unanimously approved the appointment of Bhatia as Managing Director with immediate effect, subject to the approval of the shareholders.

::Science and tech::

Global Center of Excellence in Affordable and Clean Energy launched at IIT Dharwad

A virtual function was held to mark the launch of the Global Center of Excellence in Affordable and Clean Energy (GCoE-ACE) at the Indian Institute of Technology, Dharwad (IITDh), Karnataka on Friday, 28th January 2022 in the presence of, Prof. K. VijayRaghavan, Principal Scientific Adviser, Government of India.
The center is supported by the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) donation from HHSIF. The first phase of the CSR project with HHSIF is to establish equipment for the GCoE-ACE mainly as skill development, fabrication, and R&D equipment. The subsequent phases are envisaged to encourage innovation and to provide incubation support for the solutions to the grass-root problem statements in the affordable and clean-energy domain.
A welcome and brief introduction to the center was given by Prof. SRM Prasanna, Dean (R&D), IIT Dharwad. He mentioned that India is blessed with many renewable energy sources like solar, wind, biomass, and such affordable technologies for clean energy can be developed and optimized, which will precisely be the scope of this center.
Prof. K. VijayRaghavan mentioned that energy and energy solutions are a critical part of the adaptation and mitigation of climate change. He added that in the past two decades, there has been an enormous increase in the research on Solar, Wind, Nuclear, and other forms of energy and the results of such research are yet to come to the market more effectively. IIT Dharwad will be one of the very few institutions in the country which is joining hands with industry partners such as Honeywell in training the young generation to address the complex problems of mitigation and adaptation to climate change. As the global temperature rises, there are big challenges ahead in high temperature and high humidity areas which make people dysfunctional. Secondly, energy availability for farming is another big challenge, further energy availability for the health sector, education sector with 24×7 accessible education for all are some of the important challenges that this GCoE needs to address. Finally, he added, the Government has launched a hydrogen mission and one of the objectives is to use the energy required for its generation from clean energy sources such as solar and wind energy hence calling it green hydrogen energy. The center’s research & development efforts may go in that direction too. With these points, the PSA to Govt. of India congratulated all the stakeholders IIT Dharwad, Honeywell, and SELCO Foundation for establishing one of its kind GCoE in Affordable and Clean Energy.

::Sport::

Rohan Bopanna-Ramkumar Ramanathan pair lift Tata Open trophy

India's Rohan Bopanna and Ramkumar Ramanathan won their second ATP World Tour title together after pipping the top seeded Australian pair of Luke Saville and John-Patrick Smith in the final of the Tata Open Maharashtra,.
The Indians erased the first set deficit to win 6-7(10) 6-3 10-6 in one hour and 44 minutes.
Bopanna and Ramkumar combined as a team on the ATP Tour for the first time at the Adelaide event last month in the run-up to the Australian Open and won the trophy.
For Bopanna, it was his 21st ATP doubles title while for Ramkumar it was second trophy at this level and it will push him inside doubles top-100 for the first time in his career.