• The Maharashtra government renamed Nagpur’s Gorewada International Zoo as Balasaheb Thackeray Zoological Park on Monday. The zoological park, spread over 1,900 hectares, will be inaugurated on January 26 by Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray.
• Confirming the announcement, the state Forest Minister Sanjay Rathod said an official Government Resolution (GR) was issued in this regard on Monday.
• Aiming to protect forests and promote tourism, Prakash Javadekar, Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC), had announced the setting up of the ‘international-standard’ bio park in August 2019. The task was entrusted to the Forest Development Corporation of Maharashtra Ltd.

• Guru Gobind Singh Jayanti will be celebrated on January 20. It marks the 354th birth anniversary of the tenth guru of Sikhism- Guru Gobind Singh Ji and is considered as one of the most auspicious festivals among Sikhs.
• Guru Gobind Singh Ji was born on the Saptami Tithi, Shukla Paksha (also known as the waxing phase of the Moon) in the Paush month in 1966. The day, which is also known as Prakash Parv or Guru Gobind Singh Parkash Utsav, is celebrated every year either in December or January in accordance with the Nanakshahi calendar.

• Flight lieutenant Bhawana Kanth is set to become the first woman fighter pilot to take part in the Republic Day parade.
• She will be a part of the Indian Air Force's (IAF's) tableau that will showcase mock-ups of the light combat aircraft, light combat helicopter and the Sukhoi-30 fighter plane. She is currently posted at an airbase in Rajasthan where she flies the MiG-21 Bison fighter plane. 

• Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and his entire Cabinet resigned to take political responsibility for a scandal involving investigations into child welfare payments that wrongly labeled thousands of parents as fraudsters.
• Rutte said he had informed King Willem-Alexander of his decision and pledged that his government would continue work to compensate affected parents as quickly as possible and to battle the coronavirus.
• “We are of one mind that if the whole system has failed, we all must take responsibility, and that has led to the conclusion that I have just offered the king, the resignation of the entire Cabinet,” Rutte said. 

Foot Notes:
About Netherlands:
Capital: Amsterdam
Currency: Euro

• Chief minister Vijay Rupani has announced for the formation of ‘Mukhyamantri Bagayat Vikas Mission’. The aim is to accelerate agriculture, horticulture and promote farming of herbal plants. It will also create employment opportunities through an increase in the export of such products.
• While announcing the formation of Horticulture Development Mission, the Chief Minister said, “Agriculture development has not attained its peak due to arid, semi-arid and saline patches of land in the state.

• The first consignment of green peas and white brinjals of Varanasi has been shipped from direct flight from Varanasi to Sharjah. 
• The shipment was flagged-off by Dr. M Angamuthu, Chairman of agricultural and processed food products export development authority, APEDA and Deepak Agrawal, Divisional Commissioner Varanasi.
• After successfully exporting Langda and the Dussehri variety of mangoes and green chillies of neighbouring district Ghazipur to many districts it is time to taste the fresh green peas and white brinjal of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's constituency Varanasi.

• Infosys said it had been accredited with the Google Cloud Partner Specialisation in the data and analytics space. It is among the top global system integrators to be accredited with this specialisation, claimed the company. Infosys has achieved this recognition by successfully demonstrating end-to-end capabilities on Google Cloud including data ingestion and warehousing on the cloud, as per the firm.
• The system integrator has showcased technical proficiency, robust methodology, strong industry expertise, and success in specialised data and analytics solutions and service areas. These data and analytics offerings, part of Infosys Cobalt, together with AI capabilities help migrate workloads to Google Cloud, modernise data landscapes, and optimise costs paving the way for AI and cloud-native digital transformation for enterprises, Infosys further said.

• Youth Affairs and Sports Minister Kiren Rijiju has been temporarily assigned the charge of the Ministry of AYUSH, according to a Rashtrapati Bhavan communique issued on Tuesday. The move was necessitated as Shripad Yesso Naik, the Minister of State (Independent Charge) for the Ministry of Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha, and Homeopathy (AYUSH) was undergoing treatment at a hospital in Goa.
• Shripad Yesso Naik (68) was admitted to the hospital on January 12 after he met with an accident while on his way back to Goa from Karnataka.

• Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant released a book 'Manohar Parrikar- Off the Record' at a function organized at Institute Menezes Braganza hall in the city. The book has been written by senior journalist Waman Subha Prabhu.
• The book 'Manohar Parrikar- Off the Record' is a collection of memories of Mr. Prabhu who happened to be with late Parrikar during the journey of his life. In the book the author has endeavored to narrate multi-faceted personality of late Manohar Parrikar. Chief Minister Pramod Sawant, while speaking, said Late Manohar Parrikar was a great visionary who had dreamt to serve Goa.

• Chennai, Veteran oncologist V. Shanta who headed the Cancer Institute (WIA) here, popularly known as Adyar Cancer Institute died at a private hospital on Tuesday early morning.
• A Padma Vibuhshan, Padma Bhushan, Padama Shri and Ramon Magsaysay awardee Shanta, 93 was admitted to a private hospital on Monday night as she was unwell.

Download Daily GK PDF of 20 January  2021