Top Best Current Affairs 13 October 2020 (2)

A team of researchers discovered a new species of perennial woody herb in the northern laterite plateaus in Kasargod, Kerala. The new species " Lepidagathis ananthapuramensis" is named after the temple Ananthapura lake temple dedicated to Ananthapadmanabha, since it was found in its neighbourhood. the article on the discovery is published in Phytotaxa, a journal on plant taxonomy.

The Policy Repo Rate is 4.00%, Reverse Repo Rate 3.35%, Marginal Standing Facility(MSF) Rate 4.25%, Bank Rate 4.25%.

Delhi has become the 1st state in the country to have the 'Tree Transplantation Policy' for the preservation of trees which was approved by the state's cabinet headed by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on October 9, 2020. Under this , a minimum of 80% of trees affected by a development or construction project will be transplanted. Also, a minimum of 80% if the transplanted trees should survive and ensuring this would be the responsibility of " Yuddh, Pradushan Ke Viruddh" against the air pollution levels. Under this movement various measures will be taken under this including EV, tree transplantation, and preventing stubble burning.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated RAISE 2020 - 'Responsible AI for Social Empowerment 2020' A 5 day Global AI(Artificial Intelligence) Summit which took place virtually from October 9, 2020. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) in partnership with NITI Aayog organized the summit. RAISE 2020 is a first of its kind global meeting of minds on Artificial Intelligence to drive India's vision and roadmap for social transformation, inclusion and empowerment.

The framework "co-origination model" that has been put in action by Reserve Bank in 2018 under which there is co-origination of loans banks and a certain category of Non-Banking Financial Companies (NBFCs) lends to the priority sector subject to certain condition gas now extended to all the NBFCs. Means housing finance companies (HCFs) will also be able to partner with banks for priority sector lending (PSL). From now, this framework will be known as " Co-lending Model " and the revised guidelines for the same will be issued by the end of October 2020. This decision has been taken to make all priority sector loans eligible for the scheme and give greater operational flexibility to the lending institutions.

RBI also decided that banks can lend up to Rs. 7.5 Crore from earlier Rs. 5 Crore to individual retail and small business borrowers(i.e. with turnover of up to Rs. 50 Crore) and still be eligible for a 75% risk weight. This decision is in the lines to reduce the cost of credit fir this segment.

The 6 member 25th Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting of Reserve Bank of India(RBI) was held from October 7-9,2020 which was headed by RBI Governor Shaktikant Das. Notably for this meeting, the MPC got three new members replacing earlier ones (Ravindra Dholakia, Pami Dua and Chetan Ghate) as their four-year tenure ended in September 2020. They was appointed as the external members by the Central Government for a four years' term as the MPC members are not eligible for reappointment. The new member are : Dr Ashima Goyal, Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EAC-PM) member, Shashanka Bhide, Senior Advisor, National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER)' professor Jayanth Varma, Indian Institute of Management (IIM)- Ahmedabad (Gujarat). the other two MPC members are Dr. Mridul K. Saggar, and Dr. Michael Debabrata Patra.

International Business Machines (IBM) joined with the Department of Science and Technology to expand the scope of two DST initiatives Vigyan Jyoti, Engage with Science (Vigyan Prasar). The initiatives aim to promote STEM( Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics), learning among students, especially girl student to pursue careers in STEM. Vigyan Jyoti Programme was launched to inspire girl student to pursue higher education and career in STEM fields. Vigyan Prasar is a technology driven interactivity platform which is built on top of India Science Over -The Top(OTT) platform.