Current Affairs for BANK, IBPS Exams - 20 April 2021

::NATIONAL::

Covid-19 vaccination will be made available for all citizens above the age of 18 years from May 1 onwards, the government announced on Monday. The much-awaited announcement comes when India has been recording a daily surge of over 200,000 cases of the coronavirus disease for the past five days.
“India is vaccinating people at world record pace and we will continue this with even greater momentum,” Prime Minister NarendraModi said during the meeting where the decision to vaccinate all adults in the country was taken.
The move is seen as a major step in controlling the second wave of Covid-19 in which India’s infection tally has reached 15,061,919 and the toll from the viral disease has gone up to 178,769, according to the Union ministry of health and family welfare.
The first phase of India’s Covid-19 immunisationprogramme was launched on January 16 this year in which all health and frontline workers were eligible to take the shot.
The second stage of the vaccination drive was initiated in two parts on March 1 and on April 1. During this phase, all people above 60 years of age and those over 45 years with comorbidities, accounting for more than 80% Covid-19 mortality in the country were allowed to take the vaccine.

Every year, the United Nations marks April 18 as the International Day for Monuments and Sites, in many countries also celebrated as World Heritage Day. The theme for this year is is “Complex Pasts: Diverse Futures”.
India is home to 38 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, out of the 1121 such spots identified around the world. So far, only China, Italy, Spain, Germany, and France have more locations on the list than India.
ICOMOS in 1982 had decided to celebrate April 18 as the International Day for Monuments and Sites or World Heritage Day. Approved by UNESCO in 1983 during its 22nd General Conference, the day is dedicated to recognising sites of historical importance, raising awareness regarding them, and stressing the need to restore and preserve them.
The day, thus, promotes cultural importance, while also highlighting the many impediments in doing so.

Days after the US once again put India on its currency manipulator watchlist, India’s commerce secretary AnupWadhawan on Tuesday said the move is an intrusion of the policy space of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
“I personally don’t understand its rationale or economic logic,” Wadhwan said, adding that India’s central bank is not accumulating reserves and its activity in the foreign exchange market is ‘perfectly balanced’.
“These are in my view a legitimate market based operations of a central bank. It is a mandate of the central bank to provide stability in the currency, as a result of which central banks buy and sell foreign currency.
Our overall reserves have been fairly steady at $500-600 billion. We are not accumulating reserves. We have a steady pattern of reserves that fluctuates, based on market based transactions.
The central bank’s activity in the foreign exchange market has been perfectly balanced and completely legitimate and within the accepted monetary policy mandate of the central banks across the world,” Wadhawan told reporters in a virtual briefing.

SivasubramanianRamann took charge as the Chairman and Managing Director of the Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI).
His appointment as the head of SIDBI, which is the principal financial institution engaged in the promotion, financing and development of Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), is for three years.
Prior to this appointment, Ramann was serving as the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of National E-Governance Services Ltd (NeSL), India’s first information utility, SIDBI said in a statement.
Ramann is an Indian Audit & Accounts Service (IA&AS) officer of 1991 batch. Prior to joining NeSL, he was the Principal Accountant General of State of Jharkhand between 2015 and 2016. He was also Executive Director with Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) between 2006 and 2013.

The previous two flights were conducted on Monday and Thursday. Monday's historic outing marked the first time powered, controlled flight by an aircraft had been conducted on another world.
Ingenuity was carried to Mars by Nasa's Perseverance rover, which touched down in Jezero Crater in mid-February.
The 1.8kg drone is regarded as a technology demonstration intended to prove the utility of aerial mobility in the planet's rarefied atmosphere.
In the future, helicopters could be used to scout the way ahead for rovers and astronauts, and to investigate otherwise impossible to reach locations, such as cliff faces.
Nasa officials have granted the Ingenuity engineering team two more flights before Perseverance is commanded to get on with its primary mission of searching for life in Jezero.
For the past week of testing, the one-tonne robot has been acting as the chopper's radio base-station and the photographer of record. Perseverance has been taking still images and making short movies, all from a distance of 65m from the drone's "airfield".

Barcelona won the 2021 Copa del Rey with a 4-0 victory against Athletic Bilbao.
Barca earned the Spanish King's Cup trophy, scoring all their goals in the second half of the final at La Cartuja Stadium, Seville.
French star Antoine Griezmann scored the opener with a left-footed shot in the near post in the 59th minute to give Barcelona the lead.
Dutch midfielder Frenkie de Jong doubled the gap with a diving header in the 63rd minute.
Argentine superstar Lionel Messi netted two goals in the 68 and 72 minutes to seal the win.
Barcelona won the Spanish Cup 31 times to be the most successful club in the domestic tournament.
Athletic Bilbao lost their second Spanish Cup final in two weeks.