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08:15
Wednesday, September 16, 2020
Tuesday, September 15, 2020
Daily Current Affairs, 15th September 2020
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18:43
1) National Engineer’s Day: 15 September
•Sir MV was regarded as the “Father of Modern Mysore”. He was awarded ‘Bharat Ratna’ for his exceptional contribution to the building of India in 1955.
2) International Day of Democracy: 15 September
3) Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology celebrates ‘Himalaya Diwas’
•On the occasion of ‘Himalaya Diwas’, the scientists who are specialising in different aspects of the Himalayas deliberated on a range of areas namely landslide disaster risk reduction, Himalayan seismicity, risk awareness, and mitigation, and journey of black carbon towards Himalayan cryosphere.
4) India becomes member of UN’s ECOSOC body
•India, Afghanistan and China had contested the elections to the Commission on Status of Women. Even as India and Afghanistan won the ballot among the 54 members, China could not cross the half-way mark.
5) Yoshihide Suga to succeed Shinzo Abe as Japan’s PM
•Suga received maximum votes of 377 of the 534 valid votes in the Party election, held to pick a successor to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who announced in August 2020 that he would resign due to health problems.
6) Union Cabinet approves establishment of AIIMS at Darbhanga, Bihar
•The new All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) at Darbhanga, Bihar will have 15-20 Super Specialty Departments. The proposed institution shall have a hospital with capacity of 750 beds which will include Emergency / Trauma beds, ICU beds, AYUSH beds, Private beds and Specialty & Super Specialty beds.
7) TikTok choses Oracle as its technology partner for its US operations
•The partnership was signed by the two entities as in an executive order signed last month, President of the United States, Donald Trump stated that TikTok would be blocked in the US if it did not sell its US operations to an American company by 20th of September 2020.
8) S&P Global Ratings Projects India’s GDP at -9% in FY21
9) Rajesh Khullar appointed Executive Director at World Bank
•As executive director, Khullar will represent India, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Sri Lanka in the World Bank. The World Bank Group comprises 25 executive directors who each represent a country or constituency of countries, are either appointed or elected to the position.
10) Harivansh Narayan Singh re-elected as Deputy Chairman of Rajya Sabha
•Harivansh Narayan Singh was first elected as Deputy Chairman of Rajya Sabha on August 8, 2018. His term as Rajya Sabha member ended in April 2020.
11) Sameer Kumar Khare appointed Executive Director at ADB
12) Gauri Khan announces her debut book ‘My Life in Design’
13) Aditya Puri conferred Lifetime Achievement Award by Euromoney 2020
•Euromoney’s Awards for Excellence are the awards that matter to the banks and bankers who matter. They were established in 1992 and were the first of their kind in the global banking industry.
INSTA IAS PT 2020 Exclusive Science and Technology Part-2 PDF
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INSTA IAS PT 2020 Exclusive Science and Technology Part-2 PDF
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GS SCORE Prelims Fact File Science and Technology PDF Download
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GS SCORE Current Affairs September 2020 Week 3 PDF Download
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GS SCORE Current Affairs September 2020 Week 3 PDF Download
The HINDU Notes – 15th September 2020
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13:50
📰 The cost of peace
Afghanistan should not lose the democratic gains made in the post-Taliban era
•Six months after they were first due to be held, intra-Afghan talks bringing the Taliban face-to-face with representatives of the Ashraf Ghani government and Afghan civil society finally got underway in Doha on Saturday. The talks, which were a key outcome of the U.S.-Taliban and U.S.-Afghanistan agreements signed in February this year, have been delayed for many reasons. To begin with, the Taliban set pre-conditions including the release of all its prisoners, while not accepting the basic requirement of a ceasefire. There were also delays over the composition of the Afghan negotiating team led by chief negotiator Masoom Stanekzai, and differences over appointments between the former rivals, President Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah, who was appointed as the head of the High Council for National Reconciliation. There were even concerns over whether the all-male Taliban team would deal with the negotiating team, which includes four women. However, the biggest obstacle was the release of more than 5,000 Taliban prisoners and about 1,000 Afghan soldiers and others held by Taliban militia, as stipulated in the agreements with the U.S. Last month, President Ghani said that he would release all but about 400 who were wanted for “serious crimes”, which led to the Taliban threatening to call off talks, but resolved after a Loya Jirga of representatives approved the release. One final batch of prisoner releases was held up briefly over objections from France and Australia, whose soldiers had been killed by them. The silver lining for India, which otherwise views the reconciliation process with some foreboding, is that the release of all Taliban prisoners has also meant the safe return of three Indian hostages, held since 2018 by the Taliban.
•The hard part begins now. While preliminary rounds held since Saturday have dealt with the structure and logistics, the first task for the negotiators is to declare a permanent ceasefire, and stop violence in Afghanistan that has claimed another 1,300 civilian lives in the first half of 2020. More difficult challenges will emerge as they grapple with the Taliban on how to shape Afghanistan’s future, and whether they can retain the constitution and political processes while bringing the insurgents into the mainstream. With the Ghani government giving the green signal for the talks in Doha, India has modified its stand, and External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar attended the inaugural ceremony in Doha via videoconferencing; it was the first ever address by an Indian official at a gathering that includes the Taliban (that India still maintains is a terror group). While stating that peace in Afghanistan as a result of an “Afghan-led, Afghan owned” process is a desirable outcome, he made it clear that India hopes it will not come at the cost of gains made by Afghanistan in the post-Taliban era, including democracy, institutions of governance, and the rights of minorities and women.
📰 For a different yardstick
