Current Affairs 20 July 2024

In Current Affairs for 20 July 2024, we will see the latest national and international current affairs news. These important current affairs will be beneficial for your upcoming NDA, CDS, CDS OTA, AFCAT, TA, Agniveer Army, Agniveer Navy, Agniveer Air Force, Women Military Police, INET, MNS, ACC exams, SCO, PCSL, CAPF, and SSB interviews, and direct entries for Army, Navy, and Air Force like SSC Tech, TGC, JAG, NCC, TES, 10+2 Cadet. Download a PDF file about current events at the end of this article. Let us now see the Current Affairs.

Current Affairs 20 July 2024

46th Session Of World Heritage Committee

• 46th Session of the World Heritage Committee will be held at Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi from 21st July to 31st July. India is hosting this event for the first time and Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate the session on the 21st of this month.
• This ceremony will be graced by Madam Audrey Azoulay, Director General of UNESCO, and other senior officers from the UNESCO World Heritage Secretariat along with other high-level dignitaries like Culture Ministers, Ambassadors, and domain experts from various countries.

• Addressing a Press Conference, Union Culture and Tourism Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat highlighted that this is the first mega event of India under the third term of Modi government.
• He said this meeting will showcase India’s diverse and unique cultural and natural heritage to the world, taking India’s cultural glory to new heights. He added an international meeting of this scale will further strengthen India’s soft power in the world and provide an opportunity for global audience and outreach.
• India was elected to the 21-member World Heritage Committee-WHC in the 23rd General Assembly in 2021 for a period of four years (2021-2025). This is India’s fourth term on the World Heritage Committee.
• India has inscribed 42 Properties in the World Heritage List which include 34 Cultural, 7 Natural, and one Mixed Heritage Site. In the last ten years, 12 Sites have been added including last year’s inscriptions of the Santiniketan (West Bengal) and Sacred ensembles of the Hoysalas (Karnataka). In addition, India has 57 Sites on the Tentative List of the World Heritage.

Microsoft Outage

• Government is in touch with Microsoft and its associates regarding the global outage. Union IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said National Informatics Centre’s network is not affected. Meanwhile, Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) has issued an advisory in the wake of the Microsoft Windows outage.
• Advisory said that it has been reported that Windows hosts related to Crowd strike agent Falcon Sensor, are facing outages and getting crashed due to recent update received in the product.
• It added that the concerned Windows hosts are experiencing a Blue Screen of Death (BSOD), related to Falcon Sensor.

• The issues occurred in the latest update of CrowdStrike and the changes have been reverted by the CrowdStrike Team. The advisory added that if hosts are still crashing and unable to stay online to receive the Channel File Changes, certain steps can be used as work around for this, including booting Windows into Safe Mode or the Windows Recovery Environment and booting the host normally.

• It also advised the users to check the latest updates from Crowd Strike portal. Millions of people around the globe have been affected by widespread Microsoft software outage.
• It has impacted IT network of multiple businesses, banking services and international airlines worldwide. In India, check-in systems for various airlines are down nationwide.
• The ongoing widespread outage is reportedly related to US-based cyber security provider CrowdStrike. Its ‘Falcon sensor’ is installed on many business computers to gather security data. The company said, their engineering teams are actively working to resolve the issue.

Ursula Von Der Leyen

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi has congratulated Ursula von der Leyen on her re-election as the President of the European Commission. In a social media post, Mr. Modi said, he looks forward to working together to strengthen the strategic partnership for global good. This will be her second term as the Commission President.

India Sets $100 Billion Export Target For Textile Sector

• Union Textiles Minister Giriraj Singh said his department wants to expand the size of the textile sector in the country from the present 176 billion to 350 billion dollars.

• Mr. Singh said his ministry has fixed a 100 billion dollar export target in this sector. The Minister said, states like Bihar have huge potential in textiles and garment sector.
• He said textile clusters like Bettiah and Muzaffarpur are successfully working, and Begusarai will be developed as a third cluster of the state.
• He also praised the incentives and industrial policies of Bihar for promotion of business. Mr. Singh said that the ministry will also explore the potential in Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan in the textiles sector.

Vinay Mohan Kwatra

• Former Foreign Secretary Vinay Mohan Kwatra has been appointed as the next Ambassador of India to the United States of America. A 1988 batch IFS officer, Mr. Kwatra is expected to take up the assignment shortly. The post was vacant after the retirement of  the then Ambassador Taranjit Singh Sandhu.

