Current Affairs for BANK, IBPS Exams - 21 December 2020

::NATIONAL::

Union Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Prakash Javadekar released the Status of Leopards in India.
The estimation of leopards in the country went on concomitantly with the fourth cycle of the All India Tiger Estimation, whose detailed report was released on Global Tiger Day this year and declared to the nation by the Prime Minister on Global Tiger Day in 2019.
India now has 12,852 leopards as compared to the previous estimate of 7910 conducted in 2014.
More than 60% increase in population has been recorded.
The States of Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, and Maharashtra recorded the highest leopard estimates at 3,421, 1,783, and 1,690 respectively.

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga's government approved a ninth consecutive rise in military spending on Monday, funding the development of an advanced stealth fighter and longer-range anti-ship missile to counter China's growing military power.
The Ministry of Defense will get a record 5.34 trillion yen ($51.7 billion) for the year starting in April, up 1.1% from this year. With Suga's large majority in parliament, enactment of the budget is all but certain.
Suga is continuing the controversial military expansion pursued by his predecessor, Shinzo Abe, to give Japan's forces new planes, missiles and aircraft carriers with greater range and potency against potential foes including neighbouring China.
"To correspond to the increasingly severe security environment, we would like to firmly strengthen our defence power while getting people to understand through our explanations at parliament sessions," Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato said at a news conference after the budget approval.
Japan is buying longer-range missiles and considering arming and training its military to strike distant land targets in China, North Korea and other parts of Asia.

The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Federal Ministry of Climate Action, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation and Technology of the Republic of Austria on Technology Cooperation in the Road Infrastructure Sector in New Delhi on Wednesday.
The MoU aims to create an effective framework for bilateral cooperation in the field of Road Transportation, Road/Highways infrastructure development, management and administration, Road safety and Intelligent Transport Systems between both countries.It will further strengthen ties, promote long standing bilateral relations and enhance trade and regional integration between the two countries.
India has had good diplomatic relations with Austria since the establishment of bilateral ties between the two countries in 1949. Both countries share a history of friendly economic and diplomatic relations. Austria has state of the art technologies for roads and highways, such as electronic toll systems, intelligent transportation systems, traffic management systems, tunnel monitoring system, geo-mapping and landslide protection measures.

Scientists have found that magmatic intrusions at shallow depths from lower crust or mantle could lead to traps for hydrocarbon and geothermal energy resources.
A team of researchers who studied Taranaki Basin on the West Coast of New Zealand have spotted trapped hydrocarbon and geothermal energy resources due to forced foldings resulting from intrusion of magma in shallow strata.
Magma intrusion into relatively shallow depths often results into the structural deformation of host strata. Forced folds are typically formed above such intrusions in order to accommodate the addition of magma into the sedimentary pile.
Scientists from Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology, an autonomous institution under the Department of Science & Technology, in collaboration with Cardiff University, UK and led by the Director WIHG, Dr. Kalachand Sain, have investigated large forced folds that were formed in the geological settings called Upper Cretaceous-Paleocene sequences due to the intrusion of a series of magmatic dikes and sills (intrusions) by using high-resolution 3D seismic volume from the Taranaki basin, offshore New Zealand.
They found that forced foldings due to intrusion of magma in shallow strata in the Taranaki Basin on the West Coast of New Zealand have led to the development of four-way closures to form prolific traps for hydrocarbon and geothermal energy resources.