Daily Current Affairs 18th November, 2021

Daily Current Affairs 18 November 2021 for Banking/Insurance/SSC and other related exams.

NATIONAL NEWS

Films Division pays cinematic tribute to Lala Lajpat Rai on his 93th death anniversary
Films Division will pay a cinematic tribute to the doyen of Indian Independence movement, popularly known as Punjab Kesari on his 93th death anniversary .

  • Films Division will stream a 21-minute English biopic, “Lala Lajpat Rai” on its Website and YouTube channel.
  • The biopic depicting the great activist’s life and his heroic relentless fight for India’s Independence, will stream for 24 hours. This special screening will be a part of ‘Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav’ celebration by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.

India’s First Fisheries Business Incubation Centre Launched in Gurugram
The first-of-its-kind, dedicated fisheries business incubator has been inaugurated in Gurugram of Haryana to nurture fisheries start-ups under real market-led conditions. The incubator is known as LINAC- NCDC Fisheries Business Incubation Centre (LlFlC).

  • The centre has been established at a cost of Rs. 3.23 crore under the central flagship Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana (PMMSY).
  • The National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC) is the implementing agency for the LIFIC.
  • The first batch of ten incubators from four states (Bihar, Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra) have already been identified.

WB CM Mamata Banerjee Launches ‘Ration At Doorstep’ Scheme
The Mamata Banerjee government in West Bengal launched the ‘Duare Ration’ (ration at doorstep) scheme which the administration said will benefit around 10 crores of people of the state.

  • The ‘Duare Ration’ scheme is one of the many pet projects of CM Banerjee and was announced ahead of the West Bengal assembly elections earlier this year
  • At the programme, Banerjee also inaugurated a WhatsApp chatbot for the Food and Supplies Department of the state government and a mobile application, ‘Khadya Sathi: Amar Ration Mobile App’ to help people apply for ration cards and get information about how to do it.

MP Cabinet approves Mukhya Mantri Udyam Kranti Yojana
Under the chairmanship of Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, the Cabinet has given its approval to start Mukhyamantri Udyam Kranti Yojana to connect educated youths of the State with self-employment.

  • The benefit of the scheme will be available to the minimum 12th class pass youths of the State between the ages of 18 to 40 years.
  • Under the scheme, projects ranging from one lakh to 50 lakh rupees for manufacturing units and one lakh to 25 lakh rupees for service units or retail businesses will be approved.
  • Interest subsidy at the rate of three per cent per annum and loan guarantee fee will be given to the beneficiary at the prevailing rate for a maximum of 7 years on the loan disbursed by the state government as financial assistance.


INTERNATIONAL NEWS

Number of tobacco users decreased globally since 2015 : WHO
The number of people using tobacco globally decreased to 1.30 billion in 2020, from 1.32 billion in 2015, the World Health Organization WHO has reported. This number was expected to decline to 1.27 billion by 2025. 

  • However, several countries were still not adequately implementing policies to help tobacco users to quit, the WHO said. About 70 per cent of the world’s 1.3 billion tobacco users did not have access to tools to help them to quit successfully, according to WHO.

India stands at 82 in global bribery risk rankings, dips by five spots
India has slipped to 82nd position in 2021, five places down from 77th rank last year, in a global list that measures business bribery risks.

  • The list by TRACE, an anti-bribery standard setting organisation, measures business bribery risk in 194 countries, territories, and autonomous and semi-autonomous regions.
  • According to this year’s data, North Korea, Turkmenistan, Venezuela and Eritrea pose the highest commercial bribery risk, while Denmark, Norway, Finland, Sweden and New Zealand present the lowest.


BANKING & FINANCE

IndusInd Bank launches a one-stop mobile app for merchants
IndusInd Bank, announced the launch of ‘Indus Merchant Solutions’ a comprehensive mobile application to enable merchants, retailers and professionals to carry out banking transactions digitally, on a single platform.

