Current Affairs Quiz - August, 2023

Notes:
Prime Minister Narendra Modi suggested the creation of a BRICS space consortium, hours before India’s Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft landed near the moon’s south pole.
Brazil’s President called for the BRICS nations to create a common currency for trade and investment between each other.

Notes:
Japan began releasing wastewater from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean as tanks containing the radioactive water neared capacity.
In 2011, an earthquake and tsunami hit the Fukushima area and triggered reactor meltdowns at the plant. To stop the meltdown, plant workers flooded the reactors with water. Even now, when the plant is offline, the reactors need to be cooled.

Notes:
A nine-member committee headed by former Principal Scientific Advisor to government, K Vijay Raghavan, has been set up by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to review functioning of Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).
The Committee will suggest restructuring and redefining of its role to improve the output of the state-owned agency, aiding government’s move to make India self-reliant in military sector.

Notes:
A ‘Committee of Experts to ‘Onshoring the Indian Innovation to GIFT IFSC’ constituted by International Financial Services Centres Authority (IFSCA) submitted its report to Chairperson, IFSCA. The committee was chaired by G. Padmanabhan, Former Executive Director, RBI. The committee members comprised representatives from leading Venture Capital funds, Startups, Fintechs, Law firms, Tax firms and other domain experts.

Notes:
Indore has been adjudged the best Smart City while Madhya Pradesh has been chosen as the top State for exemplary performance in the Smart Cities Mission.
Surat and Agra are the second and third-place winners among cities, while Tamil Nadu is the second in the State category. It is followed by Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh in the India Smart Cities Award Contest (ISAC), 2022.

Notes:
Antarctica’s iconic symbol, the ‘Emperor Penguin’ is at the risk of ‘quasi extinction’ due to the abrupt reduction in sea ice.
According to a study, 90% of the emperor penguins “will be quasi-extinct” by the end of the century under the current global warming trajectory. Emperor penguins are entirely dependent on sea ice for breeding, the satellite imagery showed that none of the penguin chicks are likely to have survived.

Notes:
Indian Oil Corporation, L&T and ReNew have set up a joint venture for pursuing green hydrogen projects.
The JV company GH4India, has been formed for the purpose of development of green hydrogen and its derivatives, including green ammonia and methanol, besides production assets and associated renewable assets through any model of ownership and operatorship.

Notes:
Japan’s space agency suspended a planned launch of an H-IIA rocket that was to carry a moon lander into space.
The launch was cancelled because of unsuitable wind conditions in the upper atmosphere. The rocket is carrying JAXA’s Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM), which would be the first Japanese spacecraft to land on the moon.

Notes:
Kolkata Port, also known as Syama Prasad Mookherjee Port (SMP), is offering nearly 60 acres of its land in the city for the state’s first multi-modal logistics park (MMLP).
None of the multi-modal logistics parks proposed across the country is in the port area. Here, more than 25 acres of warehousing space is available, there is a single window system. It is strategically located very close to highways, and it is well-connected to Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, and North-Eastern India.

Notes:
The CSIR-National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) said it will develop a grid-based mitigation strategy to tackle the air pollution problem in Delhi.
The plan was presented during the India Clean Air Summit (ICAS) 2023 in Bengaluru. LAMP will allow policymakers to devise tailored strategies for pollution control within their jurisdiction, aligning with the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) goals.