Daily Current Affairs 18 April 2020: We have collected the latest current affairs for 18 April 2020 that are important for all competitive exams like Bank, SSC, IBPS, SBI exams. The GK current affairs will help you score more in these competitive exams. Improve your general knowledge with our daily online current affairs. You can also read the daily current affairs on our mobile app.

To be super updated you can read this news as and when they are posted as single news on Current Affairs 247 site. It is a part of ByScoop.com

Current Affairs 18 April 2020

Agriculture Minister launches Mobile App “Kisan Rath” to facilitate transportation of foodgrains and perishables during lockdown

• The Union Minister of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare, Shri Narendra Singh Tomar launched a mobile application named ‘Kisan Rath’ in New Delhi on 17 April 2020.
• The app has been developed by the National Informatics Centre (NIC).
• It will help farmers & traders to search transport vehicles for Primary and Secondary transportation of Agriculture & Horticulture produce.
• The Primary transportation would include movement from Farm to Mandis, FPO Collection Centre and Warehouses etc.
• Secondary Transportation would include movement from Mandis to Intra-state & Inter-state mandis, Processing units, Railway station, Warehouses and Wholesalers etc.

Chhattisgarh Govt Launches Web-portal ‘Cghaat’ For Home Delivery Of Fruits, Vegetables Amid Extended Lockdown

• Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel has inaugurated an online portal named ‘Cghaat’ to provide home delivery of fruits and vegetables to the residents during the extended lockdown phase. 
• The website ‘cghaat.in‘, has been developed by Chhattisgarh government’s agency Chips.
• The portal aims to help people in maintaining social distancing and reduce the crowding at the shops.
• The fruit and vegetable vendors interested in providing services through this portal can register online free of charge.
• This service has first been made available in Raipur city, but will soon be extended to other big cities in the state.

IIT Ropar Launches ‘WardBot’ to deliver Food & Medicines to COVID-19 patients

• A team of researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Ropar in Rupnagar district of Punjab has designed an autonomous robot ‘WardBot’ to deliver medicines and food to COVID-19 patients in isolation wards without human intervention.
• WardBot also has a feature of self-sanitising on the return path and could be used for sanitising walls of the hospitals.

RBI Cuts Reverse Repo Rate by 25 bps to 3.75%; Announces TLTRO 2.0 with Rs 50,000 Crore

• On 17 April 2020, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das took several important decisions to ensure adequate liquidity in the system to ease the financial stress caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Key Decisions

• RBI has slashed the Reverse Repo rate by 25 basis points to 3.75%. 
• The repo rate has been kept unchanged at 4.40%.
• RBI has also announced the launch of (Targeted Long Term Repo Operation) TLTRO 2.0 to address the liquidity needs of the NBFCs and microfinance institutions
• TLTRO 2.0 will be undertaken in tranches, with an amount of Rs 50,000 crore to begin with.
• The Banks availing these funds will be required to deploy the same within one month and should be invested in investment grade bonds, commercial paper, and non-convertible debentures of NBFCs with at least 50 percent of the total amount availed going to midsized NBFCs and MFIs
• A special re-financing facility of Rs 50,000 crore has also been announced for financial institutions like Nabard (25,000 cr), National Housing Bank (10,000 cr) and Sidbi (15,000 cr).
• The Liquidity Coverage Ratio (LCR) requirement of scheduled commercial banks has been brought down from 100 percent to 80 percent with immediate effect. This will help banks to have more capitals to deploy in the market.
• This requirement shall be gradually restored back in two phases, i.e. 90 percent by October 1, 2020 and 100 percent by April 1, 2021.
• The ways and means advances (WMA) limit has been increased by 60 per cent over and above the level as on March 31, 2020. This increased limit will be available till September 30, 2020.
• All accounts for which banks grant moratorium or deferment, and which were standard as on March 1, 2020, the 90-day NPA norm shall exclude the moratorium period i.e. there would be an asset classification standstill for all such accounts from March 1, 2020 to May 31, 2020.
• Banks will also have to maintain higher provision of 10 percent on all such accounts under the standstill over two quarters, i.e., March, 2020 and June, 2020 to ensure that they maintain sufficient buffers and remain adequately provisioned to meet future challenges.

S&P Global Ratings Reduces India’s GDP growth for FY’21 at 1.8%; 7.5% in FY’22

• S&P Global Ratings has slashed India growth forecast for the fiscal 2020-21 to 1.8 percent, due to the lockdown to contain Covid-19 pandemic.
• Earlier in March, it projected a growth of 3.5 percent.
• The US-based rating agency expects growth to significantly recover to 7.5 percent in 2021-22 fiscal.

Laver Cup Tennis Tournament Postponed to 2021 due to French Open Cash

• The fourth edition of the Laver Cup has been postponed from September 2020 to 2021 due to schedule conflicts with other tennis events caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
• The tournament was originally scheduled to be held from Sep 25-27 in 2020 in Boston.
• However, the French Open tennis tournament has been shifted from May 2020 to September 2020, and therefor Laver Cup has been shifted to September 24-26, 2021.
• The Laver Cup Team Europe vs Team World men’s team tournament, founded by Roger Federer’s management company.

Veteran Tribal leader and former Odisha minister Saharai Oram Passes away at 78

• Tribal leader and former Odisha Minister Saharai Oram passed away at Barbil in Keonjhar district following a prolonged illness.
• He was 78.

Quit India Movement Freedom Fighter RV Bhuskute passes away at 94

• Freedom fighter R V Bhuskute, who had participated in the Quit India Movement, has passed away of prolonged illness. He was 94
• Hailing from Maharashtra’s Raigadh district, Bhuskute has also written several books on land laws.
• Apart from being a freedom fighter, he worked for the release and rehabilitation of bonded labourers in tribal areas of Maharashtra.

World Voice Day: 16 April

• The World Voice Day (WVD) is celebrated globally on April 16 every year to demonstrate the enormous importance of the voice in the daily lives of all people.
• The theme of 2020 is FOCUS ON YOUR VOICE.

International Day For Monuments and Sites: 18 April

• The International Day for Monuments and Sites (World Heritage Day) is observed on 18 April each year to promote awareness about the diversity of cultural heritage of humanity, their vulnerability and the efforts required for their protection and conservation.
• The International Day for Monuments and Sites was proposed by the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) on 18 April 1982 and approved by the General Assembly of UNESCO in 1983.
• Theme 2020- Shared Cultures, Shared Heritage, Shared Responsibility.

Click Here For Daily Current Affairs

Click Here for Daily Current Affairs Quiz

Current Static GK in News – April 2020