Current Affairs for BANK, IBPS Exams - 18 January 2021

Current Affairs for BANK, IBPS Exams - 19 January 2021

At 103, India's first voter Shyam Saran Negi reached to his polling booth in Himachal Pradesh's Kinnaur to cast his vote in the state's panchayat election. Despite having a failing vision and aching knees, Negi exercised his franchise at the Kalpa polling booth, where he was given an extremely warm welcome by laying a red carpet, by the district administration.
Negi further shared a message to the people where he urged them to participate in the election process to elect an honest and capable candidate. Deputy Commissioner HemrajBairwa honoured Negi with a Kinnauri 'topi' and shawl. He further said that young voters should get inspired by Negi, who came to cast his vote even in bad health.
The election process is planned to take place in three phases. In the first round, 1,227 panchayats went to the polls on Sunday. The remaining two phases are slated to be held on January 19 and 21. The state has 3,615 gram panchayats. Electoral Officer SanjeevMahajan shared that a voter turnout of 70 per cent was recorded in the first phase.

According to Central Pollution Control Board India report, India has collected just 10 per cent of the electronic waste (e-waste) estimated to have been generated in the country 2018-19 and 3.5 per cent of that in the generated in 2017-18.
India generated 708,445 tonne e-waste in 2017-18 and 771,215 tonne the following fiscal, the report estimated. In 2019-20, the figure rose 32 per cent to 1,014,961 tonne.
The figures have taken into account the 21 types of electrical and electronic equipments listed in the E-Waste Management Rules, 2016.
These include discarded computer monitors, mobile phones, chargers, motherboards, headphones, television sets, among other appliances.
The report also states that the volume of e-waste that a dismantler or recycler was handling increased over time but the shed area of these units remained the same.

Women in Europe doing jobs requiring the same skills as jobs done by men are still being paid significantly less, according to a study by the the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC).
The major trade union organization, which represents 45 million members in 38 European countries, compared wages in two countries from Western and Eastern Europe — Germany and Romania — looking at women working in the sector of household appliances and men working in car manufacturing.
The organization looked at several criteria including skills, physical effort and responsibility. It compared full-time workers of the same age and with a permanent contract working for medium-sized companies. In Germany, ETUC said, women in the white goods sector earn €865 less per month in gross income than men making cars, for jobs requiring similar skills.
In Romania, where wages are significantly lower, the average difference in net income is €244, ETUC said.

India and Japan signed a pact to enhance cooperation in the field of information and communications technology (ICT).
Major focus areas are like 5G, telecom security and submarine optical fibre cable.
The two countries will also cooperate on smart cities, high altitude platform for broadband in unconnected areas, disaster management and public safety, the release added.
It has been agreed that apart from the ministry-level cooperation, Government of India organisations such as C-DOT and ITI Ltd along with industry partners from Japan would also be part of this cooperation.
Government said, Japanese electronics industry to invest in India and avail the benefits of the new technologies.
The minister further highlighted the huge potential India holds for Japanese investors in the field of 5G and 5G-based services, internet of things, and digital health technologies.

Retailers Association of India (RAI) has urged Centre to accelerate the formulation of the National Retail Policy.
RAI urged centre to allow retailers to be registered as micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) to avail benefits to given these enterprises.
Earlier, Centre had identified five areas in its proposed national retail policy: ease of doing business, rationalisation of the licence process, digitisation of retail, focus on reforms, an open network for digital commerce.

Total is paying $2.5 billion for a share in Indian renewable energy firm Adani Green Energy Limited (AGEL) and a portfolio of solar power assets, marking the latest step in the French energy company's drive to reduce its dependence on oil.
For its investment, Total will get a 20% stake in AGEL and a seat on its board, as well as a 50% share in the Indian firm's portfolio of solar power assets, the French firm said.
AGEL is controlled by Indian conglomerate Adani Group and has a market capitalisation of about 1.483 trillion Indian rupees ($20.25 billion).
Total has embarked on a strategy of shifting towards electricity and renewable energy. It aims to have 35 gigawatts (GW) of gross renewable energy generation capacity by 2025 from around 9 GW now.
Growing investor pressure has spurred Europe's top energy companies to outline plans to curb emissions and boost renewable energy output.

NASA conducted a test firing of the engines for its giant Space Launch System (SLS) lunar rocket on Saturday but they shut down earlier than planned, the space agency said.
The "hot-fire" test at the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi was supposed to last a little over eight minutes -- the time the engines would burn in flight -- but they shut down just over a minute into the burn.
"Teams are assessing the data to determine what caused the early shutdown, and will determine a path forward," NASA said in a statement.
The SLS rocket is intended to launch the Artemis missions that will take US astronauts back to the Moon.
Despite being cut short, NASA said the test of the RS-25 engines had provided valuable information for the planned missions.

Indian shuttlers, including Olympic hopefuls P V Sindhu and SainaNehwal, will hope to give a better account of themselves at Toyota Thailand Open Super 1000 tournament, starting here on Tuesday, after a lacklustre show last week.
The Indian players seemed to struggle with their fitness as none of them could cross the second round at the Yonex Thailand Open, the first event of the Asia leg here.
Barring KidambiSrikanth, it was the first tournament for the whole Indian contingent in nearly 10 months.