Current Affairs Quiz - December, 2022

Notes:
Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid respects to Zorawar Singh and Fateh Singh, the sons of Tenth Sikh Guru Guru Gobind Singh’s sons who laid down their lives while defending their faith.
December 26 is observed as Veer Bal Diwas in Idia. Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee as well as Akal Takht, the highest temporal body of the Sikhs, opposed the government’s initiative.

Notes:
Capital markets regulator SEBI said that it has initiated a detailed study of fees and expenses charged by mutual funds.
The study would seek to encourage new participants, encourage adoption of technology, discourage cross subsidisation across schemes, close arbitrage opportunities, and curbing malpractices if any in the practice.

Notes:
Taliban has banned women from working for domestic and foreign non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Afghanistan.
This order by has been condemned by the United Nations, which said the move violated fundamental rights.  The order of Taliban comes just days after female students were banned from universities.

Notes:
The Union government and the Manipur government have signed a cessation of operations agreement with the Zeliangrong United Front (ZUF).
ZUF is a Manipur-based Naga armed group, which has been demanding a separate State for the Zeliangrong Naga tribe. The agreement seeks rehabilitation and re-settlement of the armed cadres.

Notes:
National Mobile Monitoring Software (NMMS) App was launched by the Minister of Rural Development in 2021.
Digitally capturing the attendance of workers employed under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGREGS) has been made universal from January 1, 2023.  The attendance is captured through National Mobile Monitoring System (NMMS) mobile application.

Notes:
The Union Ministry of Road, Transport and Highways has published its annual report ‘Road accidents in India 2021’.
This report is based on the information received from police departments of States/Union Territories collected on calendar year basis in standardized formats. The formats are provided by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP). As per the report, there were 4,12,432 incidences of road accidents during 2021 which claimed 1, 53,972 lives.

Notes:
The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has appointed senior bureaucrat Santosh Kumar Yadav as Chairman.
Santosh Kumar Yadav, a 1995-batch IAS officer is currently additional secretary in the Department of School Education and Literacy, Ministry of Education.

Notes:
Former Central Railway General Manager Anil Kumar Lahoti has been appointed as the Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Railway Board.
He will be taking over the chairmanship from Vinay Kumar Tripathi on January 1. The Railway board has been transitioning to a new integrated service named Indian Railway Management Service.

Notes:
The Competition Commission of India (CCI) issued demand notices to Google for its failure to pay the penalties within the stipulated time.
CCI earlier imposed penalties on the internet major for anti-competitive practices.  Google has filed appeals before the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) against the Competition Commission of India’s (CCI) two orders in October.

Notes:
The Health Ministry of Uzbekistan said 18 children, with acute respiratory disease, have died from taking excessive doses of a cough syrup, Doc-1 Max.
It has been manufactured by Marion Biotech a Noida-based Indian firm. The children consumed the cough syrup, which contained ethylene glycol, a substance that ought not to be present in cough syrup. Parliamentary panel in The Gambia earlier found unacceptable levels of diethylene glycol and ethylene glycol in cough syrups made by Haryana-based Maiden Pharma.