Current Affairs Quiz - December, 2020

Notes:
Researchers have discovered an ancient altar in Israel. It has been created to honouring the Greek god Pan who is the deity of flocks and shepherds.
The altar was lying on ground while excavating a Church. The altar dated back to 2nd – 3rd century AD, but has been placed in a Church that was built in the 5th century.

Notes:
India and Qatar have announced to set up a Task Force on Energy. This move aims to promote investments of Qatar in the Energy sector of India.
Earlier, Prime Minster of India has a discussion with the Qatar’s counterpart regarding FDIs in India. Both the countries have agreed to move beyond a buyer-seller relation to investment partnership.

Notes:
Every year December 12th is observed as the International Day of Neutrality by the United Nations. Neutrality is defined as abstention of a state from all participation in a war and maintaining impartiality.
A resolution in this regard was adopted by the United Nations in the year 2017, which was introduced by Turkmenistan.

Notes:
The Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami has recently launched a project to set up 2,000 mini-clinics across the state.
They will be known as ‘Amma Mini Clinics’, after the former late Chief Minister J Jeyalalitha. The clinics aim to provide essential healthcare services to the poor and downtrodden. Minor ailments will be treated and this step will reduce the burden of Government hospitals.

Notes:
To commemorate the 125th birth anniversary of Netaji Subhas Chandra in the year 2022, the Union Culture Ministry has proposed for construction of a museum in Kolkata.
An exhibition at the Victoria Memorial and few cultural performances are also proposed regarding the same. Subhas Chandra Bose was born on 23 January 1897, in Cuttack of Odisha.

Notes:
The Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS) is a pan-India database of crimes and criminals that is implemented by the National Crime Records Bureau, under the National e-Governance Plan of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).
This system is presently being used by 95 per cent of police stations in India. It has been reported that more than 93% of the police stations in the country are filing FIRs using this system.

Notes:
The Government of Pakistan has approved a legislation that permits chemical castration of rapists. This new legislation is applicable to repeat as well as first-time offenders.
This provision has been added to the Anti-Rape Ordinance 2020. As per the ordinance, it is the discretion of the trial judge to order chemical castration.

Notes:
The World Bank has recently released the corrected Doing Business rankings after review of data irregularities.
The World Bank corrected the rankings of China, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Azerbaijan. China’s rank in 2018 would have been 85, a drop of 7 places. India holds the same place of 63 in the Doing Business 2020 report.

Notes:
The Kochi headquartered Marine Products Export Development Authority (MPEDA) has recently launched a multilingual call centre for aqua farmers.
This call center is established at Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh. This is expected to the address the technical difficulties of aqua farmers and also impart knowledge about best aqua culture practices.

Notes:
The Reserve Bank of India has recently announced opening of Second Cohort under the Regulatory Sandbox (RS) with ‘Cross Border Payments,’ as its theme.
The Test Phase under the First Cohort on “Retail Payment” has already commenced. RBI has also stated that “MSME Lending” would be the theme for the Third Cohort. A regulatory sandbox (RS) refers to live testing of products or services in a test regulatory environment.