Global CSR ESG Award

• Sobha Group’s CSR wing, Sri Kurumba Educational and Charitable Trust, has been honoured with the “Best Child and Women Development Initiatives of the Year 2024.”
• This esteemed accolade was presented at the Global CSR, Sustainability, and ESG Awards 2024, Gurgaon. The event was organised by Marketing and Brand Honchos and brought together industry leaders and champions of social responsibility.

• The Global CSR & ESG Awards 2024 are designed to recognise and honour social and visionary leaders, organisations, and individuals involved in acts of humanity or social welfare that bring positive change or impact to society.
• The award ceremony celebrates various dignitaries, guests of honour, social activists, volunteers, corporates, institutes, organisations, and distinguished individuals from various walks of life from the global arena.

“Utkrishtata ki Ore Badhte Kadam”

• Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) organised an event named “Utkrishtata ki Ore Badhte Kadam”. Celebrating Achievements, Inspiring Excellence to felicitate best performers under PM Street Vendor’s AtmaNirbhar Nidhi (PM SVANidhi) Yojana and Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana – National Urban Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NULM).

• The event was attended by Shri Manohar Lal, Minister of Housing and Urban Affairs, as Chief Guest, Shri Tokhan Sahu, Minister of State for Housing and Urban Affairs, Shri Anurag Jain, Secretary, MoHUA and senior officials from Central Government, State Governments, Lending Institutions, Digital Payment Aggregators, key partners and most importantly, the beneficiaries of DAY-NULM and PM SVANidhi.

• PM Street Vendor’s AtmaNirbharNidhi (PM SVANidhi) scheme, launched on June 1, 2020, is a central sector scheme. It aims to provide collateral-free working capital loans up to ₹80,000 to urban street vendors incentivising regular repayment with a 7% interest subsidy, rewarding digital transactions with cashback up to ₹1,200 per year.

International COSPAR Assembly

• Committee on Space Research (COSPAR), the world’s first scientific body dedicated to space science research, has recognized the outstanding contributions of two Indian space scientists at its 45th scientific assembly in Busan, South Korea.
• This recognition highlights India’s growing prominence in the global space research community. Prahlad Chandra Agrawal, one of India’s most senior space scientists, received the esteemed Harrie Massey Award. Agrawal is a retired professor from the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. Harrie Massey Award recognizes outstanding contributions to space research, with a particular emphasis on leadership roles. This prestigious honor underscores Agrawal’s significant impact on the field of space science.

• Anil Bhardwaj, the director of the Ahmedabad-based Physical Research Laboratory (PRL), was awarded the Vikram Sarabhai Medal.
• This award, jointly instituted by COSPAR and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), honors outstanding space science research in developing countries.
• Bhardwaj specializes in planetary space sciences and solar system exploration. His expertise has been instrumental in advancing India’s space research capabilities.

Six New Exoplanets

• NASA has achieved a significant milestone with the discovery of six new exoplanets: HD 36384 b, TOI-198 b, TOI-2095 b, TOI-2095 c, TOI-4860 b, and MWC 758 c. This brings the total number of confirmed exoplanets outside our solar system to 5,502, marking a remarkable advancement in our understanding of the universe and the potential for extraterrestrial life.
• Approximately 31 years ago, the first exoplanets were confirmed in 1992 with the detection of Poltergeist and Phobetor orbiting the pulsar PSR B1257+12. By March 2022, the count of discovered exoplanets had surpassed 5,000, reflecting the rapid progress in the field.

• Characteristics of the Newly Discovered Exoplanets
• HD 36384 b: A super-Jupiter orbiting an M giant star nearly 40 times the size of the Sun.
• TOI-198 b: Potentially rocky, located on the inner edge of its star’s habitable zone.
• TOI-2095 b and TOI-2095 c: Hot super-Earths orbiting the same M dwarf star.
• TOI-4860 b: A rare “hot Jupiter,” completing an orbit every 1.52 days around an M dwarf star.
• MWC 758 c: A giant protoplanet orbiting a young star with a protoplanetary disk, offering insights into early planetary formation.

SC To Examine Article 361

• Supreme Court to examine the contours of Article 361 of the Constitution which grants blanket immunity to governors from any kind of criminal prosecution.

• The top court’s order came on a plea of former woman employee of West Bengal Raj Bhavan of who has alleged molestation by Governor C V Ananda Bose and her wrongful confinement by the officials there.

• The bench comprising Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra also issued a notice to the West Bengal government on the plea of the woman and granted her liberty to implead the Union of India in the petition filed under Article 32 of the Constitution. It also sought the assistance of Attorney General R Venkataramani in dealing with the constitutional issue.