Current Affairs for BANK, IBPS Exams - 15 December 2020

::NATIONAL::

Vaccinating 100-200 people in each session per day, monitoring them for 30 minutes after administering the shots for any adverse event and allowing only one beneficiary at a time are among the guidelines issued by the Centre for the COVID-19 inoculation drive.
According to the guidelines issued to states , the COVID Vaccine Intelligence Network (Co-WIN) system will be used to track enlisted beneficiaries for the vaccination and anti-coronavirus vaccines on a real-time basis.
On the global front, the first batch of Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine was shipped from Michigan on Sunday, commencing the biggest vaccination drive in American history. About 2.9 million doses of the Covid-19 vaccine will be delivered in the first shipment.
Another 2.9 million is being held back for the second dose,to be given 21 days later.

To make India’s public health surveillance system more responsive and predictive to enhance preparedness for action at all levels.
Citizen-friendly public health surveillance system will ensure individual privacy and confidentiality, enabled with a client feedback mechanism.
Improved data-sharing mechanism between Centre and states for better disease detection, prevention, and control.
India aims to provide regional and global leadership in managing events that constitute a public health emergency of international concern.

Australia’s prime minister said that China would be violating World Trade Organization rules and a bilateral free trade agreement if it banned Australian coal.
Morrison said he was treating the report as “media speculation” because the Chinese government had yet to clarify its position.
“If that were the case, then that would obviously be in breach of WTO rules,” Morrison told reporters. “It would be obviously in breach of our free trade agreement and so we would hope that’s certainly not the case.”
China has targeted various Australian exports as relations with the country have deteriorated after Australia called for an independent inquiry into the coronavirus pandemic.
China has consistently said Australia is entirely responsible for disruptions in economic and political ties motivated by what it sees as anti-Chinese bias among Australian politicians, civic leaders and media outlets.
::Economy::

What can be termed as good for the common man, India’s retail inflation eased slightly in November to stand at 6.93 percent from a year ago, after a six-year high of 7.61 percent in October, data released by the ministry of statistics showed.
The reading is still well above the Reserve Bank of India’s acceptable limit of 4 percent (+/-2) for the eighth straight month.
Data released by the ministry also show that the wholesale prices climbed to their highest level since February due to costlier manufactured items, rising 1.55 percent in November from 1.48 percent in the previous month.
Retail inflation is based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which stood at 7.61 per cent in October. In November, the inflation in the food basket rose to 9.43 per cent compared to 11 per cent in the previous month, according to the CPI data released by the government.

The government has already released the seventh installment of the PM Kisan Samman Nidhi scheme. However, if the money is still not credited to your account and you are among those who applied for the scheme, you can check the status of the same on the PM Kisan portal
If you find ‘FTO (Fund Transfer Order) is generated and Payment confirmation is pending’, it means that the government has confirmed all the information given by the beneficiary and the process to transfer the has been started, and soon it will be credited.
some of the beneficiaries are also getting ‘Rft Signed by State Government’ message while checking their status. RFT stands for Request for Transfer which means the beneficiary’s data has been checked and the request has been transferred for further processing.
PM Kisan Samman Nidhi scheme is a Central scheme with 100 per cent funding from the central government. Under the scheme, income support of 6,000 per year in three equal installments is being provided to small and marginal farmer families having combined land holding/ownership of up to 2 hectares.

Google has a subsidiary called Project Loon, which comprises of helium-filled balloons that aim to deliver internet access to remote parts of the world.
These high-altitude balloons are found in the stratosphere and create aerial wireless networks.
The subsidiary announced that its balloons reached 1 million hours of stratospheric flight. And in October, it was revealed that Loon set a new record for the longest stratospheric flight by staying in air for 312 days, which means almost a year.
It also covered a distance of some 135,000 miles (roughly 2.1 lakh kms). Now, in the Nature journal, Loon executive has explained how these helium balloons were able to stay in air for almost a year.
As it turns out, a lot of it has to do with the wind currents and machine learning.

The International Cricket Council announced that as many as 86 teams will fight for the 15 spots in the 2022 T20 World Cup in Australia, the qualifying phase comprising 225 matches across 13 months.
The 15 spots will be decided through a four-step qualifying process which starts in April next year. Eleven regional qualification tournaments across five regions have been rescheduled to 2021, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and will now feed into the 2022 Australia event.
For the first time ever Hungary, Romania and Serbia will be competing for men’s T20 World Cup qualification and Finland will play host to an ICC event for the very first time.
It will also be the first time that Japan will host a men’s T20 World Cup Qualifier, on the back of the U19 World Cup Qualifier they will host two weeks before.
At regional level there will be 67 associate members taking part.