Current Affairs for BANK, IBPS Exams - 08 February 2021

::NATIONAL::

The Centre on Monday announced that it was withdrawing the draft heritage bylaws for ShriJagannath Temple, Odisha, issued by the National Monuments Authority (NMA).
The announcement was made after Union minister of culture and tourism Prahlad Singh Patel met delegations of the BharatiyaJanata Party, led by DharmendraPradhan, and the BijuJanata Dal, led by Pinaki Mishra, in New Delhi separately demanding its withdrawal.
"The bylaws were issued without the knowledge of the chairman of the National Monuments Authority. Any further work on this will be done after consultation with all stakeholders," Patel told the MPs of both the parties.
A controversy erupted after it Odisha officials found out about the proposed heritage bylaws for Jagannath temple, AnantaBasudeva temple and another structure. While the BJD called it an "insult to Lord Jagannath", the Sri Jagannath Temple administration requested for withdrawal of the draft notification “to protect the interest of the Lords, sevaks and devotees at large".
The government in 2010 formed the National Monuments Authority under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains (Amendment and Validation) Act, 2010, whose primary role was to prepare heritage byelaws for ASI listed structures. The draft heritage bylaws need to be approved by Parliament.

One university will be exclusively for the medical stream, while another will be for engineering. At present, Bihar has nine government and six private medical colleges.
The Bihar government is set to establish four new universities – each varsity dealing with a specialised stream - and the bills for them are likely to be placed before the Bihar Legislative Assembly in the forthcoming Budget Session.
One university will be exclusively for the medical stream, while another will be for engineering. Since 2010, all the medical and engineering colleges are under the Aryabhatt Knowledge University (AKU). AKU started functioning from 2010 with the objective of regulating all technical institutions by bringing them under one umbrella.
AKU will be left with some specialized centres of excellence. At present, it has four autonomous centres – Centre for Geographical Studies, the Pataliputra School of Economics, Centre for River Studies and Centre for Journalism. There is a plan to set up three new centres for Philosophy, Stem Cell and astronomy. The objective is to make it a research university, said an official of the AKU.
Bihar has also added a number of central institutions in the last one and half decades--- IIM, IIT, NIT, National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology (NIELIT), two central universities, NIFT etc.

The European Union's executive has told Hungary to reform its public procurement laws to curb systemic fraud before billions of euros from the EU pandemic recovery fund become available, according to an internal document seen by Reuters.
The European Commission is mandated with managing the 750-billion-euro scheme and has already told several EU states their proposals for spending their part of the funds must be improved.
There was no immediate response from the Hungarian government to an emailed request for comment on the document.
The bloc wants outright changes to Hungary's public procurement laws, according to the January 26 Commission document laying out specific legal changes required of Prime Minister Viktor Orban's government.
"Competition in public procurement is insufficient in practice," said the document, adding that that was linked to "systemic irregularities" that "led to the highest financial correction in the history of (EU) structural funds in 2019".

Indian state-owned banks will be forced to continue on a path of risk aversion and soft loan growth without adequate capital support from the state, according to Fitch Ratings.
The banks have so far managed to avert further pressure on their weak core capitalisation on the back of regulatory forbearance, limited risk underwriting and lower credit growth.
Fitch said it expects a moderately worse operating environment for the Indian banking sector in 2021, anchored to its belief that the banks' prospects for new business and revenue generation are likely to remain muted.
However, the sector can bounce back faster if state banks -- accounting for 60 of sector assets -- were substantially recapitalised.
It can potentially mitigate capital risk on account of a weak asset-quality outlook and limited loss-absorption buffers while leaving enough for the banks to benefit from subdued -- but very slowly recovering -- corporate and consumer confidence -- broadly in line with private banks.

Hundred tiny Femto satellites, designed and developed by 1,000 students from across the country, will be launched into space from Tamil Nadu’s Rameshwaram, the birthplace of former president APJ Abdul Kalam. Of the 100 satellites, 38 are from Maharashtra, which includes a satellite from Mumbai based Children's Academy. The satellites will be launched under a joint project by APJ Abdul Kalam International Foundation, Chennai-based Space Zone India and another organisation called Martin.
The satellites are made of composite material and measure 4x4x4cm. They will be launched via a high altitude scientific balloon and will go on to attain an altitude of 35,000-38,000 metre. A Femto satellite is also called a small satellite, miniaturised satellite, or smallsat. It is a satellite with a low mass and small size, usually under 500kg. These satellites when launched in large numbers are useful for gathering of scientific data as well as for radio relay. They are also used for training purposes. The satellites are also equipped with sensors to study areas like ozone, cosmic ray, carbon dioxide and humidity.
Kalam was an Indian aerospace scientist and politician who served as the 11th President of India from 2002 to 2007. He spent four decades as a scientist and science administrator, mainly at the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro).

Any decision about holding the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, postponed by a year due to the coronavirus pandemic, must be based on science, U.S. President Joe Biden told a radio show.
The Games are set to start in under six months, and the Japanese government and International Olympic Committee (IOC) are vowing to hold them as planned, although under strict conditions that could include staging them without spectators.