Current affairs notes on 19/09/2018-20/09/2018

1.Tajinder Mukherjee has taken over as the Chairman and Managing Director of National Insurance Company Limited (NICL). 

2.Kamlesh Nilakanth Vyas, Director of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, has been appointed as the Chairman of Atomic Energy Commission and the Secretary of Department of Atomic Energy.

3.The Government of India (GoI) has proposed to merge state-owned Vijaya Bank, Dena Bank and Bank of Baroda (BoB) to create India's third largest lender as parts of reforms in the public sector banking segment. The decision was taken at the meeting of a ministerial panel headed by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley which oversees merger proposals of state-owned banks.

4.The Odisha government has launched a 'Star-Rating' system for industries to check air pollution. It's a first-of-its-kind initiative in the state to ensure transparency in compliance to pollution standards. The initiative will help public find out whether industries in their vicinity are fair in their environmental compliance.

5.Lewis Hamilton won the Singapore Grand Prix at Marina Bay Street Circuit, in Singapore. Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton won the 1st position. 

6.The first international maqom musical was held in Uzbekistan.Maqom is the oriental system of music that is enhanced by string and percussion instruments across Asia and it is quite different from the classical Hindustani “Thaat” system.

7.The governments of Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir signed an agreement for renewing work on Rs. 2793 crore Shahpurkandi dam project. It will utilize the water of Ravi River as per Indus water treaty.

8.Tripura Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb inaugurated ISRO's first Space Technology Incubation Centre(STIC) at the National Institute of Technology Agartala via remote from Bengaluru.

9.The Government of India (GoI) along with Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has recently launched the Green Agriculture project that seeks to bring transformative change in the farm sector through conservation of biodiversity and forest landscapes. The aim of the project is to transform agricultural production to generate global environmental benefits.

10.Anna Rajam Malhotra (91) was the India’s first woman IAS officer after Independence, who passed away in Mumbai, Maharashtra on September 17, 2018.she was honoured with the Padma Bhushan award.

11.India has signed a financing loan agreement with the World Bank for $74 million for Uttarakhand Workforce Development Project (UKWDP). The purpose of the project is to improve the quality and relevance of training at priority Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) an labour markets.

12.Bollywood stars Varun Dhawan and Anushka Sharma have been signed as ambassadors of Skill India Campaign to promote and endorse the Skill India Mission.

13.On 2018 World Ozone Day (WOD), the Union Environment Minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan released a draft India Cooling Action Plan (ICAP) and a booklet on ‘Montreal Protocol – India’s Success Story’. With this, India has become the world’s first country to develop such a document (ICAP),

14. 7th UNWTO Global Summit on Urban Tourism is being held in Seoul, capital of South Korea. Theme: ‘A 2030 Vision for Urban Tourism’.

15.Exercise Aviaindra is an Air Force level exercise between India and the Russian Federation. Exercise Aviaindra 18 is being conducted at Lipetsk, Russia.

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