Current Affairs Quiz - January, 2021

Notes:
The famous French designer Pierre Cardin, who created an iconic brand in his name, recently passed away at the age of 98.
He licensed thousands of products in his name and they were sold across over several outlets worldwide. Beyond his designer clothes, he also licensed products like Perfumes, Makeup, Porcelain, Chocolates among others.

Notes:
Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS), an autonomous body under the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), has launched a web-based application for ocean data management.
Named ‘Digital Ocean’, the platform aims to share information on marine data and forecast services. The platform provides data for several sectors like research institutions, academic community, maritime industry and the public.

Notes:
The first three sets of a 10-metre short-span bridge, designed and developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), were inducted to the Indian Army.
The bridges are manufactured at the Larsen & Toubro facility at Talegaon in Pune. The bridges were developed by the Research and Development Establishment (Engineers), DRDO in Pune. The DRDO has also developed five metre and 15 metre types of the bridge.

Notes:
In the Jhalawar District of Rajasthan, 50 crows had died of Avian influenza (Bird flu) recently. In response, a curfew was imposed surrounding the area.
While, death of crows has also been reported from the city of Jodhpur. The administration ordered to sanitise the affected area and send the samples to the National High Security Animal Disease Laboratory (NHSADL), Bhopal.

Notes:
Former General Manager of the Eastern Railway, Suneet Sharma has been appointed as the new Chairman & Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Railway Board (Ministry of Railways).
He will also serve as the ex-officio Principal Secretary to Government of India. After the completion of the term of incumbent chief V K Yadav, the appointments committee of the Cabinet has approved Suneet Sharma as the new Chairman & CEO.

Notes:
Covishield is the vaccine candidate from Pune-based Serum Institute of India. It has been approved by a Subject Expert Committee (SEC) of the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI).
Covishield is equivalent to the vaccine being developed by the Oxford-AstraZeneca. The United Kingdom also granted emergency use approval to the vaccine in the country.

Notes:
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has developed the Digital Payments Index (DPI), to record the expansion of digitisation of payments across the country.
The index has been constructed with March 2018 as the base period. As per the RBI, the DPI for March 2019 and March 2020 stand at 153.47 and 207.84 respectively. The index includes 5 parameters with the highest weightage for Payment Performance.

Notes:
The Parliament of Kazakhstan signed the ratification of the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).
It is a document which commits the signatories to abolish capital punishment. Life imprisonment was introduced in the country in 2004 as an alternative punishment. While ICCPR was adopted in 1966, the second optional protocol was adopted in 1989.

Notes:
Deepor Beel is the only Ramsar site of the state of Assam. It is located in the south-western edge of Guwahati.
The site, which houses of a variety of aquatic life forms along with 219 species of birds, was designated a Ramsar site in the year 2002. The District officials has banned Community fishing at the site.

Notes:
The Chief Minister of Punjab, Captain Amarinder Singh announces several welfare schemes for the state.
He also dedicated the January month to girl child through ‘Dheeiyan Di Lohri’ programme. He also announced to provide free sanitary pads for girl students of high schools and colleges. ‘BASERA’ scheme was also announced for slum dwellers.