Current Affairs - February 4, 2020 Current Affairs

International Business Machines Corp. named Arvind Krishna as chief executive officer, replacing longtime CEO Virginia Rometty. Krishna, 57, is currently the head of IBM's cloud and cognitive software unit and was a principal architect of the company's purchase of Red Hat, which was completed last year.

Chinese New Year, also known as Spring Festival, is the most important holiday in the Chinese calendar. The 2020 Year of the Rat began on 25 January and will last for around 15 days, ending on 8 February.

World Wetland Day was observed across the globe on February 02, 2020. This year's theme for World Wetland Day was - 'Wetlands and Biodiversity'. According to an estimate, about 1 billion people get their livelihood around various wetlands. It was celebrated for the first time on February 02, 1997, after 16 years of the Ramsar Conference.

David Paravyan competed in the FIDE Grand Swiss Tournament 2019, held on the Isle of Man from 10 to 21 October. He finished 10th with 7/11 (+4-1=6) for a performance rating of 2774. He won the Gibraltar Masters in January 2020.

Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu inaugurates the Hubbali-Dharwad Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project in Karnataka. The exponential increase in the number of vehicles plying on roads every ear has resulted in worsening air quality indices and is adversely affecting people's health.

Madhya Pradesh bags the first position for the implementation of Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana. Union Minister of Women and Child Development Smriti Irani will present this award to Madhya Pradesh at a function in New Delhi. Madhya Pradesh Minister for Women and Child Development Imarti Devi and Principal Secretary Anupam Rajan will receive the award.

Odisha government has recently launched a virtual police station to provide more ease to its citizens. People can lodge complaints about vehicle theft without visiting a Police Station. This virtual police station (e-police station) will operate under the State Crime Records Bureau in Bhubaneswar, the capital of Odisha.

Collector of Nirmal inaugurated National Level India's Biggest Rural Technical Festival titled Antahpragnya 2020 in the state of Telangana at Rajiv Gandhi University of Knowledge Technologies-Basar (RGUKT-Basar).

NASA decommissions Spitzer Space Telescope after 16 years of operation. Spitzer, which was launched in 2003, studied some of the most distant galaxies ever detected with the light from some of the cosmic bodies travelling for billions of years to reach the telescope.

ICICI Bank launches 'iBox' self-service delivery tool for customers to collect their deliverables like debit cards and cheque books from the bank bran nch near to their home/office.

The first images from the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST) in Hawaii - which is twice the size of the next largest solar scope - have captured an array of cell-like structures that cover the surface of the sun, each taking up space roughly the size of the US state of Texas.

Ekushey Book Fair is the most significant and most extended book fair of Bangladesh. It is organized every year in February commemorating the martyrs of the language movement during which eight people laid down their lives on February 21, 1952, for establishing Bangla as the official language of the then East Pakistan.

Senior diplomat Ajay Bisaria was appointed High Commissioner to Canada, a posting considered important in view of India's close ties with the north American country. MrBisaria was serving as India's High Commissioner to Pakistan but returned to India in August last year after Islamabad expelled him following developments related to Jammu and Kashmir.

The Ministry of External Affairs appointed Gopal Baglay as India's next High Commissioner to Sri Lanka. Mr Baglay, a 1992-batch officer of Indian Foreign Service, succeeds Taranjit Singh Sandhu, who was appointed as the ambassador to the United States earlier this week.He is currently serving as the Joint Secretary in the Prime Minister's Office.

Economic Survey, released by the government, citing World Bank data said India ranked third in terms of number of new firms created. According to the Survey, from about 70,000 new firms created in 2014, the number has grown by about 80 percent to about 1,24,000 new firms in 2018.

India will get its third private train. Indian Railways is all set to start to Indore-Varanasi Tejas Express Chairman V.K. Yadav. The all-new Indore-Varanasi Tejas Express will run three days a week. The Tejas like trains would be coming in the future.

The All-Party Parliament Group on Traditional Medicines organized a meeting at the European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium with the objective of devising a roadmap to legalize Ayurveda in Europe and to integrate it with their healthcare systems.Dr Pratap Chauhan of Jiva Ayurveda won Ayurveda Ratan Award at the European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium.

AbidaliNeemuchwala has formally resigned after about four years as chief executive officer (and managing director since last July) at information technology major Wipro. His term had another year, but Neemuchwala has cited "family commitments" for wanting to leave.

Pramod Agrawal assumed charge as the new chairman and managing director of Coal India Ltd. Agrawal, a 1991 batch IAS officer, was principal secretary for urban development and housing department in Madhya Pradesh.He took over after A K Jha retired as the CIL chairman on January 31.

Collector of Nirmal inaugurated National Level India's Biggest Rural Technical Festival titled Antahpragnya 2020 in the state of Telangana at Rajiv Gandhi University of Knowledge Technologies-Basar (RGUKT-Basar). Rural areas cannot afford to miss the development bus. Most of the developments in the two lakh years have taken place in the last century. The fest showcases 300 prototypes, working models, exhibits and technologies such as automatic switch for water, homemade electricity, smoke absorber, automatic street lighting system, smart dustbins, zero budget farming, automatic irrigation and others.