Current Affairs Quiz - February, 2021

Notes:
Union Minister of Health & Family Welfare addressed the event on Restoring Cross Border Mobility, through video conference.
The event was organised by World Economic Forum’s Common Trust Network, to discuss the policies and partnerships required to reopen borders and enable essential travel, tourism and commerce in a safe and sustainable method.

Notes:
According to the performance index compiled by the Sydney-based Lowy Institute, New Zealand handled the pandemic the most effectively.
India is ranked 86th in the index comprising 98 countries, which measures several key indicators including confirmed cases, deaths, cases per million people and deaths per million people. New Zealand is followed by Vietnam and Taiwan while Brazil is the worst performing country.

Notes:
The corruption perception index (CPI) for the year 2020 has been released recently by Transparency International (TI). The index uses a scale of 0 to 100 to rate countries, where 0 is highly corrupt and 100 is very clean.
India slipped six places and has been ranked at 86th position out of 180 countries.

Notes:
The state government of Rajasthan has recently reduced value-added tax (VAT) by two percent on petrol and diesel. This has relaxed the fuel prices in the state. Recently, the price of premium petrol price crossed Rs.100 in the state.
Petrol, Diesel and other fuels in India have been kept outside the ambit of Goods and Services Tax (GST). Presently, the state governments determine the VAT on these fuels.

Notes:
India exported 4.45 million tonnes basmati rice (worth USD 4.33 billion) in financial year 2019-20. It has a 65 per cent share in global basmati trade.
Pakistan makes the rest of the global trade. Recently, Pakistan’s basmati rice has received a Geographical Indication (GI) registration within the country. India has applied to the EU for the GI tag for its basmati rice in September 2020. Both countries are exporting basmati to the EU without a GI tag from it.

Notes:
The ‘India Justice Report’ was an initiative of Tata Trusts, along with the Centre for Social Justice and some other social agencies.
The report analysed expenditure, vacancies, representation of women and members of SC, ST and OBCs across large, mid-sized states and smaller states. Bihar has employed most women in its police force at 25.3 per cent. Tamil Nadu has the highest percentage of women police officers and Karnataka is the only state to meet SC, ST and OBC quotas.

Notes:
The cabinet of Government of Tamil Nadu, has approved new investments in the state amounting Rs.52,257 crores. This includes investment by Tata Electronics amounting Rs.5,763 crores, for manufacture of mobile phone components. These investments are expected to generate over 93,935 jobs in the state.
The state’s cabinet has also cleared the Tamil Nadu Industrial Policy 2021.

Notes:
The Oxford group has selected ‘Aatmanirbharta’ as the Oxford Hindi word of 2020. In Hindi language, it means self-reliance.
Previous Hindi words of the year selected by Oxford are ‘Aadhar’ (2017), ‘Nari Shakti’ (2018) and ‘Samvidhaan’ (2019). Following the prime minister’s address, there was a significant increase in the usage of ‘aatmanirbharta’ following the Prime minister’s address.

Notes:
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh recently inaugurated a new plant at the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) in Bengaluru.
It aims to double the production of the Tejas Light Combat Aircraft, India’s indigenous fighter jet. The Defence Ministry also signed a Rs 48000 crore deal to procure 83 Tejas LCA from HAL. This is said to be the biggest indigenous defence procurement.

Notes:
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has announced that the country’s first thunderstorm research testbed is to be set up in Balasore, Odisha.
The testbed will be established in a collaboration between the Ministry of Earth Sciences, IMD, DRDO and ISRO. It aims to reduce human fatalities and loss of property due to lightning strikes.