Current Affairs Quiz - December, 2023

Notes:
SEBI proposed changes in the regulatory framework for Special Situation Funds to facilitate the acquisition of stressed loans. Special Situation Funds (SSFs) are sub-category of Alternative Investment Funds (AIFs).
Sebi suggested a definition of ‘special situation assets’, eligibility of investors in SSFs in terms of Insolvency law, among others. The proposals have been floated after consultations with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), which is the principal regulator for the sale and purchase of stressed loans in India.

Notes:
A diplomatic row sparked between Greece and the UK after British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak cancelled a meeting with his Greek counterpart Kyriakos Mitsotakis over the status of the Parthenon Sculptures housed at the British Museum.
Over the years, Greece has repeatedly asked for the sculptures’ permanent return to Athens, but Britain refused to do so. The Parthenon Sculptures are more than 30 ancient stone sculptures from Greece that are more than 2,000 years old. Most of them adorned the walls and grounds of the Parthenon temple on the rocky Acropolis hill in Athens. Completed in 432 BC, the temple is dedicated to the goddess Athena.

Notes:
The Saudi Arabian capital of Riyadh won the right to host the Expo 2030 world fair, in another diplomatic victory for a Gulf country after soccer World Cup.
South Korea’s port city of Busan and Rome in Italy were also in the running to host the five-yearly event that attracts millions of visitors and billions of dollars in investment.

Notes:
French ambassador to India honoured Lalithambika, former director, Directorate of the Human Spaceflight Programme of ISRO with Legion d’Honneur.
Lalithambika has worked extensively on various ISRO rockets, especially PSLV. Lalithambika is the second ISRO scientist after former ISRO chairman A S Kiran Kumar to be awarded the Legion d’Honneur of France for promoting Indo-French space cooperation.

Notes:
Virgin Atlantic operated Flight100 from London to New York, the first ever transatlantic passenger flight fully powered by sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). The Boeing 787, with Rolls-Royce engines, aims to demonstrate SAF’s viability as a safe, low-carbon substitute for conventional jet fuel. As the aviation industry faces pressure to reduce emissions and climate impact, SAF has potential as a compatible drop-in replacement requiring no new infrastructure. Flight100 represents an important first step in testing and scaling up commercial use of 100% SAF on long flights. Its completion will help make the case for ramping up SAF production and adoption across more routes. The flight proves such ambition is technologically possible with today’s planes and engines while we continue striving to make SAF affordable and available at scale.

Notes:
NASA’s Lucy spacecraft recently discovered that an asteroid named Dinkinesh, which it flew past last month, has a tiny “contact binary” moon – two space rocks gently rested against each other. The International Astronomical Union approved the name “Selam” for this moon, meaning “peace” in Ethiopia’s language.
The names Dinkinesh and Selam refer to two famous hominid fossils discovered in Ethiopia. Dinkinesh is the Ethiopian name for the 3.18 million-year-old Lucy fossil that the Lucy mission is named after. Selam was a 3-year-old girl’s fossil found in 2000 in Dikika, belonging to the same species as Lucy and dating over 100,000 years earlier than her.

Notes:
Methotrexate (MTX) is a widely used anti-cancer drug. The MTX value of more than 10 µM in blood plasma is hazardous if it remains in the system for more than 10 hours, resulting in poisoning effects on the lungs, ulcers of the stomach, and heart stroke.
A new highly fluorescent material with exceptional optical properties has been developed using phosphorene, cystine, and gold (Ph-Cys-Au) which can be used as a visual sensing platform for detecting anti-cancer drug MTX overdosage.

Notes:
A total of 4,45,256 cases of crime against women were registered across India in 2022, up from 4,28,278 in 2021 and 3,71,503 in 2020. The rate of crime against women per lakh population stood at 66.4 while the charge sheeting in such cases was logged at 75.8, showed the data in the annual crime report of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB).
NCRB functions under the Union Ministry of Home Affairs. The majority of crimes against women under the Indian Penal Code were of cruelty by husband or his relatives (31.4 per cent) followed by kidnapping and abduction of women (19.2 per cent). Delhi registered the highest rate of crime against women in the country at 144.4, while the country’s average rate was 66.4. Uttar Pradesh (65,743) registered the maximum FIRs in cases of crime against women in 2022.

Notes:
NITI Aayog has been publishing the Composite Water Management Index (CWMI) since 2018. So far two editions CWMI (June 2018) and CWMI 2.0 (August 2019) have been published.
Subsequent edition of CWMI was prepared in August 2022 with delay due to the nationwide Covid-19 situation. NITI Aayog will come up with a combined report from the third to sixth edition of the Composite Water Management Index.

Notes:
The Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe) has announced a seed fund scheme to offer start-ups focusing on urban development and disaster management a financial assistance of up to Rs 1 crore each.
It has launched the scheme in collaboration with ISRO’s National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) to provide a leg-up to companies that leverage space technology for societal benefit.  The selected start-ups will receive seed funding for transforming an original idea into a prototype using space technology, ISRO facility support.