Current Affairs, September 2020

• Union Cabinet has approved the launch of a “Mission Karmayogi” National Programme for Civil Services Capacity Building (NPCSCB). Mission Karmayogi has been launched to prepare the Indian Civil Servant for the future by making him more creative, constructive, imaginative, innovative, proactive, professional, progressive, energetic, enabling, transparent and technology-enabled.
• India has joined the group of top 50 countries in the global innovation index for the first time, moving up four places to the 48th rank.
• India has been elected as a member of the United Nation’s Commission on Status of Women, a body of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). India will be a member of United Nation’s Commission on Status of Women for four years, 2021 to ‘25.
• The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will implement the “Technology Vision for Cyber Security’ for Urban Co-operative Banks (2020-2023) to enhance the IT security system of Urban Co-operative banking to prevent, detect, respond to and recover from cyber-attacks.

The Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize 2020 was announced by the Union science and technology minister Dr Harsh Vardhan at the Foundation Day celebration of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) on 26th September.

• Here is the list of 14 Fourteen scientists awardees:
• Biological Sciences:
• • Dr Subhadeep Chatterjee,
• • Dr Vatsala Thirumalai
• Chemical Sciences
• • Dr Jyotirmayee Dash,
• • Dr Subi Jacob George
• Earth, Atmosphere, Ocean and Planetary Sciences
• • Dr Abhijit Mukherjee
• • Dr Suryendu Dutta
• Engineering Sciences
• • Dr Amol Arvindrao Kulkarni
• • Dr Kinshuk Dasgupta
• Mathematics Sciences
• • Dr UK Anandavardhanan,
• • Dr Rajat Subhra Hazra
• Medicine Sciences
• • Dr Bushra Ateeq,
• • Dr Ritesh Agarwal
• Physics Sciences
• • Dr Rajesh Ganapathy
• • Dr Surajit Dhara
• The 51st Edition of the International Film Festival of India, IFFI will be held from 16th to 24th January, next year in Goa.
• Rajiv Kumar has taken the charge as the new Election Commissioner (EC) of India.
• Appointments Committee of the Cabinet has approved the appointment of the current chairman of the Railway Board VK Yadav as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO).
• Former Lok Sabha MP and Bollywood actor, Paresh Rawal have been appointed as the new chief of National School of Drama by President Ram Nath Kovind.
• A 1988 batch IAS officer, Rajesh Khullar has been appointed as Executive Director at World Bank in Washington DC.
• The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has appointed Takeo Konishi as its new Country Director for India. Konishi will replace Kenichi Yokoyama who has taken over as Director-General of ADB’s South Asia Department.
• The Appointments Committee of Cabinet has approved the proposal to appoint Simanchala Dash as an advisor to Executive Director, International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington.
• ITBP Director General, S S Deswal has been given the additional charge of counter-terrorism force National Security Guard (NSG) as its incumbent chief A K Singh is going to retire on September 30.
• India has been ranked 105th position “Global Economic Freedom Index 2020 Annual Report” by Canada’s Fraser Institute, which has been released in India in conjunction with Center for Civil Society, New Delhi-based think tank. This is the 24th edition of Economic Freedom of the World. Hong Kong topped the Index.
• Indian Grandmaster P Iniyan has won the 48th Annual World Open online chess tournament.
• Pierre Gasly (Scuderia AlphaTauri, France) has won the Formula One Italian Grand Prix 2020 held at Autodromo Nazionale Monza, Italy.
• Japan’s Naomi Osaka defeated Victoria Azarenka of Belarus to clinch the Women’s Singles title in the 2020 US Open Tennis tournament.
• Austria’s Dominic Thiem defeated Alexander Zverev to win the men’s singles title at the 2020 US Open tournament.
  
• Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes-Great Britain) has won the Formula One Tuscan Grand Prix 2020 held at Mugello Circuit, Italy.
• Novak Djokovic has defeated Argentine Diego Schwartzman, 7-6, 5-3, to win 2020 Men’s Single Italian Open title and his fifth overall Rome title. In Women’s single, Simona Halep defeated champion Karolina Pliskova, 6-0, 2-1, to win her first Italian Open title.
• Saudi Arabia chaired the G20 Foreign Ministers’ Extraordinary Meeting. During the meeting, India proposed the setting up of voluntary ‘G20 Principles on Coordinated Cross-Border Movement of People’.
• The 5th BRICS Culture Ministers’ Meeting was held under the chairpersonship of Russian Federation.
• The 35th Session of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Regional Conference for Asia and the Pacific (APRC 35) was held virtual format due to the global COVID-19 pandemic. The Conference was held under the Chair of the Host Country, Bhutan.
• The Environment Ministerial Meeting (EMM) of the G20 countries was held through video conferencing under the Presidency of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
• Sir David Attenborough was conferred with the prestigious Indira Gandhi Peace Prize for the year 2019.
• International Day of Democracy is observed globally on 15th September every year.
• International Literacy Day is observed globally on 8th September every year. The day spread awareness about the importance of literacy for individuals, communities, and societies and the need for intensified efforts towards more literate societies. International Literacy Day 2020 focuses on “Literacy teaching and learning in the COVID-19 crisis and beyond,” especially on the role of educators and changing pedagogies.
• Hindi Diwas or Hindi Day is observed every year on 14 September to mark the popularity of Hindi as an official language of India.
• World Rhino Day is observed globally on 22 September every year.
• India has withdrawn its participation from the multilateral Military Exercise “Kavkaz 2020” to be held in Russia.
• The first batch of five Rafale fighter jets was formally inducted into the Indian Air Force (IAF) on 10 September 2020 at the Air Force Station in Ambala.
• BrahMos surface-to-surface supersonic cruise missile featuring indigenous Booster and Airframe Section along with many other ‘Made in India’ sub-systems was successfully flight tested from ITR, Balasore in Odisha.
• World’s largest Solar Tree has been developed by the CSIR-CMERI and has been installed at the Residential Colony of CSIR-CMERI in Durgapur, West Bengal.
• Union Cabinet has approved J&K official languages Bill 2020. According to the J&K official languages Bill 2020, Kashmiri, Dogri and Hindi along with Urdu and English, will be the official languages in the union territory of Jammu and Kashmir.