National Rail Transportation Institute

News:Railway Board of India and the University of Birmingham has announced the launch of a joint masters programme in Railway Systems Engineering and Integration by the National Rail Transportation Institute (NRTI).

Facts:

About National Rail Transportation Institute(NRTI):

• The National Rail and Transportation Institute(NRTI) is India’s first and only transportation university established in 2018 at Vadodara,Gujarat.
• It was established to develop interdisciplinary Centres of Excellence which would promote research and education in the transportation sector.
• It also focuses upon sourcing the best expertise from around the world through institutional partnerships for collaborating on developing curriculum, research projects and executive education programs.

GSI discovers gold deposits in Sonbhadra district of Uttar Pradesh

News:The Geological Survey of India(GSI) has discovered gold deposits of around 3,000 tonnes in Sonbhadra district of Uttar Pradesh almost five times India’s current reserve of the yellow metal.

Facts:

About Gold Reserves:

• According to the World Gold Council,India is the 10th largest gold reserve country in the world with gold reserves of around 626 tonnes.
• U.S has the highest gold reserves followed by Germany and the International Monetary Fund(IMF).

About Sonbhadra district:

• Sonbhadra is the second largest district of Uttar Pradesh.
• It is the only district in India which borders four states namely Madhya Pradesh in west, Chhattisgarh in south, Jharkhand in south east and Bihar in the east.

About GSI:

• Geological Survey of India(GSI) was set up in 1851 primarily to find coal deposits for the Railways. 
• It is headquartered at Kolkata.It is an attached office to the Ministry of Mines.  
• The main functions of GSI relate to the creation and update of national geoscientific information and mineral resource assessment.

Deepfake Technology 

News:Recently, Deepfake technology was used during the Delhi assembly elections by a political party for campaigning purposes.

Facts:

About Deepfake Technology:

• The word deepfake combines the terms deep learning and fake.
• The technology uses artificial intelligence to manipulate videos or other digital representations that yield fabricated images and sounds that appear to be real.

Additional information:

About Deep Learning:

• Deep learning is a subset of Artificial intelligence.It refers to the arrangements of algorithms that can learn and make intelligent decisions on their own.

Herath Festival

News:The Prime Minister has greeted the people on the occasion of the Herath festival.

Facts:

About the festival:

• The word Herath comes from the Sanskrit word Hararatri or the Night or Hara (another name of Lord Shiva).It is one of the biggest festivals of Kashmiri Pandits.
• The festival is marked by a night of praying followed by a day of feasting.

Thirumathi Kart app

News:The National Institute of Technology(NIT),Trichy in coordination with the Union Department of Science and Technology has developed the Thirumathi Kart app.

Facts:

About the app:

• Thirumathi Kart is a mobile application for SHG (Self Help Group) products. 
• The app aims to empower the women and help them access market opportunities in a seamless manner.
• It will also enable Self Help Groups to showcase their products to a wider audience. 

Bharat-Bangla Tourism festival

News:The first ever Bharat-Bangla Paryatan Utsav-Tourism festival is being held in Agartala,Tripura.

Facts:

About the festival:

• The festival is being organized by the Department of Tourism,Govt. of  Tripura in memories of the contribution of Tripura in 1971 Bangladesh liberation war.
• The aim of the festival is to promote tourism in Tripura and appraise the people of the state and neighbouring Bangladesh of the tourist destinations in Tripura.

Ask Disha chatbot

News:Recently,Indian Railways Catering and Tourism Corporation Limited (IRCTC) has powered Ask Disha chatbot to converse with customers in Hindi language.

Facts:

About Ask Disha:

• Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation(IRCTC) launched the Ask Disha (Digital Interaction to Seek Help Anytime) chatbot in the year 2018.
• The initiative is aimed at facilitating accessibility by answering users queries pertaining to various services offered to railway passengers.
• The chatbot is voice enabled and will support several other regional languages in the near future.

Additional information:

About Chatbot:

• A chatbot is an artificial intelligence(AI) software that can simulate a conversation(or a chat) with a user in natural language through messaging applications, websites, mobile apps or through the telephone.

PM Narendra Modi to launch first-ever Khelo India University Games

News: The first-ever Khelo India University Games is being held from February 22 to March 1 at Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology University, Bhubaneshwar

Facts:

• Objective: to help students find a balance between sport and education.
• There will be a total of 17 sporting events

Additional Information

Khelo India

• Launched by Ministry of Sports and Youth affairs
• Aim: To revive the sports culture in India at the grass-root level.
• Objectives:
  • Conduct structured annual sports competitions and encourage Mass participation of youth.
  • Identify talent through these competitions.
  • Guidance and nurturing of the talent through the existing and new infrastructure
  • Creation of Sports infrastructure at various levels

RBI unveils 5-yr financial inclusion strategy: Here’re key recommendations

News: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has come up with a National Strategy for Financial Inclusion 2019-24. It aims at providing access to formal financial services in an affordable manner

Facts:

Recommendations put forward by the Financial Inclusion Advisory Committee of the RBI

1. universal access to financial services wherein every village should have access to a formal financial services provider within a 5-km radius.
2. digital financial services to be strengthened in all tier-II to tier-VI centers to facilitate a less-cash society by March 2022.
3. every adult enrolled under the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojna should be enrolled under an insurance scheme and pension scheme by March.
4. the public credit registry has to be made fully operational by March 2022 so that authorized financial entities can leverage the same for assessing credit proposals.
5. new entrants to the financial system may be given the relevant information regarding government livelihood programs
6. devise a customer grievance portal or mobile application that will act as a common interface for lodging, tracking, and redressal of grievances pertaining to the financial sector

Hindi is 3rd most spoken language in the world with 615 million speakers after English, Mandarin

News: 22nd edition of Ethnologue was released.

Facts:

Key takeaways:

• English is the most spoken language with 1,132 million speakers. Chinese Mandarin is in the second position
• Hindi is 3rd most spoken language in the world with 615 million speakers.
• Bangla has been ranked as the 7th most spoken language of the world.

Note:

Ethnologue is an annual publication that provides statistics and other information on the living languages of the world. It is published by US-based SIL International.

Telling Numbers: Bottles, bags and other plastic packages South Asians consume

News: A new report by the World Wide Fund (WWF) has analyzed the volume of plastic packaging placed on the market in six rapidly growing Asian economies — China, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Facts:

Key takeaways:

• 93% of the waste of low-income countries is dumped in the environment, compared to 4% in high-income countries.
• Globally, 36% of plastic usage is for packaging and over a third of it lands up into the environment.
• Malaysia’s per capita plastic packaging consumption is the highest, at 16.78 kg. It is followed by Thailand, China, Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Philippines.

Additional Information:

World Wide Fund for Nature

• It is an international non-governmental organization founded in 1961. It is headquartered in Gland, Switzerland
• It works in the field of wilderness preservation, and the reduction of human impact on the environment.
• WWF publishes the Living Planet Index in collaboration with the Zoological Society of London.