Current Affairs 16 January 2020

1. Vladimir Putin names Mikhail Mishustin as new prime minister.

• Tax Service chief Mikhail Mishustin new prime minister upon Dmitry Medvedev’s resignation.

• Head of Federal Tax Service since 2010.

• Russia Capital: Moscow.

• Currency: Ruble.

2. Yes Bank acquires 30% stake in Reliance Power arm Rosa Power Supply Company Ltd

• Rosa Power Supply Company Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Reliance Power Ltd.

• Rosa Thermal plant (1,200 MW): Shahjahanpur, UP.

3. IBM tops US patent list for 2019; India second-highest contributor

• IBM has received record 9,262 US patents in 2019.

• IBM inventors from India received over 900 patents.

• IBM nicknamed ‘Big Blue’ HQ: New York, USA.

4. Jeff Bezos pledges $1 billion for Indian business growth

• Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos.

• $1 billion in new investments.

• Help take small Indian businesses online.

• Amazon launched ‘Digital Haats’ for e-commerce in villages.

5. Guatemala swears in conservative Giammattei as president

• Alejandro Giammattei, a conservative physician, as its new president.

• Capital: Guatemala City.

• Currency: Guatemalan quetzal.

6. Kohli named captain of ICC’s ODI & Test teams of the year

• Apart from Kohli, Mayank Agarwal, opener Rohit Sharma, speedster Mohammed Shami & spinner Kuldeep Yadav found a place in the ODI side.

• Rohit Sharma was named ‘2019 ODI Cricketer of the Year’

7. 7th Conference of Commonwealth Parliamentary Association India Region began at the legislative assembly building in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh

• Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla inaugurated the Conference.

• Theme : ROLE OF LEGISLATORS.

• U.P. Governor: Anandiben Patel.

8. Govt launches award to laud breakthrough startups in cyber security

• The Cyber Security Grand Challenge with a cash prize of Rs 3.2 crore to a startup doing breakthrough work.

• Ministry of Electronics and IT & Data Security Council of India have launched this award.

• To promote entrepreneurship in the Cyber Security startup ecosystem.

• Minister of State (Electronics and IT): Sanjay Dhotre.

9. RBI issues new debit & credit card rules to improve convenience, security

• RBI has asked banks to allow only domestic card transactions at ATMs & PoS terminals in India at the time of issuance/reissuance of card.

• New cards, it will be effective from 16 March 2020.

• Users to have 24×7 access to switch ON/OFF transaction limits.

10. ICICI Bank launches India’s largest API Banking portal with nearly 250 APIs

• The APIs are available across a variety of categories namely payments & collections like IMPS, UPI etc.

• API full form : (Application Programming Interfaces).

• Roy Fieldings, Invented API.