Current Affairs Quiz - December, 2021

Notes:
Union Ministry of Education is all set to launch Bhasha Sangam mobile application. The app aims to introduce users with common daily conversations in scheduled Indian languages.
The app has 100+ sentences, designed on different themes that allow people to learn basic sentences in 22 Indian languages, attend self-test and generate online certificates. It also enables people to learn different languages of different states of India.

Notes:
UPI is the single-largest retail payment system in the country, with 14 crore transactions per day in October 2021 and 50% transactions were below Rs 200.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has recently proposed to increase the transaction limit for payments made through Unified Payments Interface (UPI) for the Retail Direct Scheme and initial public offering (IPO) applications to Rs 5 lakh from Rs 2 lakh. RBI also proposes td launch UPI-based payment products for feature phone users.

Notes:
Lok Sabha has passed the Central Vigilance Commission (Amendment) Bill, 2021 and the Delhi Special Police Establishment (Amendment) Bill, 2021 for consideration and passage.
These Bills intend to provide enabling power to the government to extend tenure of the Chiefs of Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) up to five years. At present, both the officers are given a term of two years.

Notes:
Kerala recently reported bird flu cases in the Alappuzha district and a total of 12,000 ducks were culled in Thakazhi gram panchayat, which has been declared as a containment zone.
More samples from different areas have also been sent to ICAR-National Institute of High Security Animal Diseases, Bhopal for testing and the identification of bird flu cases.

Notes:
Google released its ‘Year in Search 2021′ list, which, like displays what was searched the most on its search engine around the world.
Olympic gold medallist Neeraj Chopra became the most searched-for personality in India in 2021. Among the most searched-for subjects on Google in India in 2021, ICC T20 World Cup and Indian Premier League, CoWin, Euro Cup, and Tokyo Olympics occupied the first five spots.

Notes:
NITI Aayog announced that it is set to establish will be establishing 1,000 Atal Tinkering Laboratories in Jammu and Kashmir.
Out of them, as many as 187 will be established by the end of this financial year.The ATL is an initiative of NITI Aayog to boost the cognitive development in children by creating avenues for experimenting and understanding of scientific ideas.

Notes:
The USA recently announced a new bill named ‘Platform Accountability and Transparency Act (PATA)’.
The bill establishes new rules which could compel social media platforms to share data with “Qualified researchers”. They are defined as university-affiliated researchers pursuing projects that have been approved by the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Notes:
Mathematician Neena Gupta from Kolkata’s Indian Statistical Institute has been awarded the ‘2021 DST-ICTP-IMU Ramanujan Prize for Young Mathematicians from developing countries.
She became the third woman to receive the award ever it was introduced in 2005. She was honoured for her contribution in affine algebraic geometry and commutative algebra. The Ramanujan Prize is given to an eminent Mathematician less than the age of 45.

Notes:
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has made Legal Entity Identifier (LEI) mandatory for cross-border transactions for capital or current account transactions of Rs 50 crore and above, from October 1 next year.
LEI is a 20-digit number used to identify parties to financial transactions worldwide to improve the accuracy of financial data systems. Banks should obtain LEI numbers from local companies undertaking capital or current account transactions of Rs 50 crore and above, for each transaction.

Notes:
Global Methane Initiative (GMI) is a voluntary Government and an informal international partnership having members from 45 countries including the US and Canada. It was created in 2004 and India is one of the members since its inception
A Steering Leadership meeting of Global Methane Initiative (GMI) has been held virtually in which India’s representative from the Ministry of Coal was the Vice Chairman. The Chairperson of the Steering Leadership is from Canada.