TNPSC Current Affairs December 17, 2019

www.tnpsc.academy – TNPSC Current Affairs Dec 17, 2019 (17/12/2019)

Topic: New Appointments, Persons in news

Lt General Manoj Mukund: The Next Army Chief

Lt General Manoj Mukund Naravane is set to become the next chief of the Indian army. The three-year tenure of the current Army Chief Bipin Rawat ends on December 31 as he retires. However, GoI is yet to announce the name of the first Chief of Defence Staff as announced by PM Modi in his Independence Day address. The CDS is considered as one of the biggest reforms of Indian military as he will be the head of all three services and will possess nuclear arsenal powers.

About Lt General Navarne:

Lt Gen Navarne is the current Vice Chief of the Army. He is now heading the Eastern Command of the army that guards India’s 4,000 km border with China. He has also commanded infantry brigades in the eastern front and Rashtriya Rifles Battalion in J&K. He was a special appointee to give orders to the Sikh Light Infantry Regiment in 1980.

Topic: General Administration, Latest Diary of Events

Project Dolphin

The government is planning to launch a programme called “Project Dolphin”, along the lines of “Project Tiger” to enhance the population of these dolphins.

Protection status:

Dolphins have been included in Schedule I of the Indian Wild Life (Protection) Act 1972, in Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), in Appendix II of the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS) and categorised as ‘Endangered’ on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List.

Characteristic features:

The Gangetic river dolphins can only live in freshwater, are blind and catch their prey in a unique manner, using ultrasonic sound waves. They are distributed across seven states in India: Assam, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal.

Topic: Mass communication, Latest Diary of Events

What is StrandHogg?

It is a Malware which allows real-time malware applications to pose as genuine applications and access user data of all kinds.

Threats: It can listen to the conversations, access photo album, read/send messages, make calls, record conversations, get login credentials to various accounts, access private images, files, contact details, call logs and location information without being apparent to the affected users.

Why in News? The Union Home Ministry has alerted States, warning them about the vulnerability of the Android operating system to a bug called ‘StrandHogg’.