HCS Exam Topic Wise Current Affairs: Committee And Heads

HCS Last One Year Topic Wise Current Affairs: Committee and Heads

Haryana Civil Services Exam

CURRENT AFFAIRS YEARLY 2020

Last one-year Current Affairs For HCS Exam: Committee and Heads

1. Government think-tank Niti Aayog has formed a high-level panel to explore the technological and commercial viability of the Virgin Hyperloop technology for ultrahigh-speed travel in India.

• The committee has Niti Aayog member VK Saraswat as its Chairman and Adviser (Infrastructure Connectivity, Niti Aayog) Sudhendu Jyoti Sinha as its convener. 
• Its other members are Railway Board Chairman & CEO VK Yadav
• The Virgin Hyperloop test run was conducted on a 500-meter track in Las Vegas in the USA with a pod, as the hyperloop vehicles are called, travelling with passengers, including an Indian, inside an enclosed tube at more than 100 mph or 161 kmph.
• Hyperloop is a technology proposed by inventor and businessman Elon Musk, who is behind the electric car company Tesla and the commercial space transport company SpaceX.

2. The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has decided to constitute a Food Safety Co-ordination Committee to manage food safety emergencies in the country. 

• The committee will consist of members of various Ministries and government departments and will be chaired by FSSAI CEO Arun Singhal.
• The food safety authority has developed a framework of the National Food Safety Emergency Response (FSER) system.
• This outlines the procedures for multi-sectoral coordination, roles, responsibilities and management actions during food safety emergency situations

3. The government has formed an inter-ministerial panel to boost the country's capital goods sector.

• The 21-member Inter-Ministerial Committee will be headed by Secretary of Department of Heavy Industries; Shri Arun Goel
• The committee will look into issues pertaining to the capital goods (CG) sector, including technology development, testing, skill training, global standards, and customs duties to make the sector globally competitive and to become the manufacturing hub for the world.
• Union Minister of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises Prakash Javadekar.

4. The Centre has constituted a committee to review the guidelines on television rating agencies in India and asked the panel to submit its report to the Information and Broadcasting minister within two months.

• The four-member committee will be headed by Prasar Bharati CEO Shashi S Vempati.
• The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting said the present guidelines issued by it in 2014 on Television Rating agencies in India were notified after detailed deliberations by the Parliamentary Committee, Committee on Television Rating Points (TRP) constituted by the ministry, and recommendations of the Telecom Regulatory Authority, etc.

5. The ministry of corporate affairs has extended the tenure of the Company Law Committee by one year to September 2021.

•  The committee constituted in September 2019, is now chaired by corporate affairs secretary Rajesh Verma.
• It was set up to suggest measures to improve the functioning of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) and make recommendations on various issues pertaining to the implementation of the Companies Act as well as the Limited Liability Partnership Act.

6. SEBI has set-up a technical on the social stock exchange, which will develop a framework for onboarding profit and non-profit organizations on such bourses and prescribe disclosure requirements relating to financials and governance.

• The technical committee would be chaired by Harsh Kumar Bhanwala, former chairman of NABARD.
• The committee will also prescribe disclosure requirements relating to performance.
• The decision of setting-up of the technical group has been taken following the recommendation of the working group on the social stock exchange.

7. Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) Chairman G. Satheesh Reddy has constituted the 5-member expert committee to redefine the role of DRDO for the current and futuristic defense and battlefield scenarios.

• The committee will be headed by V. Ramgopal Rao (Director- IIT, Delhi)
• The panel will study and review the charter of duties of all 52 laboratories of DRDO and will redefine their role
• It will also discuss the reduction of the military’s dependence on imports

8. The Supreme Court has cleared a permanent commission for women in the Navy and asked the Centre to complete the modalities within three months.

• A bench was headed by Justice D Y Chandrachud. (Dhananjaya Yeshwant Chandrachud) 
• The bench quashed the prospective effect of the policy barring women officers inducted before 2008 from being granted permanent commission in the Navy. It also granted pension benefits to women officers who have retired and were not granted permanent commission.

9. Former Indian cricketer Virender Sehwag has been included in a 12-member committee constituted by the sports ministry to select this year's National Sports Awards winners. 

• Former India hockey captain Sardar Singh is also included.
• It will be headed by Retired Supreme Court Justice, Mukundakam Sharma. 
• The other members of the committee include Paralympic silver-medallist Deepa Malik, former table tennis player Monalisa Baruah Mehta, boxer Venkatesan Devarajan as well as sports commentator Manish Batavia and journalists Alok Sinha and Neeru Bhatia.
• The national sports awards are given away every year on August 29, the birth anniversary of hockey icon Dhyan Chand.
• The panel will also have representation from the Sports Ministry, including Sports Authority of India Director General Sandip Pradhan, Joint Secretary (Sports Development) L S Singh and Target Olympic Podium Scheme (TOPS) CEO Rajesh Rajagopalan.

10. The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) has formed a working group to examine the feasibility of ‘Pandemic Risk Pool’

• This 9- member panel will be headed by Suresh Mathur, Executive Director of  IRDAI .
• Risk pools are set up usually only for events that are deemed beyond the capacity of insurers and governments to handle. India has formed risk pools for nuclear disaster (Rs 1,500 crore) and terrorism (Rs 1,200 crore) so far.
• IRDAI Chairman– Subhash Chandra Khuntia

11. The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has set up an 11-member expert committee headed by Dr K S Reddy to study the impact of coronavirus (Covid-19) on human rights of individuals.

