Daily Current Affairs 8th Dec 2020 | Daily GK update Quiz

Exp. The Uttar Pradesh government has recently launched a scheme to take the unique culture of the Tharu tribes all over the world. The intention of the scheme is to put these tribal villages on tourism map. This will create jobs and bring economic Independence to the tribal population in the region.

The State Government of Uttar Pradesh is planning to connect the villages of the Tharu tribals located in the International border of Nepal. It is a Homestay scheme under which the Uttar Pradesh Forest Department will offer tourists an experience of living in the natural habitat of Tharu tribals. These huts are made of grass collected from the forest.

Exp. The cyber wing of Maharashtra police has recently acquired a software called the “Crawler” from the INTERPOL that will help to track down child pornography. A core unit of 12 officers has been formed to implement a mission involving the software.

These twelve officers went for training to the South Asian wing of INTERPOL. The unit has been named TRACE. TRACE is Tactical Response Against Cyber Child Exploitation.

Exp. The Dandupur railway station situated between Pratapgarh and Badshahpur on Lucknow-Varanasi rail section will now be named Maa Barahi Devi Dham.

The Union government has given its consent after which Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath gave his nod to the renaming of the railway station.

Exp. The historical fort cities of Gwalior and Orchha in Madhya Pradesh have been included in the list of UNESCO’s world heritage cities under its urban landscape city programme.

“After getting included in the heritage city list, the face of Gwalior and Orchha will totally change and UNESCO along with the state tourism department will make a master plan for the beautification of the two places.

Exp. The US planted the first flag on the Moon in 1969 during the manned Apollo 11 lunar mission. Later five more US flags were planted on the Moon during subsequent missions till 1972.

More than 50 years later, China has become only the second country to achieve the feat.

Pictures from the China National Space Administration (CNSA) show the five-starred Red Flag holding still on the windless lunar surface. China’s Chang’e-5 space probe’s camera took the images on 5th Dec before it left the Moon surface with rock samples.

Exp. Fitch Ratings on 8TH Dec raised India’s GDP forecast to -9.4 per cent in the current fiscal year to March 2021 from a previously projected contraction of 10.5 per cent due to a sharp economic rebound in the July-September quarter.

For the global economy, it projected a less severe decline in GDP at -3.7 per cent in 2020 compared to -4.4 per cent in the September projection.

Exp. Punjab National Bank (PNB) on 6th Dec launched a tech-based loan management solution called ‘LenS-The Lending Solution’, to speed up and maintain accuracy in online loan processing and sanctioning of credit proposals.

Aims: The main purpose behind this is to standardise the system, process and appraisal formats for loan processing, speed up the process of credit sanctions, and auto-generate loan documents, among others.

Exp. The ICICI Bank on 7th Dec launched the ‘iMobile Pay’ app which offers payments and banking services to customers of any bank. This launch marks the private lender bank’s entry to the ‘FinTech’ space.

The mobile application offers a combination of facilities of a payment app — such as enabling customers to pay to any UPI (Unified Payments Interface) ID or merchants, paying bills and do online recharge among others — with instant banking services such as savings account, investments, loans, credit cards, gift cards, travel cards and much more.

Exp. The Reserve Bank of India has announced that the RTGS system will be made available round the clock on all days of the year with effect from 00:30 hours on December 14, 2020.

Presently RTGS system is available for customers between 7:00 AM and 6:00 PM. RTGS shall continue to be governed by the RTGS System Regulations, 2013.

Exp. The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), has won the prestigious International King Bhumibol World Soil Day Award for 2020. The award was presented annually by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

The award was conferred to the ICAR on the occasion of World Soil Day, on December 5. ICAR India will officially receive the award by Her Royal Highness, Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn of Thailand, during an event in Bangkok in January 2021.

Exp. Journalist-author, Raj Kamal Jha has won the 3rd Rabindranath Tagore Literary Prize for his novel, “The City and The Sea”. The winner of the $5,000 prize was announced online in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Novel which is based on the December 2012 Nirbhaya rape and murder case.

Exp. World record-breakers Mondo Duplantis of Sweden and Yulimar Rojas of Venezuela have been named the male and female World Athletes of the Year respectively at the World Athletics Awards 2020, a ceremony held virtually this time due to the post novel coronavirus (COVID-19) protocols.

Exp. Sri Lanka will host the Asia Cup in June 2021 while Pakistan has earned the rights to host the tournament in 2022.

As per the original schedule, the tournament was supposed to be hosted by Pakistan in 2020, however, it got postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Exp. New Zealand all-rounder, Corey Anderson has announced his retirement from international cricket.

Anderson has played 13 Tests, 49 ODIs and 31 T20Is for New Zealand, scoring 2277 runs with two hundred and 10 half-centuries and 90 wickets.

Exp. Jehan Daruvala created history, as he became the first Indian to win a Formula 2 race at the 2020 Sakhir Grand Prix, Bahrain.

This was the final race of the F2 season. The Formula 2 Championship is a second-tier single-seater racing championship. His Japanese teammate, Yuki Tsunoda came second while Britain’s Daniel Ticktum was in a third spot.

Exp. Veteran Bengali actor Manu Mukherjee passed away. He started his film career with Mrinal Sen’s Nil Akasher Niche (1958).

The actor is best remembered for his roles in Satyajit Ray’s Joy Baba Felunath and Ganashatru. He had also been part of children’s fantasy film Patalghar’.

Exp. RTGS stands for Real Time Gross Settlement.