  • The all-new application will enable merchants and retailers to undertake an array of activities such as accept instant cashless payments on mobile phones from customers through multiple digital modes, track inventory via in-built dashboards, apply for an exclusive Point of Sale (PoS) machine to facilitate card-based payments, as well as avail small ticket business loans from the Bank in a completely digital & paperless manner, without having to visit a bank branch.

SBI partners with Tata Steel to promote Indian football through Jamshedpur FC
With an aim to support and promote Indian football, the country’s largest lender, State Bank of India (SBI), has entered into a strategic partnership with JFC, the football club owned by Tata Steel.

  • The bank signed a landmark agreement with the JFC – making this a first major endeavor by SBI in the game of football.
  • With this partnership, SBI will be one of the principal sponsors of the JFC.

Karnataka Vikas Grameena Bank gets ASSOCHAM award
The Karnataka Vikas Grameena Bank (KVGB) was adjudged the best regional rural bank (RRB) under the ‘Regional Rural Banks’ category, in recognition of its initiatives in the sphere of digital financial services by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM), Mumbai.

  • Bank chairman P. Gopikrishna received the award from Reserve Bank of India Regional Director R. Gurumurthy in Bengaluru.
  • Around 40 villages in Karnataka are converted into 100% digital villages by the KVGB bank. These efforts are encouraging villagers to use digital mode for transactions. Those villages have round-the-clock access to Internet banking, mobile banking, micro ATMs, AEPS (Aadhar Enabled Payment Systems), IMPS, and UPI.

Kotak Mahindra ties with PVR Cinemas to launch co-branded movie debit card
Kotak Mahindra Bank and PVR Cinemas launched a co-branded movie debit card.

  • With the Kotak PVR Movie Debit Card, cardholders will receive joining vouchers and earn points on every transaction on the debit card at PVR and outside PVR as well, with no upper limit on the points earned.
  • Further, Kotak PVR debit cardholders will get automatically enrolled to the PVR Privilege Plus programme.

Blockchain feeder fund gets Sebi nod 
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has given the nod to Invesco CoinShares Global Blockchain ETF Fund of Fund (FoF), which will be India’s first scheme that offers exposure to global companies participating in the blockchain ecosystem.

  • The feeder fund will invest into Ireland-domiciled Invesco CoinShares Global Blockchain UCITS Exchange-traded Fund (ETF). The fund holds investments such as Canadian bitcoin miner Bitfarms Ltd, US crypto exchange Coinbase Global Inc., and the world’s biggest corporate crypto holder MicroStrategy Inc.
  • The underlying fund was earlier called Invesco Elwood Global Blockchain UCITS ETF. The name was changed after digital asset manager CoinShares International Ltd acquired the ETF index business from Elwood Technologies. The new fund offer for Invesco CoinShares Global Blockchain ETF FoF will open on 24 November and close on 8 December.

RBI introduces internal ombudsman mechanism for select-NBFCs
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has introduced an Internal Ombudsman mechanism for select Non-Banking Financial Companies (NBFCs).

  • RBI directed that Deposit-taking NBFCs (NBFCs-D) with 10 or more branches and Non-Deposit taking NBFCs (NBFCs-ND) with asset size of Rs5,000cr and above having public customer interface to appoint Internal Ombudsman (IO) at the apex of their internal grievance redress mechanism within six months from the date of issue of the direction, except for the certain type of NBFCs.
  • All complaints that are partly or wholly rejected by the NBFC will be reviewed by the IO before the final decision of the NBFC is conveyed to the complainant. The IO will not entertain any complainants directly from members of the public.

PIDF corpus reaches at ₹614 crore 
The corpus of the Payments Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF) stands at ₹613.89 crore. 

  • Over 2.45 lakh physical devices and more than 55.36 lakh digital devices were deployed for payment acceptance under the PIDF by September-end 2021.
  • Of this amount, while the RBI has contributed ₹ 250 crore, authorised card networks have contributed ₹153.72 crore and card issuing banks have put in ₹210.17 crore.


