Current Affairs Quiz - December, 2021

Notes:
Chief Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghose inaugurated the digital platform named LokpalOnline, which enables people to file corruption complaints with the Lokpal.
At present, complaints are being sent by post, e-mail or hand-delivered. The new portal can be accessed by the citizens of the country and complaints can be filed from anywhere, anytime at lokpalonline.gov.in. In 2019, Justice Ghose was appointed as the country’s first Lokpal.

Notes:
Embassy of India in Madagascar organized the monthly literary program LaLitTana. It was held in a virtual platform for the first time due to the Omicron spread.
The event witnessed Malagasy and Indian poets reading their translations of poems to each other. The event was attended by several Indian poets. The Indian ambassador to Madagascar & Comoros Abhay Kumar highlighted that the Malagasy language has about 300 Sanskrit words.

Notes:
Global Technology Summit was recently organised by the Union External affairs Ministry and Carnegie India.
Union External Affairs Minister S Jai Shankar addressed the Summit. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson delivered a special message at the summit. They also highlighted that technology is a key part of the India-UK Roadmap for 2030.

Notes:
UN recognised the 38 degrees Celsius measured in Siberian region of Russia, as the new record high for the Arctic
The heat equivalent to 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit was seen on June 20, 2020 in the Russian town of Verkhoyansk. It marked the highest temperature ever recorded above the Arctic Circle, as per the World Meteorological Organization.

Notes:
Four-time Olympic medalist Simone Biles was named Time’s 2021 Athlete of the Year, the Time magazine announced.
She had withdrawn from four event finals at the Tokyo Olympics, stating reasons of her mental health. However, the 24-year-old managed to earn all-around silver and a bronze in balance beam at the Tokyo Olympics.

Notes:
The Asian Development Bank trimmed its 2021 growth forecast for India to 9.7% from the earlier estimate of 10.0% made in September. However it left the 2022 growth forecast unchanged at 7.5%.
The growth forecasts for developing Asia for this year and next were also slashed to 7.0% and 5.3%, in order to reflect risks and uncertainty brought by the new Omicron coronavirus variant.

Notes:
The Delhi government launched the “Dilli Ki Yogshala” programme, under which it will offer free yoga classes to people within their housing societies, colony parks or community centres.
Under the scheme, 400 certified yoga instructors from Delhi Pharmaceutical Sciences and Research University (DPSRU) and Delhi TTE Team will teach yoga lessons to people at their doorsteps in the city.

Notes:
Malini Parthasarathy, the chairperson of The Hindu Group Publishing, is among four veteran journalists who are named by US-based Columbia Journalism School as the 2022 alumni award winners.
The other winners include Eric Marcus, founder and host of “Making Gay History” podcast, Stuart Schear, American Jewish World Service, and Thomas Maier, investigative journalist. Wendy Lu (HuffPost) and Mukhtar Ibrahim (Sahan Journal), jointly bagged the First Decade Award.

Notes:
The World Health Organization recently released the “Tracking Universal Coverage – 2021 Global Monitoring Report”.
On the occasion of Universal Health Coverage day, World Bank also released the “Global Monitoring Report on Financial Protection in Health 2021”. The report showed that the COVID-19 pandemic is likely to halt two decades of global progress towards Universal Health Coverage.

Notes:
Indian government approved a Rs 76,000-crore scheme to boost semiconductor and display manufacturing in the country.
Under Design Linked Incentive (DLI) scheme, the Government will support 100 domestic companies of semiconductor design for Integrated Circuits (ICs), Chipsets, System on Chips (SoCs), Systems & IP Cores and semiconductor linked design. The scheme will offer incentive of eligible expenditure and product deployment linked incentive.