Current Affairs Quiz - December, 2021

Notes:
Indian industrialist and philanthropist Shri. Ratan Tata, has been chosen for “Assam Baibhav” – Assam’s highest civilian award, for his exceptional contribution towards cancer care in the state.
He was instrumental in constructing 16 hospitals under the Assam Cancer Care Foundation, of which 10
hospitals will be completed by this year and operationalised in April 2022.

Notes:
India has set a $400 billion target for merchandise exports for 2021-22, of which $262 billion has already been achieved in the April-November 2021-22 period.
A record export target of $43 billion has been set for agricultural products in 2021-22. During the Agri-Export Conference held at Uttar Pradesh, the Minister of State of Commerce and Industry announced that the target would be achieved in the current fiscal.

Notes:
NASA astronomers have recently developed a next-generation impact monitoring algorithm called Sentry-II.
It aims to evaluate near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) impact probabilities. The new system improves the capabilities of NASA JPL’s ‘Center for Near Earth Object Studies’ to assess the impact risk of asteroids that can come close to our planet.

Notes:
NITI Aayog released a comprehensive knowledge repository on solid waste management. NITI Aayog Vice Chairman Rajiv Kumar released the report, titled Waste-Wise Cities: Best Practices in Municipal Solid Waste Management.
The report was launched along with Centre for Science and Environment (CSE). The report documents best practices from 28 cities in 15 states of India.

Notes:
The Indian Army is organising a multi-nation disaster management exercise been called PANEX 21. The exercise will involve BIMSTEC countries namely Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand and India.
The Exercise PANEX 21 is planned to be conducted at Pune from December 20-22, with a special focus on relief in the background of Covid-19 pandemic.

Notes:
Ministry of Civil Aviation launched the ‘Air Suvidha’ portal in August 2020 for seamless air travel during Covid pandemic.
Recently, in the wake of the Omicron threat, Ministry of Civil Aviation and Ministry of Health & Family Welfare mandated contactless self-declaration at Air Suvidha portal. It aims to provide hassle-free air travel to all international passengers arriving in India.

Notes:
Bangalore-based Byju’s is an Indian multinational educational technology (ed-tech) company. It is the world’s most valuable ed-tech company with the m-cap of $18 billion.
Byju’s has acquired Austria-headquartered GeoGebra and the value of the transaction is about $100 million. GeoGebra is an interactive mathematics learning tool. This is also the ninth major acquisition of Byju’s.

Notes:
Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani and wife Nita Ambani topped the annual Power Couple ranking done by the Indian Institute of Human Brands (IIHB).
The survey was conducted among over 1000 respondents across India aged 25-40 years. The couple is followed by Deepika Padukone and Ranveer Singh at the second place and Cricket captain Virat Kohli and his actress wife Anushka Sharma at third place.

Notes:
As per the ‘Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition 2021’, prevalence of hunger in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) reached 9.1 per cent in 2020.
This is the highest prevalence that has been in the last 15 years, according to a new report jointly published by United Nations bodies including FAO, IFAD, WFP. The number of people living with hunger reached a total of 59.7 million people.

Notes:
The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) has granted Observer Status to International Solar Alliance (ISA).
The International Solar Alliance is an alliance of 124 countries initiated by India, headquartered at Gurugram. The fourth general assembly of the International Solar Alliance (ISA), was held earlier in October.