04th December 2019 Current Affairs

1. NATO 70^th foundation day

• The leaders of North Atlantic Treaty Organization, NATO, will meet today to mark the 70th birthday of the organization in London.
• The twenty-nine member alliance is the world’s biggest military alliance.
• NATO was founded in 1949 for the collective defence of its members, linking the security of the United States with its European allies against the Soviet Union. It witnessed the end of communism, defeating the Soviet Bloc without firing a shot.

2. Yu Waah  skill programme

• The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) launched the ‘YuWaah’ Generation Unlimited in India on November 1, 2019.
• Generation Unlimited (GenU), called YuWaah in India, is a global multisector and multi-stakeholder alliance created to meet the need of expanded education, skill development and employment opportunities for young people aged 10-24.
• It brings together partners from government, multilateral organizations, civil society, the private sector and young people from around the world.
• The target age group of YuWaah includes adolescent girls and boys and its key mission is to promote access to foundational, transferable and 21^st-century skills for youth inside and outside formal education systems.
• YuWaah intends to create platforms to guide youth to market opportunities (career guidance, mentorship, internships, apprenticeships) and facilitate the integration of career guidance in school education.

3. Prithvi II

• India today successfully test-fired its indigenously developed surface-to-surface nuclear-capable Prithvi-II missile off Odisha coast. The Strategic Forces Command of the Indian Army conducted the user trial of the 350 km range missile from a mobile launcher from launch complex-3 of the Integrated Test Range at Chandipur at around 7.50 p.m.
• Defence sources said the missile weighs about 4,600 kg, is capable of carrying 500 to one thousand kilograms of warheads and is thrust by liquid propulsion twin engines. It also said all parameters within the stipulated time period were achieved.
• AIR correspondent reports, inducted into the 333-missile regiment of the Indian Army in 2003, the nine-meter-tall, single-stage liquid-fueled Prithvi-II is the first missile to have been developed by the DRDO under the Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme.
• Today’s trial was a part of regular training exercise by the armed forces which reconfirms the Army’s readiness to fire it at short notice.
• Developed under the joint collaboration of Defence Research and Development Organization and Bharat Dynamics Limited, the missile was first test-fired on 27 January 1996.

4. Portability of NFSA

• Minister for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, Ram Vilas Paswan today said the Government has begun implementing nation-wide portability of the benefits under the National Food Security Act (NFSA) 2013.
• Eligible households or beneficiaries covered under NFSA would be able to lift their entitled food grains from any Fair Price Shop, FPS, in the country.
• This would be possible by using the same ration card after biometric or Aadhaar authentication on Electronic Point of Sale, EPoS, device at an FPS of Destination/Sale State through ‘One Nation One Ration Card’ Plan.
• The Minister reiterated that the facility of inter-State portability under this initiative would be available only through FPSs, having fully online ePoS devices.
• The system would largely benefit numerous migratory beneficiaries such as labourers, daily wagers and blue-collar workers who frequently change their place of dwelling in search of employment or for other reasons, across the country.

5. Rural 100% ODF

• The sanitation coverage under Swachh Bharat Mission(Grameen) is 100 per cent and all the 5,99,963 villages have declared themselves Open-Defecation Free (ODF), the government said on Monday.
• The Centre launched SBM(G) on October 2, 2014 with the aim to attain Open Defecation Free (ODF) India by October 2, 2019.
• “As per the data reported by states/UTs on the online Integrated Management Information System of SBM(G), 10.14 crore individual household toilets have been constructed under the programme as on November 28.
• “As a result, the sanitation coverage in the country, which was 38.7 per cent as on October 2, 2014 has increased to 100 per cent and all the 5,99,963 villages of the country have declared themselves ODF,” Minister of State in the Jal Shakti Ministry Rattan LalKataria said in a written response to a question in the RajyaSabha.