FSIB recommends names for MD posts of Bank of Baroda, Bank of India

• What is it? It’s a government body set up under the Department of Financial Services.
• It replaced the Bank Board’s Bureau (BBB) which was declared an incompetent authority.
• Structure:
  • FSIB would be headed by a chairman, a central government nominee.
  • The board would comprise the Secretaries of the DFS, the chairman of IRDAI, and a deputy governor of the RBI.
  • Additionally, it will have three part-time members who are experts in banking and three more from the insurance sector.
• The Primary role of FSIB:
  • To identify manpower capabilities and ensure proper selection of talent for senior positions at financial institutions owned by the government.
  • It is entrusted with making recommendations for the appointment of full-time directors and non-executive chairman of state-run financial services institutions.
  • The final decision on the FSIB recommendation would be taken by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet headed by the Prime Minister**.**
• Other Mandates of FSIB:
  • It would also issue guidelines for selecting general managers and directors of public sector general insurance companies.
  • It will also be involved in formulating and developing business strategies for state-run banks and help them in their fund-raising plans.
  • It would also monitor and assess the performance of public sector banks, government-owned financial institutions and insurance companies.

Rajnath launches ‘Soul of Steel’ challenge in Dehradun for Veterans Day

• The ‘Soul of Steel’ expedition will test one’s high-altitude endurance and adventure in Uttarakhand''s Garhwal Himalayas.
• It will initially have 12 Indian participants plus six international teams, between the age group of 18 and 30 years.
• The challenge will be spread across three months.
• It is being organized by CLAW Global, an entity comprising a group of veterans.
• The Indian Army is supporting the adventure challenge.
• It is based on the lines of the ‘Ironman triathlon’, a long-distance triathlon held in Europe which tests an individual''s physical capabilities.
• Participants will be selected through a detailed screening and training model through traditional and modern standards.
• The initiative is aimed at enabling life skill training and youth development.
• It is also expected to boost global promotion of adventure tourism in Uttarakhand.

5 die as Myanmar airstrikes hit churches: Relief groups

• They are a large and dispersed ethnic group of Southeast Asia.
• Origin: They trace their origins to the Gobi Desert, Mongolia, or Tibet.
• Location: Karen settled in Burma/Myanmar’s southern Irrawaddy river Delta area and in the hillsalong the Salween River in eastern Myanmar and in neighboring Thailand.
• Religion: The vast majority of Karen are Buddhists (over two thirds), although large numbers converted to Christianity during British rule and constitute about 30 per cent among the Karen.
• Population: Their total population has been estimated at around 4 million.
• Language: The languages of the Karen are generally considered to be of the Tibeto-Burman family and the main dialects are Pwo and Sgaw.
• In Karen society women are often considered inferior or subservient to men and both women and men are encouraged to adhere to strict gender roles.

Irrawaddy River:

• It is a river that flows from north to south through Myanmar.
• It is the country''s largest river and most important commercial waterway.
• Originating from the confluence of the N''mai and Mali rivers, it flows relatively straight North-Southbefore emptying through the Irrawaddy Delta into the Andaman Sea.
• Its drainage area of about 255,081 km² covers a large part of Myanmar.

Joshimath sinking | People panic, projects stopped

Tapovan Vishnugad hydel project:

• Location: The Tapovan Vishnugad power plant is a 520MW run-of-river project being constructed on Dhauliganga River in Chamoli District of Uttarakhand, India.
• Production Capacity: The plant is expected to generate approximately 2,558GWh of electricity per year.
• Who is developing: NTPC is developing the project at an estimated cost of approximately INR 29.78bn ($677m).

Dhauliganga River:

• Origin: It rises in the vicinity of the Niti Pass in the border regions between Garhwal region of Uttarakhand and southwestern Tibet.
• At Raini, it is joined by the Rishi Ganga river.
• It is one of the important tributaries of Alaknanda, the other being the Nandakini, Pindar, Mandakini and Bhagirathi.
• It meets the Alaknanda River (the major source stream of the Ganges river) at Vishnuprayag in Uttarakhand.
• Length: The length of this river is about 94 km.
• Tapovan, which is famous for its hot springs, is located on the banks of Dhauliganga.

National Thermal Power Corporation’s (NTPC):

• What is it? NTPC Limited is an Indian Public Sector Undertaking incorporated under the Companies Act 1956.
• Jurisdiction: It is under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Power, Government of India.
• Headquarters: New Delhi
• NTPC was conferred Maharatna status in 2010.
• Business: NTPC''s core business is generation and sale of electricity to state-owned power distribution companies and State Electricity Boards in India.
• The company has also been involved in oil and gas exploration and coal mining activities.
• NTPC Limited is the largest power company in India which has a total capacity of 62,086 MW electric power generation.

China’s ‘chunyun’, the largest annual migration, and what it means for the COVID-19 surge

• The Lunar New Year holiday in China this year will be the first without pandemic restrictions on foreign and domestic travel since 2020.
• One of the biggest mass movements of humans globally will be witnessed over the next few days in China. This will be on account of celebrations for the Lunar New Year and the resultant traveling – termed Chunyun.

Chunyun

• Chunyun is simply the period around the Chinese New Year, based on the Lunar Calendar.
• It is a period of travel in China with an extremely high traffic load around the time of the Chinese New Year.
• There is no fixed date for the New Year, with the date being arrived at based on the moon’s position.
• It begins with the first new moon of the lunar calendar and ends on the first full moon of the lunar calendar, 15 days later.

