Current Affairs Quiz - December, 2020

Notes:
The 4th Trilateral Meeting on Maritime Security Cooperation between India, Sri Lanka, and Maldives was hosted by Sri Lanka.
It was held in Colombo and India was represented by the National Security Advisor Ajit Doval. The earlier such meetings were held in Maldives (2011), Sri Lanka (2013) and in India (2014).

Notes:
State Bank of India has partnered with National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) and Japan’s JCB International Co to launch new ‘SBI RuPay JCB Platinum Contactless Debit Card’.
This card has a dual interface feature, under which customers can use it for both contact and contactless transactions, both in the domestic market as well as overseas. The card has been launched on the RuPay network.

Notes:
Bhasan Char is an uninhabited island in Bangladesh. It is located in the Bay of Bengal, about 60 kilometers from the mainland.
The Bangladesh government started the process of relocating the Rohingyas from Cox’s Bazar refugee camp to the newly developed facility at the Bhashan char Island. Bangladesh constructed shelter houses for Rohingya refugees at an estimated cost of 2,300 crore takas.

Notes:
One of the two lesser florican birds that was tagged by the Gujarat forest department has flown all the way to the state of Telangana.
The bird was tagged at the Blackbuck National Park (BBNP), Velavadar, in Bhavnagar. This has confirmed a research finding that lesser florican birds migrate to peninsular India from the western part of India after their breeding season.

Notes:
The historical fort cities of Gwalior and Orchha in Madhya Pradesh have been included in UNESCO’s World heritage cities list, under its Urban landscape city programme.
Gwalior was established in the 9th century and was ruled by Gurjar Pratihar Rajvansh, Tomar, Baghel Kachvaho and Scindias. Orchha is popular for temples and palaces. It was the capital of the Bundela kingdom in the 16th century.

Notes:
The Change – 5 is China’s ambitious lunar project, under which a capsule has recently collected lunar soil samples and has docked successfully with a space craft that is orbiting the moon.
The capsule transferred the lunar samples to the orbiting space craft which would return to the earth.

Notes:
Pfizer has approached the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) seeking for emergency use authorisation (EUA) for its COVID 19 vaccine in India.
The company has obtained the emergency use authorisation from United Kingdom and Bahrain recently. The company has asked permission to DCGI for distribution of its COVID vaccine in India and waiver of clinical trials.

Notes:
The forest department of Assam and Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB) recently made a seizure of illegally smuggled marine life products.
Most of the seized products were sea fans and endangered aquatic species. This seizure is seen as the biggest of its kind in India. Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB) is a statutory body under the Ministry of Environment Forest and Climate Change.

Notes:
The Urban Governance Index (UGI)-2020 has released by the Mumbai-based non-profit organisation Praja Foundation.
As per the index, Odisha tops the list of states in urban governance followed by Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh. The study assessed the urban governance reforms across 40 cities in 28 states and NCT of Delhi.

Notes:
The companies of USA and China have dominated the global arms market in the year 2019, as per a report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
The arms industry of USA accounts for nearly 61% of the sales by top 25 arms manufacturers. Chinese firms account for 15.7% of the sales by top 25 arms manufacturers.