Current Affairs Quiz - December, 2020

Notes:
US President-elect Joe Biden has recently appointed the country’s first all-female White House communications team.
He also appointed Jen Psaki, who earlier served as the spokesperson in Barack Obama administration, as the White House Press Secretary. Six other women who had held important positions, were appointed in the official Press Team.

Notes:
Avian Influenza, commonly called as the Bird flu, has been detected in a fourth region in Japan. This can be the country’s worst outbreak in over 4 years.
Avian influenza was discovered at a poultry farm in Hyuga city in Honshu island in southwestern Japan. However, the country announced that there is no possibility that humans will contract bird flu from eating poultry or eggs. It has also decided to cull over 1.8 million chickens.

Notes:
Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) has recently launched the nation’s first 100 Octane petrol. Union Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan launched the petrol.
The 100-octane petrol also called as XP100 premium petrol will be initially available at select outlet of IOC in 10 cities. The fuel is manufactured at IOC’s Mathura refinery in Uttar Pradesh. Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) had earlier launched Octane 99. Higher the octane number of a fuel, higher will be its compression and performance.

Notes:
The Municipal Bonds issued by Lucknow Municipal Corporation has been listed in the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE).
The bonds amount to Rs.200 crore and offer 8.5 per cent interest per annum with a tenure of 10 years. Lucknow joins the 8 other smart cities whose Municipal Bonds have been listed in stock exchanges.

Notes:
India and the United States attended the inaugural meeting of the Counter-narcotics Working Group (CNWG), in virtual mode.
Indian delegation was represented by the Deputy Director General of Narcotics Control Board, Ministry of Home Affairs. The two countries also agreed to improve their data sharing operations to fight the production, distribution, and export/import of drugs and related chemicals.

Notes:
The Supreme court on Thursday upheld that the Goods and Service Tax (GST) shall be imposed on the sale of lotteries, betting and gambling.
The Bench also highlighted that the GST Act, 2017 defines the goods to include ‘actionable claims’ and included only three categories of such claims namely lottery, betting and gambling, to levy GST. Actionable claim is the claim for a debt related to any benefit from unpossessed movable property and for which relief can be claimed in civil court.

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:
The United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) is one of the commissions of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), headquartered at Vienna, Austria.
Recently, during a reconvened session of CND, 53 member states voted for removing Cannabis from Schedule IV of the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, where it was listed with deadly and addictive drugs. 27 members including India, voted for removing Cannabis from the convention.

Notes:
Parkash Singh Badal, who is the former Chief Minister of Punjab and a leader of Shiromani Akali Dal party has returned Padma Vibhushan award back to the Government.
He has returned the award to show his protest against Agriculture reforms brought by the Centre. He was honoured with the prestigious award in the year 2015.

Notes:
India’s national think-tank – NITI Aayog has released a draft paper titled “Guiding principles for the uniform national-level regulation of online fantasy sports platforms in India”.
As per the released report, online sports fantasy sector in India has a huge FDI potential of Rs.10,000 crore in the upcoming years and can generate 1.5 billion transactions by 2023.