• He is the president of Public Health Foundation of India 
• NHRC Headquarters– New Delhi
• Chairman– Justice H. L. Dattu

12. Prime Minister Narendra Modi appointed a committee headed by Rajnath Singh to solve the difficulties in the implementation of Rs.3 Lakh crore collateral-free loan for Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises(MSME).

• Nitin Jairam Gadkari, MSME Minister suggested the revision in the definition of medium enterprises in terms of investment and turnovers to Rs 50 crore and Rs 200 crore respectively.

13. The National Green Tribunal (NGT) formed a high level committee headed by Justice BP Katakey, former High Court judge of Gauhati, to investigate the blowout at Assam’s Baghjan oil well of Oil India Limited(OIL) on 27th May 2020.

• The 8 member committee headed by justice Katakey will look into the 13 points listed by NGT and submit the report within 30 days.
• The 13 points focuses on the cause of leak, extent damage on life and environment, extent of contamination in the Dibru river and groundwater, Impact on Dibru-Saikhowa National Park and Maguri-Motapung wetland zone, agriculture, fishery and other incidental or allied issues

14. The Reserve Bank of India has constituted a five-member committee to review the guidelines related to ownership, governance and corporate structure of private sector banks.

• RBI Central Board Director P K Mohanty will head the committee, which will submit its report by 30th September, 2020.

• The panel will also examine norms for promoter shareholding at the initial/licensing stage and subsequently, along with the timelines for dilution of the shareholding.

15. The high-level committee headed by former Reserve Bank of India Governor C Rangarajan has set up to examine the fiscal challenges posed by COVID-19 in Tamil Nadu and suggest the way forward.

• The committee discussed steps to revive the state's economy.
• The committee discussed the impact of COVID-19 lockdown on the industries in the state and how soon it can be revived,Rangarajan, who had also served the Prime Minister's Economic
• Advisor Council as its chairman during the UPA regime, said.
• The state government has set up the 21-member committee to assess the immediate and medium term impact of COVID19 pandemic on different sectors of the state's economy including the impact of lock-down, additional costs and implications.

16. Noted Bharatanatyam dancer former chairperson of Sangeet Natak Akademi and author Leela Samson will head the five-member jury for the Rs 25 lakh JCB Prize for Literature 2020.

• Writer and translator Aruni Kashyap; cultural theorist and author Tejaswini Niranjana; playwright and director Ramu Ramanathan and Deepika Sorabjee, are the other members of the jury.
• The jury will announce the longlist of ten titles on September 1, followed by the shortlist of five titles on September 25.
• The winner will be announced at the awards ceremony on November 7. 

17. University Grants Commission (UGC) has constituted 2 expert committees to look after the examinations & academic calendar, and to promote online learning amidst the lockdown due to COVID-19.

• The Committee  to look after the examinations & academic calendar, is a 7-member committee headed by the vice-chancellor of the Central University of Haryana- R.C. Kuhad.
• The Committee to promote online learning is formed in relation to students, teachers and the education system as a whole & also to promote online education.
• The seven-member committee which was to submit its report on April 13, is still working on formulating its final recommendations.

18. The government has constituted a Delimitation Commission, to be headed by former Supreme Court judge Ranjana Prakash Desai, to redraw Lok Sabha and assembly constituencies of the Union Territory Jammu and Kashmir and the northeastern states of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Nagaland, a Law Ministry notification said.

• Election Commissioner Sushil Chandra and state election commissioners of Jammu and Kashmir and the four states will be the ex-officio members, it said.
• The Commission will delimit the constituencies of Jammu and Kashmir in accordance with the provisions of the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, and of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Nagaland in accordance with the provisions of the Delimitation Act, 2002, the notification said.
• Delimitation is the process of fixing limits or boundaries of territorial constituencies in a country or a province with a legislative body.
• The appointment of Justice (retd) Desai will be for a period of one year or till further orders, whichever is earlier. 

19. IMF MD Kristalina Georgieva has named former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan and 11 others to her external advisory group to provide perspectives from around the globe on key developments and policy issues, including responses to the exceptional challenges the world now faces due to the coronavirus pandemic.

• Rajan, 57, who was the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor for three years until September 2016, is currently working as a professor at the prestigious University of Chicago.
• Other members of the group are Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Senior Minister of Singapore and Chairman of the Monetary Authority of Singapore; Kristin Forbes, Professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Kevin Rudd, former Prime Minister of Australia; Lord Mark Malloch Brown, former UN deputy secretary-general among others.

20. Government has constituted 11 different Empowered groups to suggest measures to ramp up healthcare, put the economy back on track and reduce the misery of people as quickly as possible post 21-day lockdown imposed to contain the Coronavirus pandemic.

• Each group consists of about 6 members including a senior representative from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) and the Cabinet Secretariat to ensure seamless coordination.
• Group on Medical Emergency & Management Plan- NITI Aayog member Dr V Paul.
• Group on coordinating with the private sector- Chief Executive Officer(CEO) of NITI Aayog Amitabh Kant.
• Group on Public Grievances- HRD Secretary, Amit Khare.