DAILY GK 19-21 FEB 2025
1. ASIAN WINTER GAMES 2025
·
The 9th Asian Winter Games(Harbin 2025), held in
Harbin, Heilongjiang Province, China.
·
Organized by the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) and
supported by the International Skating Union (ISU), the event
brought together athletes from 34 countries.
·
Asian Winter Games 2025 featured 64 events across 11 winter
sports disciplines.
·
China topped the medal tally with 32
Gold, 27 Silver, and 26 Bronze medals, total 85 medals.
·
Republic of Korea
finished second with 45 medals (16 Gold, 15 Silver, 14 Bronze).
·
Japan secured third place with 37 medals (10 Gold, 12 Silver,
15 Bronze).
·
India sent its largest-ever contingent of 59 athletes.
·
India did not win any medals.
·
Saudi Arabia will host the 10th Asian Winter Games (NEOM 2029).
2.
BADMINTON ASIA MIXED TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP 2025
·
Indonesia won their first-ever title at
the 4th Edition of the “Badminton Asia Mixed Team
Championship 2025” by defeating two-time defending champions China with
a 3-1 victory in the final.
·
The tournament was held in Qingdao, China.
·
Muhammad Shohibul Fikri served
as the captain for the Indonesia team while the China team was led by captain Chen Xujun.
·
Indonesia earned the
coveted gold medal, China took
home the silver while Japan
and Thailand were awarded with the bronze medals for
their victory.
·
Team India has been eliminated in
the Quarterfinals and placed at 6th in the table.
·
The Badminton Asia Mixed Team Championships is a biennial
tournament organized by Badminton Asia and hosted by the Chinese Badminton
Association (CBA).
·
The tournament featured 13 teams from
across Asia.
3.
38TH NATIONAL GAMES
·
Services Sports Control
Board (SSCB) topped at the 38th edition
of National Games which was held in
Uttarakhand with 121 medals including 68 gold, 26 silver and 27 bronze.
·
With this, SSCB
continued its dominance in the National Games as it topped the medal tally for 5th time in
the last six National Games, except in 2023.
·
SSCB secured the Raja Bhalindra Singh Trophy which is
awarded to the team that wins the highest number of gold medals at the National
Games.
·
Maharashtra, secured 2nd position
in overall medal tally with 201 medals,
54 gold, 71 silver and 76 bronze.
·
It is followed by Haryana ranked at 3rd position
with 153 medals (48 gold, 47 silver
and 58 bronze).
·
The event, themed ‘Green
Games’, focused on sustainability, featuring eco-friendly welcome
kits, e-waste medals, and tree plantations for medalists.
·
Karnataka Swimmers Dhinidhi Desinghu,
and Srihari Nataraj claimed the Best
Female Athlete and Best Male Athlete title,
respectively at 38th National Games.
·
Meghalaya will host the 39th edition of
National Games which is scheduled to be held tentatively in in 2027.
4.
AERO INDIA 2O25
·
The 15th edition of Aero India 2025, Asia’s largest aerospace
and defence exhibition, was held in Bengaluru, Karnataka, under the theme “The Runway to a Billion Opportunities”.
·
It is Asia’s largest aerospace and defence expo, featuring 70 aircraft, including
Su-57 (Russia) & F-35 (USA), with participation from 90 countries.
·
India’s defence
exports to exceed Rs 210 billion, and the Union Budget 2025-26 allocated Rs 6.81 lakh crore for defence, with
Rs1.80 lakh crore for modernization.
5.
MILITARY EXERCISE ‘JAL-THAL-RAKSHA 2025’
·
The Indian Army (IA) organized a large-scale
military exercise ‘Jal-Thal-Raksha 2025’ at Bet Dwarka, Gujarat.
·
The primary objective was to bolster security in Dwarka and its surrounding islands, in response
to recent illegal encroachments.
6. SEBI LAUNCHED ‘RPT PORTAL’ TO
STRENGTHEN CORPORATE GOVERNANCE
·
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) launched
‘Related Party Transaction (RPT) portal’, India’s 1st
dedicated platform to monitor and analyse RPTs.
·
The portal also aims to bolster
transparency and governance in corporate India.
·
RPT is a transaction between related
parties which involves transfer of resources, services or obligations between
them regardless of whether a price is charged.
·
Retail investors will now have access to this information,
which was previously limited to institutional investors.
7. SEBI ANNOUNCED APPROVAL OF NEW RPT
DISCLOSURES BY ISF
·
Madhabi Puri Buch, Chairperson of SEBI announced that
new RPT disclosure standards have been approved by the Industry Standards Forum (ISF).
·
These new standards aimed to ensure more transparency and protect investors.
·
The new standards will require listed companies to provide
more detailed information like: what are
the minimum disclosures the companies would have to make when they take an RPT
for approval, both by shareholders and audit committees (in certain cases).
·
Also, the standards will
outline the minimum disclosures required when you go to the shareholders for approval.
·
ISF is a SEBI-established group of representatives from
different industry sectors.
·
The main objective of ISF is to develop and set standards for implementing regulatory
guidelines within their respective sectors.
·
Chairman- K.V. Kamath.
8. RBI IMPOSES RESTRICTIONS ON NEW
INDIA CO-OPERATIVE BANK
·
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) imposed
restrictions on Mumbai based New India Co-operative Bank Limited from
issuing new loans and suspended deposit withdrawals
amid supervisory concerns about its financial position.
·
As per the RBI directions, the bank does not have power/authority to grant or renew any loans or
advances, make any new investments or accept new deposits without the prior
approval from the RBI.
·
RBI informed that eligible depositors will receive a deposit insurance claim
of up to Rs 5 lakh for their deposits from the Deposit Insurance and Credit Guarantee
Corporation (DICGC), as applicable under the provisions of the DICGC Act,
1961.
9. RBI SUPERSEDED BODS OF NEW INDIA CO-OPERATIVE BANK
·
The RBI has superseded the
Board of Directors (BoDs) of New India Co-operative Bank for a period
of 12 months, to address its governance issues.
·
It has appointed Shreekant, a former Chief
General Manager (CGM), State Bank of India (SBI) as the administrator to manage
the bank’s affairs.
·
New India Co-operative Bank Limited was initially established as Bombay Labour Co-operative
Bank Limited in 1968.
·
Later, it was renamed as the New India Co-operative Bank
Limited in 1977.
·
Headquarters- Mumbai.
10. NPCI INTRODUCED NEW UPI RULE ON
AUTOMATIC ACCEPTANCE
·
National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has
introduced a new rule for managing
charge backs in Unified Payments Interface (UPI) transactions.
·
As per new UPI rule, charge
backs will now be automatically accepted or rejected based on Transaction
Credit Confirmation (TCC) and Return Requests (RET) raised
by the beneficiary banks in the next
settlement cycle after the charge back has been started.
·
A charge back is a process which
reverses a completed UPI transaction due to disputes, fraud or technical
error. This reversal of UPI transaction is initiated by the payer’s bank, and
if approved, the transaction amount is returned to the payer.
·
At present, remitting banks can
start charge backs from ‘T+0’ onwards in URCS due to which beneficiary
banks are not getting sufficient time to reconcile transactions, leading to
rejected RET.
·
While, in some cases, charge backs are closed automatically
with a deemed acceptance which resulted in penalties imposed by the Reserve
Bank of India (RBI).
·
The new UPI rule is applicable only
to bulk upload options and Unified Dispute Resolution Interface (UDIR), and
will not include front-end dispute resolution options.
·
NPCI is an organisation
that regulates the retail payment and settlement system in India.
·
It was launched as a joint initiative of RBI and India
Banks’ Association (IBA).
·
It was set up under the provisions of Payment and Settlement Systems (PSS Act, 2007).
11. NSO: INDIA’S URBAN UNEMPLOYMENT RATE
·
The National Statistics Office (NSO) under the
Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) launched its 25th
Quarterly Bulletin of the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS), which
presents data for the period October – December 2024 (Q3) for the
Financial Year (FY) 2024-25.
·
As per the data, India’s urban Unemployment
Rate (UR) in Current Weekly Status (CWS) among persons
aged 15 years and above decreased to 6.4% during Q3
FY25 from 6.5% during Q3 FY24.
·
UR among males aged 15 years and above remained the same at 5.8% during Q3 FY24 and Q3 FY25 and the UR
among females aged 15 years and above decreased to 8.1% in Q3 FY25 from 8.6 %
in Q3 FY24.
12. BOOK “THE NEW ICON: SAVARKAR AND THE
FACTS”
·
“The New Icon Savarkar and the Facts” was authored
by ArunShourie, a Scholar, Author, and former Minister for
Disinvestment, Communications, and Information Technology (IT).
·
Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, was an Indian freedom fighter,
activist, writer, and President of Hindu
Mahasabha.
·
Arun Shourie was an economist with the World Bank (WB)
(1967-1976).
·
He was honoured with the Ramon Magsaysay Award for
Journalism, Literature, and Creative Communication Arts in 1982.
13. WORLD PANGOLIN DAY 2025 – FEBRUARY
15
·
World Pangolin Day is observed annually on the third
Saturday of February to celebrate pangolins or the scaly anteater, the
most unique mammals on Earth and raise awareness about their conservation.
·
In 2025, World Pangolin Day falls on 15th February
2025 marking the observance of the 14th World Pangolin Day.
·
Pangolins, also known as scaly anteaters, get
their name from the Malay word “penggulung,” meaning “roller,” which
refers to their unique self-defence behavior of curling
up into a tight ball when threatened.
14.
GLOBAL TOURISM RESILIENCE DAY 2025 – FEBRUARY 17
·
The United Nations (UN’s) Global
Tourism Resilience Day (GTRD) is observed annually on February 17 across
the globe to highlight the critical need to build resilience in the tourism
industry.
·
Established by the
United Nations General Assembly.
15. WORLD DAY OF SOCIAL JUSTICE 2025 –
FEBRUARY 20
·
The United Nations (UN’s) World Day of Social
Justice is observed annually on February 20 across
the globe to highlight the importance of social justice worldwide.
·
The theme for World Day of Social Justice
2025: “Strengthening a Just Transition for a Sustainable Future”
focusing on the importance of inclusive policies and social protection in
addressing systematic inequality.
·
International Labor Organization (ILO): Director-General (DG) Gilbert
Fossoun Houngbo (Togo).
·
Headquarters– Geneva, Switzerland.
·
Established– 1919.
