Current Affairs Quiz - August, 2021

Notes:
India’s Consumption Expenditure Survey (CES) is conducted by National Sample Survey Office every five years. But, CES data has not been released since 2011-2012. Under this survey there are clear indications that Poverty in India is on rise again. CES was conducted in the year 2017-18 but its data was not made public by the Government. A new CES is likely to be conducted in 2021-22 for which data will be available by end of 2022.

Notes:
Khel Ratna Award, which is India’s highest sporting honour, and was named after former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, was on 6th August, 2021 rechristened in the honour of hockey legend Dhyan Chand. The award will now be called as ‘Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award’. Goal is the title of the autobiography of Major Dhyan Chand.

Notes:
On 7th August, 2021 Neeraj Chopra won the gold medal in men’s javelin throw at the Tokyo Olympics with a throw of 87.58 metres. Czech Republic throwers Jakub Vadlejch (86.67m) and Vitezslav Vesely (85.44m) took the silver and bronze respectively. Chopra becomes the first Indian to win a medal in athletics at the Olympic Games and is only the second Indian to win an individual gold medal after shooter Abhinav Bindra at Beijing in the year 2008.

Notes:
Bihar’s capital city Patna is all set to get its own version of Mumbai’s famous Marine Drive. The 5.50km-long Digha-AN Sinha Institute stretch of the ambitious Ganga Pathway is all set to be opened next year. The ‘Ganga pathway’ is part of Rs 3,390 crore project which is coming up on the southern bank of river Ganga to minimise traffic on the congested Ashok Rajpath. The total length of project is 20.50km

Notes:
Seekho Aur Kamao is a skill development scheme for youth of 14 – 35 years age group and aiming at providing employment and employment opportunities; improving the employability of existing workers, school dropouts etc. In the last 7 years around 3.92 lakh persons have been benefitted under this employment oriented scheme. This scheme was launched in the year 2013 and it is implemented by the Ministry of Minority Affairs.

Notes:
Nethra Kumanan is an Indian sailor. She won Bronze medal in World Cup sailing in Miami in 2020. She is the first Indian woman sailor to qualify for Olympics. In January, 2020, Nethra Kumanan became the first Indian woman to win a bronze medal at the Sailing World Cup. Kumanan competed in this year’s Tokyo Olympics in the laser radial class of sailing. The laser radial is a small boat, just big enough to carry one person, who has to navigate the boat.

Notes:
Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani has launched eNagar mobile application and portal. The eNagar covers 10 modules with 52 services including property tax, professional tax, water & drainage, Complaints and grievance redressal, building permission, fire and emergency services. Gujarat Urban Development Mission has been appointed as a nodal agency for eNagar project. Total 170 locations including 162 municipalities and 8 Municipal Corporations are covered under the eNagar project.

Notes:
Nagaland has bagged seven prestigious national awards in the Van Dhan Vikas Yojana (VDVY) and Minimum Support Price (MSP) schemes for exemplary performance in various categories. The VDVY and MSP for Minor Forest Produce (MFP) scheme focus on farmers’ entrepreneurship programmes through processing, packaging, branding and marketing of locally available products, according to an official statement issued on Monday. Nagaland topped in three categories – Best Survey, Best Training and the most number of Van Dhan Vikas Clusters (VDVKCs) established. The North-eastern state also secured third positions in Best Sales Generated at Rs 1,15,86,000 and Innovation and Creativity. It got the two other awards for a couple of ideas: supply of gooseberry wine by a multipurpose society and mushroom.

Notes:
The government of Maharashtra has announced about the introduction of Rajiv Gandhi Award for firms that are excelling in the Information Technology (IT) sector in the state. The awards have been named after former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. The Rajiv Gandhi Award for excellence in the IT sector will be conferred upon institutions and companies for their outstanding performance in the IT sector on August 20, on the occasion of the birth anniversary of the late Rajiv Gandhi. It will be conferred by Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray. Maharashtra IT Corporation Limited (MAHA-IT) has been appointed as the nodal agency to propose the award.

Notes:
Paytm Payments Bank Ltd (PPBL) has become the first bank in the country to achieve the milestone of issuing 1 crore FASTags. This is almost 30% of the total FASTags issued by 32 banks in the country. In the last 6 months alone, PPBL has equipped over 40 lakh commercial & private vehicles with FASTags. Besides this, Paytm Payments Bank is also India’s largest acquirer of Toll Plazas for the National Electronic Toll Collection (NETC) program offering an interoperable nationwide toll payment solution. The bank has enabled 280 toll plazas across the National & State highways to collect toll charges digitally. Paytm Payments Bank is also working closely with NHAI for testing and implementing multi-lane free-flow movement using automatic number plate recognition technology. This will further improve the overall customer experience while travelling on the national highways. Paytm FASTag is linked to the Paytm Wallet ensuring users don’t have to opt for multiple recharges.