Current affairs notes on September 11-15

1.127th anniversary of Swami Vivekananda’s in Chicago. The Parliament
of World’s Religions, held for the first time in 1893, from September 11
to September 27, saw eminent personalities from around the world at the same
forum.

2. The Department of Posts has launched a scheme
called Five Star Villages, to ensure universal coverage of flagship
postal schemes in rural areas of the country. The scheme is being launched
on pilot basis in Maharashtra. The scheme will be implemented by a team of
five Gramin Dak Sevaks who will be assigned a village for marketing
of all products, savings and insurance schemes of the Department of Posts.

3. ‘SAROD-Ports’ stands for Society for Affordable
Redressal of Disputes – Ports. Launched by the Union Shipping Ministry. It
is Affordable Dispute Redressal Mechanism for all kind of disputes of maritime
sector.

4. Recently, the EASE (Enhanced Access and Service
Excellence) 2.0 Banking Reforms Index on performance of Public Sector
Banks (PSB) from March 2018-2020 was released and best performing banks on EASE
were felicitated.

5. The Bank of Baroda, State Bank of India, and erstwhile
Oriental Bank of Commerce were felicitated for being the top three in the
‘Top Performing Banks’ category.

6. The PM CARES Fund has received an exemption
from all provisions of the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act. However,
it is alleged that PM CARES does not meet the precondition of being a body
established and owned by the government whose accounts are audited by the
Comptroller and Auditor-General (CAG).

7. Jammu and Kashmir Integrated Grievance Redress and
Monitoring System (JK-IGRAMS): Launched on pilot basis for Jammu,
Srinagar, and Reasi districts. This is the first UT that will be linked to the
central government system—CPGRAMS. The CPGRAMS provides the facility to
lodge a grievance online from any geographical location. It enables the
citizen to track online the grievance.

8. The Results of the second edition of Ranking of
States on Support to Startup Ecosystems have been released. Conducted
by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT).  Best performer: Gujrat. Top Performers:
Karnataka,Kerala.

9. Climate Smart Cities Assessment Framework (CSCAF) 2.0: Launched
recently by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA). The
objective of CSCAF is to provide a clear roadmap for cities towards
combating Climate Change while planning and implementing their actions,
including investments.

10. The Union Ministry of Mines had requested the
Environment Ministry to exempt it from paying NPV (Net present value).  NPV is a monetary approximation of the value
that is lost when a piece of forest land has been razed.

11. Typhoon Haishen Recently, Japan was hot by
this typhoon.

12. India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan were among
countries that need to act urgently against trans-fat, the World Health
Organization (WHO) has warned. Trans fatty acids (TFAs) or Trans
fats are the most harmful type of fats which can have much more adverse
effects on our body than any other dietary constituent.

13. Researchers from Agharkar Research Institute (ARI) have
found that the methane hydrate deposits are located in the
Krishna-Godavari (KG) basin are of biogenic origin. On Earth, methane
(CH4) is a naturally occurring gas.  Methane hydrate is formed when
hydrogen-bonded water and methane gas come into contact at high pressures and
low temperatures in oceans.

14. Living Planet Report 2020: Released by international
non-profit World Wide Fund for Nature. India has 2.4 per cent global land
share, about eight per cent global biodiversity and around 16 per cent global
population. Living Planet Index (LPI)-It is a measure of the state of the
world’s biological diversity based on population trends of vertebrate species
in terrestrial, freshwater and marine habitats.

15. National Hindi Divas or Hindi Day is observed every
year on September 14. The Constituent assembly of India adopted Hindi as
the official language of the country on September 14, 1949 under Article 343.

16. The Karnataka government is likely to take a delegation
to bring pressure on the Centre to approve the construction of the
Mekedatu balancing reservoir that has been proposed to store water for
drinking purposes. Mekedatu is a location along Cauvery in Kanakapura
Taluk of Ramanagara District of Karnataka. Tamil Nadu objected saying Karnataka
had not sought prior permission for the project.

17. The supplementary demand for grants is needed for
government expenditure over and above the amount for which Parliamentary
approval was already obtained during the Budget session.  Article 115: Supplementary, additional or
excess grants. Article 116: Votes on account, votes of credit and
exceptional grants.

Thanks