VISION

Tuesday, November 17, 2020

Daily Current Affairs, 17th November 2020

1) Nitish Kumar sworn-in as Chief Minister of Bihar for 7th term

•The Chief of Janata Dal (United), Nitish Kumar has taken an oath as the Chief Minister of Bihar and he will begin his 7th term on 16th November 2020. Bihar Governor Phagu Chauhan administered the oath of office and secrecy to Mr Kumar at Raj Bhavan in Patna. BJP legislature party leader Tarkishore Prasad and Deputy leader Renu Devi have been made the new Deputy Chief Ministers.

•14 other ministers were also sworn in along with Mr Kumar. Out of them, seven are from BJP, five from JD (U) and one each from Vikassheel Insaan Party( VIP) and Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM).

2) PM Narendra Modi unveils Swami Vivekananda’s statue on JNU

•Prime Minister Narendra Modi has unveiled a statue of Swami Vivekananda in Jawaharlal Nehru University Campus, New Delhi through video conferencing. It took renowned sculptor Naresh Kumawat seven months to complete this statue of Swami Vivekananda on the JNU campus. Located about 300 metres from a statue of India’s first prime minister, the statue of Swami Vivekananda is about three feet taller than that of Jawaharlal Nehru.

•The event was also attended by Union Minister for Education Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank and JNU vice-chancellor Jagadesh Kumar.

3) RBI imposes Rs 1 crore penalty on Punjab National Bank

•The Reserve Bank of India has imposed a penalty of Rs 1 crore on Punjab National Bank for violating the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007. Punjab National Bank was operating a bilateral ATM-sharing arrangement with Druk PNB Bank Ltd., Bhutan, since April 2010 without prior approval or authorisation from India’s banking regulator.

•RBI imposed the Rs 1 crore penalty for “contravention of nature referred to in Section 26 (6) of the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007 (PSS Act).”

4) SBM Bank India set to launch a neo banking platform

•SBM Bank India, the wholly-owned subsidiary of State Bank of Mauritius has partnered with Fintech PayNearby to launch a neo banking platform. Both firms signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to build an “open banking” network towards delivering basic banking solutions as well as advanced financial services, to their customers.

•The partnership would enable the Bank to offer a complete suite of digital and assisted banking solutions through PayNearby’s network of micro-enterprise and retail touchpoints. The deployment of the banking module will be done in a phased manner and will work seamlessly with the existing platforms at PayNearby outlets and touchpoints. SBM Bank India was the first foreign bank in India to obtain a banking licence from the Reserve Bank of India to operate as a Wholly Owned Subsidiary in January 2019.

5) ED Director SK Mishra’s tenure extended by one year

•The Union government has extended the tenure of Enforcement Directorate (ED) Director Sanjay Kumar Mishra by a year after modifying his appointment order that was issued in 2018. His tenure was to end next week as the ED director’s post comes with a fixed term of two years.

•As per an order issued by the Department of Revenue under the Union finance ministry on Friday, the 2018 order for appointment of Mishra has been modified. “The President of India is pleased to approve the modification in the earlier order dated November 19, 2018, appointing Shri Sanjay Kumar Mishra as director of enforcement in the Enforcement Directorate.

6) HDFC Bank, IndusInd in ‘red flag’ list on nearing foreign investment cap

•HDFC Bank & IndusInd Bank have been put in the ‘red flag’ list, a system used for monitoring foreign portfolio investor (FPI) limits. A listed company enters the list when the available legroom for overseas investment is less than 3% of the permissible limit. FPIs can invest up to 74% in both HDFC Bank and IndusInd Bank.

•The current FPI shareholding in case of HDFC Bank is 71.3 per cent, while that of IndusInd Bank is 73. 1 per cent. Besides these two, Novartis India and Procter & Gamble Hygiene and Health Care are the only other companies in the red-flag list.

The HINDU Notes – 17th November 2020

the hindu notes

vision cse 12:24

📰 GAIL completes Kochi-Mangaluru pipeline

Within this week itself gas will reach the Karnataka city through the 444-km pipeline

•Kochi The much-delayed Kochi-Mangaluru natural gas pipeline project is finally ready for commissioning as GAIL India has completed the final 540-metre treacherous stretch across the Chandragiri river in northern Kerala, according to a senior company official.

•The 444-km-long natural gas pipeline was launched in 2009 at an estimated cost of Rs 2,915 crore and was to be commissioned in 2014. But opposition on safety and commercial grounds wherein the land price was the main hurdle has resulted in the project cost nearly doubling to over ₹5,750 crore.

•“We completed the most difficult stretch across the Chandragiri river in Kasaragod district on Saturday. Now the testing is on and this will be completed in the next two days. Within this week itself gas will reach Mangaluru through the 444-km pipeline,” P. Murugesan, executive director and head of southern region, GAIL, said on Monday.

•The formal commissioning will be done later, according to the availability of the Minister, he added.

Main junction

•The pipeline is charged up to Kannur now and has been live up to Koottanad in Palakkad district, 90 km north of Kochi, since June 2019. Koottanad is the main junction of the project, as from here the line bifurcates to Managaluru and Bengaluru.

•The first phase of the project was commissioned in August 2013 in the Kochi metropolitan area with industrial supplies and domestic supplies from February 2016 by Adani Gas. With the commissioning of the pipeline, gas demand in the State will touch 80-90 million cubic metres per annum from 60 million cubic metres now. Apart from huge environmental gains, the State can gain monetarily as it can get up to ₹1,000 crore by way of taxes alone.

•Authorities were ready to complete the project this August but a 540-metre stretch across the Chandragiri river became a nightmare for them. So as a way out they reduced the diameter of the pipe to a fourth -- from 24 inches to just 6 inches now. Mr. Murugesan said this is a temporary arrangement and the work to lay 24-inch pipe will resume soon after the commissioning of the project.

•He said the pipeline will supply gas to all seven districts it passes through Kerala -- Ernakulam, Thrissur, Palakkad, Malappuram, Kozhikode, Kannur and Kasargod -- and the hilly Wayanad district.