Current Affairs Quiz - December, 2021

Notes:
R Ashwin recently became the India’s third-highest wicket-taker in Test cricket.
The 35-year-old clinched his 418th wicket in the first Test against New Zealand, surpassing another Indian off-spinner Harbhajan Singh. Only Anil Kumble (619) and Kapil Dev (434) have more wickets than Ashwin, as of now.

Notes:
India’s 1st Certified Organic Fruit – Arunachal Pradesh Kiwis have been launched by the Union Minister Kiren Rijiju.
Arunachal Pradesh has become the first Indian state to obtain organic certification for Kiwi under the scheme – Mission Organic Value Chain Development for North East Region.

Notes:
Indian professional squash player Saurav Ghosal has become the first Indian player to claim the Malaysian open. At the final event, Saurav Ghosal clinched the title by defeating former world No.4 Miguel Rodriguez of Colombia.
On many occasions, the two players have played together and at one point were even trained by the same coach David Palmer.

Notes:
Madhya Pradesh launched the ‘Kranti Surya Gaurav Kalash Yatra’ from the birthplace of freedom fighter Jannayak Tantya Mama, Barod Ahir village.
Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has called upon the citizens to participate in this yatra. The state has also announced a programme to be organised on death Anniversary of Jannayak Tantya Mama at Indore on December 4.

Notes:
Ministry of MSME implements the Zero Defect, Zero Effect (ZED) scheme. It is an MSME certification scheme launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2016 to encourage the manufacturing of goods by MSMEs without any defects and without any effects on the environment.
According to the data shared by MSME Minister Narayan Rane in Rajya Sabha, the scheme has recorded around 25,000 MSME registrations. The scheme was upscaled in FY19 to benefit more MSMEs.

Notes:
The Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment announced the formation of a three-member committee to review the criteria for Economically Weaker Section (EWS) reservations.
The committee will comprise Former Finance Secretary Ajay Bhushan Pandey, Member Secretary ICSSR Prof VK Malhotra and Principal Economic Advisor to the Indian government Sanjeev Sanyal. It will examine the approaches followed so far for identifying the economically weaker sections and send its recommendations to the Centre in the next three weeks.

Notes:
The National Statistical Office (NSO), Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation released the estimates of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for the second quarter (July-September) of 2021-22 (Q2 2021-22).
GDP at Constant Prices in Q2 2021-22 is estimated at ₹35.73 lakh crore, as against ₹32.97 lakh crore in Q2 2020-21, with a growth of 8.4 percent as compared to 7.4 percent contraction in Q2 2020-21.

Notes:
The NITI Aayog released a report titled “Designing the future of dispute Resolution: the ODR Policy Plan for India”.
It proposed measures at three levels to address the challenges in adopting ODR. The report recommends increasing digital infrastructure, building capacity, regulatory framework, including permission for online notarisation, etc.

Notes:
After a Tamilnadu-based RTI activist filed an RTI query over the deaths of wild elephants before the Ministry of Environment and Forests’ ‘Project elephant’ division, it was revealed that as many as 1160 wild elephants have been killed in the last 10 years.
The elephants were killed due to various reasons such as being hit by trains, electrocution and poaching, across the country in the last decade till December 2020.

Notes:
The Education Ministry has issued PRAGYATA Guidelines on Digital Education to all State governments as well as Schools directly under Central Government.
The guidelines include advices on various modes of digital education including online mode,  partially online mode and offline mode, which utilizes television and radio as a major medium of instruction of education.