Current Affairs - March 19, 2020 Current Affairs

Spanish football coach Francisco Garcia dies at 21 after contracting coronavirus.

Lok Sabha passes the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (Amendment) Bill, 2020. Upper limit for permitting abortions extended from the present 20 weeks to 24 weeks for "special categories of women".

Ministry of Finance reported that more than Rs. 20,466.94 crores of loans had been sanctioned under Stand Up India Scheme to over 91,000 accounts up to 10 March 2020. The information was shared by Shri Anurag Singh Thakur, Minister of State for Finance & Corporate Affairs. Stand Up India Scheme: Stand Up India Scheme was launched by the Government of India on 5 April 2016 by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The state government of Jharkhand will launch its "Star Rating Program" on June 5, 2020, to rate industries based on the amount of pollutants generated by them. With this, it became the 3rd state in India to launch this system for industries after Maharashtra & Odisha.

Justice DY Chandrachud directed the Centre to grant permanent commission to serving women officers in Navy within three months with increments. The judgment follows a verdict by the Apex Court in favour of granting permanent for women in the Indian Army. A permanent commission entitles an officer to serve in the Navy till he/she retires unlike Short Service Commission (SSC), which is currently for 10 years and can be extended by four more years, a total of 14 years.

Madhya Pradesh(MP) Government appointed M Gopal Reddy as a Chief Secretary of the state replacing Sudhi Ranjan Mohanty with effect from April 1, 2020.M Gopal Reddy is a 1985 batch IAS officer is currently serving as an Officer on Special Duty(OSD) before he takes charge as the state's new Chief Secretary. He worked as a vice-chairman of the Narmada Valley Development Authority (NVDA) prior to the current.

Minister of Road Transport & Highways and Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Nitin Gadkari revealed that the number of deaths caused due to road accidents have been reduced by 10% in India after the Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Act 2019.

Odisha became the first state in the country to allocated funds to fight against Corona Virus. The Odisha State government has allocated Rs 200 crores to fight against the deadly disease. The Tamil Nadu Government allocated Rs 60 crores.

Ministry of Finance reported that all villages were mapped by banks into 1.59 lakh Sub-Service Areas (SSAs) under Pradhan Mantri Jan-Dhan Yojana (PMJDY). One SSA caters to 1,000 to 1,500 households. The report was submitted by Shri Anurag Singh Thakur, Minister of State for Finance & Corporate Affairs in Rajya Sabha.

The Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) flagged off the first-ever thrice-weekly flight from Indore (Madhya Pradesh) to Kishangarh (Ajmer, Rajasthan) under the UDAN (Ude Desh ka Aam Naagrik) scheme of the Government of India. This is the 268th route to be made operational under the UDAN scheme.

Coronavirus outbreak: Central Railway and Western Railway hike platform ticket price to Rs 50.

Iraq's President Barham Salih named Adnan Zurfi, former governor of the holy Shia city of Najaf, the new prime minister of the country. It is a second attempt to find the head of government in recent months. Elected representative Zurfi (50) has 30 days to form his cabinet. He has to get a vote of confidence from Iraq's badly divided parliament

Singapore to host World Cities Summit on July 5-9; theme: 'Liveable and Sustainable Cities: Adapting to a Disrupted World'.

The Central Government approved renaming the Amin village as Abhimanyupur in Kurukshetra district of Haryana as per the request of the State government. The decision has been taken by the Union Home Ministry after getting permission from a few central organisations.

On March 18, 2020, for the first time in its history, the Supreme Court removed the Manipur Minister Thounaojam Shyamkumar Singh from the state cabinet. The apex court has also been restrained him from entering the Legislative assembly.

Former Air India CMD Ashwani Lohani appointed as the Chairman of APTDC (Andhra Pradesh Tourism Development Corporation).

Microsoft India Private Limited, a subsidiary of American software company Microsoft Corporation & NASSCOM Foundation, the social arm of the Technology industry body- NASSCOM ( National Association of Software and Service Companies), have jointly launched the 'Innovate for Accessible India campaign', a nation-wide innovation challenge aimed at empowering people with disabilities with the new technologies required for better integration into society and access to equal opportunities.

The Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change & Minister of Information & Broadcasting Prakash Javadekar informed that the government has set an ambitious target to achieve sales of around 70 lakh hybrid & electric vehicles by the end of 2020.

The Government of India has decided to appoint Ajay Kumar as the next High Commissioner of India to the Republic of Uganda. Ajay Kumar is currently posted as the Joint Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs. He will soon take over this assignment. Uganda is among the poorest countries on the African continent. One-third of the population here is forced to live below the international poverty line.

My Encounters in Parliament', book authored by Congress leader and Rajya Sabha member Bhalchandra Mungekar, released.