Where does the Lunar New Year come from?

• Lunar New Year marks the first new moon of the lunisolar calendars traditional to many east Asian countries including China, South Korea, and Vietnam.
• Lunar calendars consist of 12 months, each month corresponding roughly to one cycle of the moon.
• Because 12 lunar cycles do not fill a whole year an extra month is added periodically to Lunar calendars to stay close to the solar year.
• Lunar New Year is regulated by the cycles of the moon and sun.
• Other names for the Lunar New Year are Tet in Vietnam, Solnal in Korea and Losar for Tibetans.

Union Minister Jitendra Singh launches ‘Geospatial Hackathon’ to promote Start-Ups in India’s geospatial sector

• It is a hackathon to create interest in geospatial tech and specifically build solutions leveraging maps and satellite data for solving India’s problems.
• The Department of Science and Technology(DST) under the Minister of Science & Technology in partnership with IIIT Hyderabad and Microsoft has launched this Hackathon.
• The Geospatial Hackathon will be divided into 2 parts,
  • Research Challenge: The National Science & Technology Entrepreneurship Development Board and IIIT Hyderabad brings the Startup Challenge as part of this Hackathon intending to promote the use of geospatial technologies in solving real-world problems and fostering innovation in the Indian geospatial ecosystem
  • Startup Challenge: The Research Challenge is specific to the problem statements given by DST (Survey of India).) is proposing a Geospatial Data Processing, Solution development, and Servicing Challenge to foster the adoption of geospatial technologies and to promote innovation in India’s Geospatial ecosystem.

What is Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation BIMSTEC holds meeting on Counter Terror in New Delhi

• The meeting discussed traditional and emerging non-traditional security threats in the BIMSTEC region.
• The working group on counter-terror deals with a few key realms of policy. These include
  • Intelligence Sharing
  • Legal and Law Enforcement
  • Countering Radicalization and Terrorism
  • Anti- Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism
  • Human Trafficking
  • Narcotic Drugs, Psychotropic Substances and Precursor Chemicals,

BIMSTEC

• The Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation is a regional grouping started in 1997.
• Member countries: Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Bhutan and Nepal
• This group was launched by signing the Bangkok Declaration.

NASA''s James Webb telescope finds star formation in a dynamic cluster: Report

• As per the American space agency, the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) star-forming region NGC 346 is one of the most dynamic in nearby galaxies and is a dwarf galaxy. It is close to the Milky Way with lower metal concentrations.

Magellanic Cloud

• The Magellanic Clouds are irregular galaxies that share a gaseous envelope and lie about 22° apart in the sky near the south celestial pole.
• They are comprised of two irregular galaxies, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) and the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), which orbit the Milky Way once every 1,500 million years and each other once every 900 million years.
• These companion galaxies were named for the Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan, whose crew discovered them during the first voyage around the world (1519–22).
• Magellanic Clouds were formed at about the same time as the Milky Way Galaxy, approximately 13 billion years ago.
• They are presently captured in orbits around the Milky Way Galaxy and have experienced several tidal encounters with each other and with the Galaxy.
• They contain numerous young stars and star clusters, as well as some much older stars.
• The Magellanic Clouds are visible to the unaided eye in the Southern Hemisphere.

What is Maghi Mela and why is it politically important in Punjab?

• It is held every year in January or the month of Magh according to the Nanakshahi calendar.
• The Mela is celebrated in memory of 40 Sikh warriors who fought the Mughals in the battle of Khidrana, which was named Muktsar after the battle.
• The battle took place near a pool of water, Khidrane di Dhabi, on 29 December 1705.
• The bodies of the warriors were cremated the following day, the first of Magh (hence the name of the festival), which now falls usually on the 13th of January.
• Sikhs celebrate the Maghi with an end-to-end recital of the holy Guru Granth Sahib and religious rituals in all the Sikh Gurudwaras.

Nanakshahi Calendar

• The Nanakshahi calendar was designed by Sikh scholar Pal Singh Purewal to replace the Bikrami calendar, to work out the dates of gurpurab and other festivals.

Piyush Goyal to Launch MAARG Portal for Startup Mentorship

• It is the National Mentorship Platform by Start-up India to help and guide new start-ups to grow and flourish.
• It is a one-stop platform to facilitate mentorship for start-ups across diverse sectors, functions, stages, geographies, and backgrounds.
• Nodal Ministry: Launched by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.

Objectives

• To provide sector-focused guidance, handholding, and support to start-ups throughout their lifecycle.
• To establish a formalized and structured platform that facilitates intelligent matchmaking between the mentors and their respective mentees
• To facilitate efficient and expert mentorship for start-ups and build an outcome-oriented mechanism that allows timely tracking of mentor-mentee engagements.

Implementation of MAARG Initiative:

• Phase I: Mentor Onboarding
  • Successfully launched and executed, 400+ expert mentors are on board across sectors.
• Phase II: Startup Onboarding
  • DPIIT launched the onboarding of startups on the MAARG Portal with effect from 14th November 2022
• Phase III: MAARG Portal Launch and Mentor Matchmaking.
  • Final launch where the mentors will be matched to the startups DPIIT has initiated the onboarding process of startups under Phase II.