KALA KUMBH - Handicrafts Thematic Exhibition.

NATIONAL NEWS

Soil Health Card Day is observed today.

• The Soil Health Card(SHC) Day is being observed today.
• To recognize the day Soil Health Card Scheme was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on February 19, 2015 at Suratgarh, Rajasthan.
• The SHC scheme was initiated to address nutritional deficiencies during fertilization practices for which a soil health card is being issued to the farmers under this scheme.

IDSA renamed to Manohar Parrikar Institute.

• The Government of India decided to rename The Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA) as Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses.
• This move is to honour the former Raksha Mantri and the Padma Bhushan awardee, Mr. Manohar Parrikar.

HRD Ministry to celebrate Matribhasha Diwas.

• Ministry of Human Resource Development is to celebrate the Matribhasha Diwas falling on 21^st February 2020.
• The main event to be held in New Delhi having the Vice President of India, M. Venkaiah Naidu as the Chief Guest.
• The theme of the event is ‘Celebrating our Multilingual Heritage’ reflecting the spirit of Ek Bharat Shreshth Bharat campaign.
• Union Minister of Human Resource Development: Ramesh Pokhriyal.

KALA KUMBH - Handicrafts Thematic Exhibition.

• The Ministry of Textiles is organising “Kala Kumbh” - Handicrafts Thematic Exhibition to promote Geographical Indication (GI) crafts and heritage of India.
• The exhibitions are planned in major cities like Bengaluru, Kolkata, Chennai and Mumbai.
• The event was sponsored by Export Promotion Council for Handicrafts (EPCH).
• The GI tag is used on handicrafts which correlate with a specific geographical location or origin.
• Union Minister of Textiles: Smriti Irani.

Railway Minister is to lay foundation for the development of Satellite Terminal.

• Union Minister for Railways Mr. Piyush Goyal will be laying foundation for the development of Satellite Terminal at Charlapalli Railway Station, in Telangana.
• He also initiates the electrification of Yerragunta-Nandyal section.
• He will dedicate doubling electrification of Guntakal-Kalluru section via remote video link and a free high speed WiFi facility at 427 Railway Stations in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

Bangladesh-Nepal to sign Free Trade Agreement.

• To encourage the trade commitment between Bangladesh and Nepal, the two countries agreed to sign Free Trade Agreement between them.
• Commerce Minister of Bangladesh Tipu Munshi said a committee is to be formed to work on the initial works of the agreement.
• Bangladesh has also agreed to allow Nepal to use its Saidpur airport, in the northernmost district of Nilphamari nearby nepal.

Ashraf Ghani becomes the Afghan President for the 2^nd term.

• The Independent Election Commission in Afghanistan has announced that Ashraf Ghani wins the 2^nd term as the country’s President.
• Ashraf Ghani secured 50.64% of votes in the election that took place on 28th of September last year, while his counterpart and the country's Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah has secured 39.52% of votes.

FATF recommends to have Pakistan in “Grey List”.

• The Financial Action Task Force(FATF) an intergovernmental organization in its International Co-operation Review Group (ICRG) meeting announced to continue to have Pakistan on the “Grey List”.
• Pakistan was already placed on the 'Grey List' by the FATF in June 2018.

OBITUARY

Tapas Paul, famous Bengali film actor passes away.

• The famous Bengali Actor and the former Trinamool congress MP Tapas Paul passed away in Mumbai.
• He has been elected in Lok Sabha for 2 times from Krishnanagar Constituency in Nadia District, West Bengal.

Veteran Kannada actor Kishori Ballal passes away.

• Popular veteran Kannada actor Kishori Ballal passed away due to age-related problems.
• She was popularly called as “Kaveriamma” after her extraordinary performance in Shah Rukh Khan movie “Swades”.

V.L. Dutt passes away.

• The Executive Chairman of KCP group, Mr. V.L. Dutt has passed away in Chennai.
• Under his chairmanship the KCP group has boosted its turnover to about $250 million.

ECONOMIC AFFAIRS

Jeff Bezos launches $10 billion Earth Fund to battle climate change.

• Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has launched a new fund which he calls it as “Earth Fund” to fight against the climate change.
• This funding worth $10 billion is to fund scientists, activists, NGOs taking any efforts towards preserving the nature.

SEZ continues to lead in Exports.

• The Special Economic Zones, (SEZ) continues to lead the way in export sector of the country.
• SEZ has recorded 100-billion-dollar worth of exports so far in spite of the unstable Global Economy.
• Petrochemicals constitute a major segment of SEZ exports.

EESL-BSNL signs MoU to setup charging stations.

• The state-owned Energy Efficiency Services Ltd(EESL) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding(MoU) with BSNL for installing charging stations for electric vehicles.
• EESL will set up a public Electric Vehicle charging stations at 1000 BSNL sites all over the country.
• EESL will hold the entire investment for the programme and also will look after the operation and maintenance services.
• Whereas BSNL will provide the required power connections for the installation processes.

SPORTS NEWS

Amit Dahiya banned for four years by NADA.

• Javelin thrower Amit Dahiya was banned for four years for deceiving the sample collections and attempting to cheat the officials in the 2nd National Javelin Throw Open Championship 2019.
• National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) issued the charge of notice to Amit Dahiya according to the Anti-Doping Disciplinary Panel (ADDP).

2020 Tokyo Olympics Motto Announced.

• The Tokyo Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games has officially announced the Motto for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
• The Motto is “UNITED BY EMOTION”.

20^th Laureus Awards 2020.

• The 20^th Laureus Award ceremony was held at Berlin, in Germany.
• The Laureus World Sports Awards, honours individuals and teams from the world of sports for their achievements all over the year.
• Laureus Award was organised in the year 1999 by Laureus Sport for Good Foundation founding patrons Daimler and Richemont.
• WINNERS LISTS: