Current Affairs for BANK, IBPS Exams - 20 February 2022

::National::

Congress continues stir inside Karnataka assembly

Four days after the Congress legislators started a protest, to exert pressure on chief minister (CM) BasavarajBommai-led state government to remove Karnataka minister KS Eshwarappa for his controversial comment about replacing the national flag with a saffron one,the party leaders continued to camp on the premises of VidhanaSoudha.
The Congress legislators have also been spending the night inside the assembly hall in the VidhanaSoudha. “The agitation is happening because of the adamant stand of the BharatiyaJanata Party (BJP). Who is asking for Eshwarappa’s resignation? No one. We want his dismissal. Our appeal is also to governorThaawarchandGehlot to dismiss him,” Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee chief D K Shivakumar said.
The legislators will continue to protest inside the assembly when the session resumes, he said, adding, party workers across the state will appeal to the governor to take action against the minister.Talking to the media Shivakumar also added that the CM is under pressure from within the party.
“If the CM would have had self-esteem, then he would have thrown out the foul-mouthed Eshwarappa from the government when he had said that medium and large industries minister MurugeshNirani would become the next chief minister,” said Shivakumar.
News agency PTI had reported on Sunday that DK Shivakumar and other Congress legislators go home for a while to come back again to continue the protest. Quoting an anonymous Congress leader the agency reported that the agitation will continue either till “the dismissal of Eshwarappa or till the end of the current assembly session.”
Earlier, while responding to a question by reporters, about whether the saffron flag can be hoisted on the Red Fort, Eshwarappa had said: “Not today, someday in the future.”

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::International::

Iranian parliament sets conditions for return to Nuclear deal

Iran’s parliament has laid out six conditions for Tehran to rejoin the 2015 nuclear deal with global powers in a letter to President EbrahimRaisi published, the country’s official IRNA news agency reported.
The letter, signed by 250 out of 290 parliamentarians, stated that US and European parties should guarantee that they would not exit a revived agreement, nor trigger the “snapback mechanism” under which sanctions on Iran would be immediately reinstated if it violates nuclear compliance.
“We have to learn a lesson from past experiences and put a red line on the national interest by not committing to any agreement without obtaining necessary guarantees first,” lawmakers said in the letter.
The statement comes in the midst of final steps to revive a 2015 nuclear agreement in Vienna, which could lead to an agreement “very soon”, according to a senior EU official.
Such conditions from parliament at a crucial time risk restricting Iranian negotiators’ room for manoeuvre in Vienna and endanger a final agreement.
Meanwhile, Israeli PM Naftali Bennett said on Sunday that Iran may “shortly” agree a new deal but warned it will be weaker than the original 2015 agreement.
“The emerging new deal is shorter and weaker than the previous one,” Bennett told a meeting of his Cabinet.
He said the deal would see Iran rein in its nuclear activity for two and a half years, rather than the 10 years under the collapsed previous deal, granting Iran sanctions relief for only a brief slowdown of its nuclear activity.

::Economy::

Officials hope tough regulations could eventually let NBFCs into banking

The Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) decision to stay away from taking an immediate call on corporate entry into banking, and letting large non-bank financial companies (NBFC) convert into banks may have disappointed some, but was not entirely unexpected.
Rather, some of the large NBFCs are hoping that the scale-based regulation on NBFCs, which brings large para-banking units at par with banks gradually, would be the first step towards letting them graduate into full-scale commercial banks.
In its ownership guidelines and corporate structure for private banks, released on Friday, the RBI kept silent on two critical recommendations of an internal working group headed by P.K. Mohanty, director, central board of the RBI.
The central bank accepted 21 of the 33 recommendations of the working group, the most important being allowing promoters to hold a 26 per cent stake in the bank they floated. RBI did not mention corporate and NBFC issues in its guidelines.
“Since RBI has remained largely silent on these two recommendations, we interpret it as a reluctance of the regulator to issue bank licenses in a liberal way,” wrote Macquarie analysts Suresh Ganapathy and Param Subramanian in a note, adding that they expected RBI to “continue exercise caution on granting bank licenses.”
This may also imply that the probability of issuing digital banking licenses to such firms also remain low, the duo said. This is going to be negative for companies such as ONE97 or PayTM who have aspirations for a banking license.
Consensus is also emerging among experts that the large and systemically important NBFCs will be first brought at par with banking in terms of regulations, before letting them have an entry into banking.

::Science and tech::

How strong was this week's solar eruption? 'Earth may have dodged a bullet'

Two enormous explosions took place on Sun ejecting an enormous amount of plasma and radiation into Space. But there won't be any impact on Earth as the explosions happened on the farside of the Sun. "We dodged a bullet," astronomer Dr Tony Philips wrote on his website spaceweather.com.
The explosion comes just days after a similar eruption on February 4 dragged 40 satellites of SpaceXStarlink out of their orbits.
These coronal mass ejections (CME) can create geomagnetic storms but Earth is saved from any such storm originating from Tuesday's eruptions.
EAS's Solar Orbiter has captured the eruption through its Full Sun Imager and said though the CME event was not directed towards Earth but is still an important reminder of the unpredictable nature of the Sun and the importance of understanding and monitoring its behaviour.
"Some readers have asked 'How strong was the underlying solar flare?' We don’t know. Solar flares are classified by their X-ray output, but there are no spacecraft on the farside of the sun with X-ray sensors. Best guess: It was an X-flare," Dr Phillips wrote. X-flare is the most powerful category of a solar eruption. The second-most powerful eruption is classified as M-class flares.
The Centre of Excellence in Space Sciences India said solar wind conditions may escalate over the next few days due to Earth facing coronal holes. "Several small filaments are observed on the Sun. Geomagnetic and near-Earth space environment may experience low-moderate level perturbations over next few days," it said.
::Sport::

India claim T20I crown for first time in six years with series win vs WI

With their yet another dominating win, a 17 runs in the 3rd game in Kolkata on Sunday, India scripted a second consecutive T20I series clean sweep, this time against West Indies at home. The win not only helped India's claim the T20I crown for the first time in six years, it also helped Rohit Sharma script a massive India captaincy record.
With the win, India now have a rating of 269, hence surpassing England to become the No.1 ranked T20I side on the ICC chart. The last time India held the ranking was under the leadership of MS Dhoni in early 2016.
India have bounced back strongly in the format after a forgettable 2021 T20 World Cup in the UAE last November when they had suffered a group-stage exit, following which ViratKohli had stepped down from captaincy. Under new captain Rohit, India beat New Zealand 3-0 at home last year and then against West Indies hence making it the first time that the Men in Blue have scripted consecutive whitewash victories in bilateral T20I series.