Current Affairs for BANK, IBPS Exams - 20 December 2020

::NATIONAL::

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be holding Virtual Summit with the Prime Minister of Vietnam Nguyen Xuan Phuc.
During the Summit, the two leaders will exchange views on wide-ranging bilateral, regional and global issues and provide guidance for the future development of India-Vietnam Comprehensive Strategic Partnership.
In 2020, both countries continued to maintain high-level exchanges. Vice-President of Vietnam Dang Thi Ngoc Thinh came to India in February 2020 on an official visit. Both Prime Ministers had a telephone conversation on 13 April 2020 to discuss the situation arising out of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The 17th edition of the Joint Commission Meeting (virtual) co-chaired by the two Foreign Ministers was held on 25 August 2020. Raksha Mantri held an online meeting with his counterpart on 27 November 2020.

In a bid to make Bangladesh armed forces developed and modern, the government of Bangladesh will be buying ultra modern and high performance fighter planes. Announcing this, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said on Sunday that the process is already underway to implement the ‘Forces Goal 2030’.
Virtually addressing the President parade 2020 of the Bangladesh Air Force (BAF), Prime Minister Hasina also announced that the BAF is soon going to acquire air defence system integration, unmanned aerial vehicle system, mobile gap filler radar and ultra-modern air defence radar, reports the official news agency BSS.
Sheikh Hasina said that the government of Bangladesh has signed an agreement to buy five five ultra-modern C-130J transport aircrafts out of which 3 have already arrived in the country. Bangladesh has also added seven K-8W Jet trainer aircraft to the air force fleet. She said that the government is committed to speed up the modernisation of the Bangladesh air force.
Underscoring the effort of the government to strengthen the airforce, Prime Minister Hasina said that Bangladesh has purchased most modern supersonic fighter planes MIG 29 for the air force along with radars, missiles, helicopters and planes.

Recently, World bank has corrected the 2018 and 2020 reports EODB ranking based on an internal audit following officials’ allegations of “undue pressure” by management to alter ratings.
It has resulted in change in ranking of China, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Azerbaijan.
India’s ranking (63rd in 2020), however, has remained unaffected.
Ease of Doing Business is published by World Bank annually.
Ease of doing business is an aggregate figure that includes different parameters which define the ease of doing business in a country.

Asian Development Bank (ADB) and India signed a $4.21 million Project Readiness Financing (PRF) facility for infrastructure development projects to improve urban amenities and develop tourism infrastructure in Tripura.
This is ADB’s first PRF facility for a north eastern state.
PRF document describes the smooth transition from preparation to implementation of the project to minimize contracting delays and speed up the initial disbursements.
ADB is a regional development bank established in 1966 headquartered in Manila, Philippines.
Top 5 shareholders: Japan (15.6%), USA (15.6%), China (6.4%), India (6.3%) and Australia (5.8%).

Scientists have developed energy storage devices with stepped-up voltage window using organic nanofibres, which can serve as miniaturized energy source for supplying small packets of energy to the various electronic gadgets that would be needed for the lifestyle of the future.
While tiny batteries could provide the desired supply of energy, they are incapable when it comes to energy requirements in the form of a power pulse, which capacitors could deliver only if their energy storage capacity is increased. Supercapacitors are poised to fill the gap in between providing desirable energy and power densities in one go. It is critical to enhance the operable voltage window of supercapacitors to step up their efficiency above present-day supercapacitors, which operate with voltages typically below 3 V.
In this direction, Prof G U Kulkarni and his group from Centre for Nano and Soft Matter Sciences, Bangalore, an autonomous institute under the Department of Science & Technology, have come up with a simple method for the fabrication of a planar supercapacitor using organic nanofibres as solid-state electrolyte drop coated on low-cost titanium metal microelectrodes. The present work has been recently published in the scientific journal ‘Nano Energy’.

After the recently concluded Australia vs India Test in Adelaide, despite India’s capitulation, Virat Kohli managed to fractionally close the gap on Steve Smith at the top of the ICC Men’s Test Player Rankings from 25 points to 13 points.
Kohli’s first innings of 74 enabled him to gain two points, whereas Smith’s 1 & 1* lost him 10 points in the table. Marnus Labuschagne’s innings of 47 & 6 in such a low-scoring match have pushed him to a career-best 839 points. Whereas, Captain Tim Paine’s player-of-the-match innings of 73 not out has lifted him with a career best of 33rd place with 592 points. His previous best was 45th in December of 2018. Further down, Joe Burns unbeaten 51 saw him move into 48th place, the first time he has been in the top 50 since 2016.