BUSINESS & ECONOMY

TPCI signs MoU with Government of Navarra, Spain, for trade and investment promotion
The Trade Promotion Council of India (TPCI) said it has inked an MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) with the Government of Navarra, Spain to further promote trade and investments between the two countries.

  • The council will work with the Government of Navarra for the promotion of trade and investment besides, strengthening the bilateral and commercial relationship.
  • This MoU will provide a platform for mutual promotion of business of both the countries. The promotional activities will be mainly focused on sectors such as food and food processing.

WPI inflation jumps to 5-month high of 12.54% in October
The wholesale price-based inflation spiked to 5-month high of 12.54 per cent in October, mainly due to rise in prices of manufactured products and crude petroleum.

  • WPI inflation has remained in double digit for the seventh consecutive month beginning April.Inflation in September this year was at 10.66 per cent, while in October 2020 it was at 1.31 per cent.
  • The October WPI is the highest in five months since May, when it was at 13.11 per cent.


SPORTS

India and Bangladesh to jointly host 2031 ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup
The International Cricket Council (ICC) has decided that India and Bangladesh will jointly host the 2031 ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup.

  • The hosts were selected via a competitive bidding process which was overseen by a board sub-committee chaired by Martin Snedden along with Sourvav Ganguly and Ricky Skerritt.
  • The ICC confirmed the 14 host countries for the ICC men’s white ball events from 2024-2031. It includes 11 full members and three associate members who will host two  ICC Men’s World Cups, four ICC Men’s T20 World Cups and two ICC men’s Champions Trophy events.


APPOINTMENTS

Shombi Sharp appointed as UN Resident Coordinator in India
Shombi Sharp of the United States has been appointed as the United Nations resident coordinator in India with the host government’s approval.

  • The appointment of Sharp by UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres was announced.
  • He will serve as the secretary-general’s representative for development at the country level and lead the UN team on the ground, including for support to India’s Covid-19 response plans to recover better for the Sustainable Development Goals


OBITUARIES

Legendary novelist Wilbur Smith passes away at 88
International best-selling author Wilbur Smith has died at his home in Cape Town at the age of 88, his publisher has announced.

  • Smith’s 49 published books have sold more than 140 million copies worldwide. He gained widespread recognition following the publication of his debut novel When the Lion Feeds in 1964


BOOKS & AUTHORS

“The Disruptor: How Vishwanath Pratap Singh Shook India” book by Debashish Mukerji
The book titled “The Disruptor: How Vishwanath Pratap Singh Shook India” written by Debashish Mukerji has been released recently.

  • The book presents a detailed account on India’s eighth Prime Minister (PM), Vishwanath Pratap Singh (V P Singh), who served as PM between December 1989 to November 1990.
  • He also served as the Defence Minister of India & the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh.

Pullela Gopichand released his Autobiography Shuttler’s Flick
India’s chief national badminton coach P. Gopi Chand formally launched his autobiography Shuttler’s Flick: Making every match count, co-authored by Priya Kumar.

  • The book tells the life story of Gopichand. From the fateful knee injury on January 25, 1994, the comeback and his journey into building the Pullela Gopichand Badminton Academy was discussed during the launch of the book. Professor Madan Pillutla further delved into how to build a legacy and an institution.


IMPORTANT DAYS

National Newborn Week 2021 
National Newborn Week is observed every year from 15 to 21 November.

  • The objective of the week is to reinforce the importance of newborn health as a key priority area of the health sector and reduce the infant mortality rate by improving healthcare conditions for babies in the neonatal period.
  • The theme of National Newborn Week 2021 is ‘Safety, quality and nurturing care – birth right of every newborn’.

First Audit Diwas 
Audit Diwas was celebrated on November 16 to mark the historic origin of the institution of CAG and the contribution it has made to the governance, transparency and accountability over the past several years.

  • Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed an event to mark the first Audit Diwas at the CAG office.
  • He will also unveil the statue of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel on the occasion.


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