Current Affairs for BANK, IBPS Exams - 20 December 2021

Current Affairs for BANK, IBPS Exams - 19 December 2021

::National::

Parliament communications may soon be accessed digitally through e-Sansad

Parliamentary communications may soon switch to a paperless system called e-Sansad that will allow the secretariat, ministries, members and citizens to access information digitally in a secure manner, officials familiar with the matter said.
The government is also looking at global best practices as it plans the new e-Sansad initiative for a digitally driven Parliament.
The government is making an effort to introduce advanced technological capabilities for the new Parliament house that is being built, a parliamentarian familiar with the initiative said. “The system borrows from the best practices of several parliaments across the world, and takes examples from the Estonian model and two other countries,” the MP said on condition of anonymity.
E-Sansad aims to create an internationally competitive “eco-system to provide a centralised electronic platform that facilitates end-to-end information flow and is neutral and open to ensure secure exchanges between stakeholders”.
The government on December 15 circulated a document that detailed the agenda of the project, which is managed by the committee on information communication technology management (ICTM). The committee is working with National Informatics Centre, which provides computer programming support to the government.
HT reached out to Meity secretary Ajay Sawhney, who did not respond immediately.
Two sub-committees have been constituted under the ICTM, the officials said. One of them will look at existing systems, identify gaps and prepare recommendations. The other will flesh out the concept of a futuristic Parliament by studying global best practices.
E-Sansad will include features for multiple stakeholders from the speaker of the LokSabha, chairperson of the RajyaSabha, members, secretariat, ministers, ministries, the digital library and the general public. This would ease tracking and tracing of documents while ensuring data confidentiality, according to the document cited earlier.

Printed Study Materials for IBPS, SBI Bank Exam

::International::

Early results favor ex-protest leader for Chile's presidency

A millennial former student protest leader took an early lead Sunday in Chile's presidential runoff following a bruising campaign pitting him against a free-market firebrand likened to Donald Trump.
With barely 13% of 46,887 polling stations reporting, Gabriel Boric had 53% of the votes, compared to 47% for his opponent, lawmaker José Antonio Kast.
Kast, who has a history of defending Chile’s past military dictatorship, finished ahead in the first round of voting last month but failed to secure a majority of votes. That set up a head-to-head runoff against Boric, who finished two points behind.
Whoever wins will be breaking precedent. Since the return of democracy three decades ago, no candidate leading after the first round has ever been defeated in the runoff. But no president has ever been elected without winning in the capital, Santiago, which Boric carried comfortably in the first round.
Opinion polls in recent days consistently showed an advantage for Boric, although sometimes within the margin or error, meaning the contest is likely to be decided by whichever candidate is able to energize his base while at the same time winning over the majority of voters who don't side with political extremes.

::Economy::

Union Ministry of Road Transport, IIT Madras and MapmyIndia collaborate for road safety technologies

The Union Ministry of Road Transport, IIT Madras, and MapmyIndia inked a memorandum of understanding for partnership in the driver and road safety technologies field on 17 Dec 2021 and jointly launched a free navigation app service for people.
MapmyIndia, a provider of advanced digital maps, stated in a statement that the MapmyIndia app offers users road safety alerts regarding impending accident hazards while driving.
Users will receive verbal and visual alerts about future accident-prone zones, speed breakers, steep curves, potholes, and other hazards by using this navigation software, according to the company.
Users and authorities can also use the app to identify and broadcast accidents, unsafe locations, and road and traffic issues on the map, which will be analyzed by IIT Madras and MapmyIndia and then used by the government to improve road conditions in the future. The government of India's Aatmanirbhar App Innovation Challenge in 2020 was won by MapmyIndia, according to the release.

LIC valuation delay likely to push IPO plan beyond FY22

The government is unlikely to come up with the IPO of Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) in the current financial year ending March 2022, as the valuation of the state-owned behemoth is taking more than anticipated time, and the preparatory work is still far from complete.
There are still some issues that need to be addressed with regard to the valuation of LIC, a senior official of one of the merchant bankers said.
Even after the valuation, there are several regulatory processes that have concluded, the official said.
However, DIPAM Secretary TuhinKantaPandey later in a tweet expressed confidence that IPO plans of LIC is on course and it would happen in the January-March quarter of 2021-22.
The merchant banker added that the initial public offering (IPO) requires vetting not only by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) but also the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (Irdai) that has been headless for almost seven months.
Valuation of LIC is a complex process because of its size, product mix, real estate assets, subsidiaries and profitability sharing structure, and the size of share sale depends on the valuation, another official said.
Given the number of regulatory procedures to be fulfilled, the official said it would be difficult to meet the deadline of the fourth quarter of the current fiscal by any stretch of imagination.
The government is banking on the listing of LIC IPO and BPCL strategic sale for meeting its disinvestment target of Rs 1.75 lakh crore.
Recently, speaking about disinvestment, Finance Minister NirmalaSitharaman had said the government is progressing well.
"The tying up of loose ends among bureaucracy and different departments consumes its own time and that is what we are trying to speed up," she had said.

::Science and tech::

ISRO signed six agreements with four countries

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will launch foreign satellites as it has signed six agreements with four countries during 2021-2023, informed Union Minister Jitendra Singh on Thursday, December 16, in reply to a question during the RajyaSabha. These launches will be done under six Launch service agreements that the organisation's commercial arm, New Space India Limited (NSIL), has inked with the four countries. According to the Minister, all the launches will be commercial and a total of 132 million Euros will be generated from the foreign satellites.
"ISRO through its commercial arm, New Space India Limited (NSIL), a Government of India company under Department of Space (DOS), has been launching satellites belonging to other countries on-board Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), on a commercial basis," Singh informed in his written reply.
Further in his reply, the Minister also revealed that ISRO's PSLV has launched a total of 342 satellites since 1999 for 34 foreign countries. Besides, India has added $35 million and 10 million Euros in foreign exchange (forex) reserve primarily from the launches in 2019-2021, as per Singh. In addition to this, ISRO is also working on the Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV), which is in its final developmental stage and will probably be tested in the first quarter of 2022.
The Minister informed that once completed, the SSLV will be able to carry a payload of 500 kilograms to an altitude of 500 kilometers. Earlier on Wednesday, he had revealed that, in the last five years, ISRO has successfully launched 25 launch vehicle missions and 27 satellite missions.

::Sport::

Kidambi Srikanth bags historic silver, goes down fighting to Loh Kean Yew

India's shuttlerKidambiSrikanth scripted history, December 19, as he became the first male player from the nation to win a silver medal in BWF World Championships. He squared off against Singapore's Loh Kean Yew, who was also a first-time finalist. Despite leading 9-3, Srikanth lost the first game 15-21 as Loh regained composure and then dominated. In the second game, the battle was more equal as the players found themselves locked at 18-18.
Loh raced to two championships point which Srikanth managed to save. However, his challenge finally came to an end as Loh bagged the next two points to bag the gold medal. LakshyaSen, 20 and from India, bagged a bronze medal.