Current Affairs - September 14, 2020 Current Affairs

Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) which is country's apex drug regulator has directed Serum Institute of India SII to suspend the new recruitments which were about to happen for recent phase 2 and 3 clinical trials of the Oxford COVID-19 vaccine till further orders.

The World First Aid Day is observed on the second Saturday of September every year to create awareness about importance of first aid in preventing injuries and saving lives. The World First Aid Day 2020 is being observed on 12 September.

US President Donald Trump has been nominated for the Noble Peace Prize 2021. The nomination was submitted by a right-wing Norwegian politician and parliamentarian Christian Tybring Gjedde.

Central Government has constituted an Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) to oversee the process of the corporatisation of the Ordnance Factory Board (OFB). Defence Minister Rajnath Singh is the chairman of this EGoM.

Former union minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh died at AIIMS, Delhi on Sunday, a close aide said. Singh died around 11 am due to breathlessness and other complications, Kedar Yadav, who remains by the side of the septuagenarian, told reporters over the phone.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi took part in a programme called "Grih Pravesh" the programme was organized under Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana. The programme fulfils the Modi Government agenda of housing for all by 2022. The program was live telecasted in 16,440 Gram panchayats and 26,548 villages.

Domestic rating agency CARE Ratings said the country's economy is likely to see a sharper contraction of 8-8.2 per cent in the current financial year compared to a decline of 6.4 per cent it had projected earlier.

Jane Fraser will become the first woman to lead a major financial institution in the United States when she takes the reins at Citigroup, the country's third-largest bank. Ms. Fraser, who has been at Citi for 16 years and runs its biggest global division, the consumer bank catering to individual customers, will succeed Michael Corbat as chief executive.

The Chief Minister of Odisha, Naveen Patnaik launched a new scheme named 'GARIMA' which aims to ensure the economic safety and social dignity of core sanitation workers in the state.

Manoj Sinha, Lieutenant-Governor of Jammu and Kashmir recently launched a new grievance redressal portal. The newly launched portal will be linked to the Union government's grievance mechanism. About the grievance redressal system An effective grievance redressal mechanism is the lifeblood of any good governance system and the aforesaid mechanism must be the top priority.

Ratings agency Moody's has projected the GDP growth rate for India to contract 11.5 percent in the fiscal 2020-21 (FY21) due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) has launched the Climate Smart Cities Assessment Framework (CSCAF) 2.0. The framework comprise of 28 indicators across five categories.

The Punjab Energy Development Agency (PEDA) in association with the Government of Punjab, is soon coming up with an alternative for paddy stubble utilisation. Stubble burning is one of the biggest problems in north India to curb this, the Punjab government's own agency; PEDA is playing a stellar role in weeding out the problem indigenously.

Securities and Exchange Board of India which is responsible for regulating the Indian market in order to revamp its IT infrastructure network and communication system shortlisted top companies which includes, Bharti Airtel and Wipro and others.

The Union Minister of External Affairs S Jaishankar co-chaired the ASEAN-India Ministerial Meeting on 12 September 2020, with his Thailand counterpart Don Pramudwinai. The virtual meeting saw the participation of Foreign Ministers of the 10 ASEAN Member States and India. The new ASEAN-India Plan of Action for next five years (2021-2025) was adopted at the meeting.