Current Affairs for BANK, IBPS Exams - 26 February 2021

::NATIONAL::

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeITY) has announced its draft Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, for social media platforms, OTT players & digital media Thursday, with significant recommendations including asking social media companies to give out the originator of a message or tweet as the case may be.
“We have not framed any new law. We have framed these rules under the existing IT Act,” MeITY minister Ravi Shankar Prasad during a press conference announcing these rules. “We are trusting the platforms to follow these regulations,” he said. “The focus of this guideline is on self-regulation.”

President’s Rule was imposed in Puducherry following a recommendation by the Union Cabinet after a Congress-led government lost power in the Union Territory in a vote of confidence.
The notification, signed by President Ram Nath Kovind, said the decision was taken after the president received a report from the administrator of the Union Territory of Puducherry on February 22.
“Now, therefore, in exercise of the powers conferred by section 51 of the Act and of all other powers enabling me in that behalf, I (a) suspend, until the constitution of the 15th Legislative Assembly of Puducherry, in relation to the said Union Territory of Puducherry…,” the notification said.
The president also suspended the operation of various provisions of the Government of Union Territories Act, 1963 (20 of 1963), thus imposing central rule in Puducherry.
V Narayanasamy, who led the Congress government in Puducherry, resigned on Monday ahead of the confidence vote after his government was reduced to a minority following a spate of resignations by his party MLAs and a DMK legislator in recent days.

President Xi Jinping on Thursday declared that China has scored a "complete victory" in its fight against poverty by lifting over 770 million people out of it in the last four decades, calling it another "miracle" created by the country that will go down in history.
Absolute poverty has been eradicated in the world's most populous country, Xi announced while addressing a gathering held here to mark the country's accomplishments in poverty alleviation and honour its model poverty fighters.
China has a population of around 1.4 billion. Xi said that all poor people in rural areas have been lifted out of poverty.
With this, China has achieved the UN goal of poverty eradication 10 years ahead of the 2030 deadline, he said.
Over the past eight years, the final 98.99 million impoverished rural residents living under the current poverty line have all been lifted out of poverty.
All the 832 impoverished counties and 128,000 impoverished villages have been removed from the poverty list, he said.
Since the launch of the reform and opening up in the late 1970s, 770 million impoverished rural residents have shaken off poverty when calculated according to China's current poverty line, he said.

Bitcoin fell over 6% on Friday to its lowest in two weeks as a rout in global bond markets sent yields flying and sparked a sell-off in riskier assets.
The world's biggest cryptocurrency slumped as low as $44,451 before recovering most of its losses. It was last trading down 1.2% at $46,525, on course for a drop of almost 20% this week, which would be its heaviest weekly loss since March last year.
The sell-off echoed that in equity markets, where European stocks tumbled as much as 1.5%, with concerns over lofty valuations also hammering demand. Asian stocks fell by the most in nine months.
"When flight to safety mode is on, it is the riskier investments that get pulled first," Denis Vinokourov of London-based cryptocurrency exchange BeQuant wrote in a note.
Bitcoin has risen about 60% from the start of the year, hitting an all-time high of $58,354 this month as mainstream companies such as Tesla Inc and Mastercard Inc embraced cryptocurrencies.

The government has extended anti-dumping duty on imports of various types of porcelain and vitrified tiles from China to protect the domestic industry, primarily micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), by three months, two officials said.
In order to save the domestic tiles industry from cheaper imports from China, the government had imposed up to $1.87 per square meter anti-dumping duty during in 2016 for five years, which would have expired on March 28, 2021. The levy has been extended till June 28, 2021, two officials said requesting anonymity.
Acting on the domestic industry’s application to extend the protection period, the Directorate General of Trade Remedies (DGTR) had last month recommended the finance ministry to extend the anti-dumping duty, one of the officials said. HT reported it on January 26. DGTR, previously known as the Directorate General of Anti-dumping and Allied Duties, is an arm of the ministry of commerce and industry and acts as a single-window agency providing a level playing field to the domestic industry against such unfair trade practices.
Accepting the DGTR recommendation, the finance ministry on Thursday extended anti-dumping duty till June 28, unless it is revoked, superseded or amended earlier, a second official said. It was suspected that the Chinese firms would again resort to dumping if the tariff measure was withdrawn, he said.

One of the two Indian space start-ups that were to send their satellites aboard this week’s PSLV-C51 mission has delayed the launch after some “software issues” were identified during the final round of testing.
“Due to certain software issues that surfaced during the final satellite testing, we have decided not to proceed with our launch on the PSLV-C51 mission. Given the time and effort that has gone into making the satellite, it did not make sense to rush a satellite to launch in which we do not have complete confidence at this time,” said a statement from Pixxel (incorporated as Sygyzy).
The satellite will be launched at the next available opportunity, the company said.
For Pixxel, this satellite – called Anand -- was a technology demonstration for a constellation of 30 Earth Observation Satellites that would provide global coverage every 24 hours. This will enable organisations to detect and monitor global phenomenon in near realtime. The data will be available on an Artificial Intelligence-based platform, making the extraction of the data easy. It will have uses in agriculture, forestry, urban monitoring, and climate. The organisation hopes to complete the constellation by December next year.

Ravichandran Ashwin reached a huge landmark on day 2 of the third Test against England as he became the fourth Indian bowler to pick up 400 Test wickets. The off spinner reached the mark in his 77th Test, which makes him the second fastest to the feat, missing out Muttiah Muralitharan's record by five matches. The Sri Lankan had picked his 400th wicket in his 72nd Test.
Ashwin followed the footsteps of Indian cricket greats Kapil Dev, Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh who had reached the milestone before him. Kumble remains the highest Test wicket-taker for India with 619 scalps.