Current Affairs Quiz - December, 2022

Notes:
The International Finance Corporation (IFC) has extended a USD 400-million loan to mortgage major HDFC for financing green affordable housing units.
The loan will help close the urban housing gap and improve access to climate-smart affordable homes by boosting green housing, creating jobs and ensuring long-term business growth.

Notes:
Union Cabinet decided to provide free food-grains to all 81 crore beneficiaries covered under the National Food Security Act (NFSA) till December 2023.
The beneficiary families which used to pay ₹1 for coarse cereals, ₹2 for wheat and ₹3 for rice per kg will now get 35kg of food-grains free for the next one year and others will get 5kg for free in a month till December 2023. The Centre has estimated an additional amount of ₹2 lakh crore for the scheme.

Notes:
The minimum support prices are announced by the Government of India at the beginning of the sowing season for 22 crops on the basis of the recommendations of the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP).
The Union Cabinet approved minimum support prices (MSPs) for copra for 2023 season, based on recommendations of CACP and prices and views of major coconut-growing states. MSP is fixed at Rs 10,860 per quintal for milling copra and at Rs 11,750 per quintal for ball copra.

Notes:
As many as 38 people recently died in incidents related to powerful Arctic winter storm. The vast storm extends more than 3,200km from Texas to Quebec.
Over 200 million people across the country were left without power and thousands of flights were cancelled. More than eight million people remained under blizzard warnings. As per the US National Weather Service, its recent depicts one of the greatest extents of winter weather advisories ever.

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 Union Mines Ministry approved the purchase of two new surveyor ships, to replace RV Samudra Shaudhikama and RV Samudra Kaustabh.
The new ships would conduct marine surveys for the Geological Survey of India (GSI). The RV Samudra Shaudhikama and RV Samudra Kaustabh were built in the Netherlands and commissioned in 1984.

Notes:
The Indian Institute of Science (IISc) has been named as the secretariat for Science 20 (S20), one of the G20’s groupings.
The G20 is being presided over by India and the theme of the S20 in 2023 is ‘Disruptive Science for Innovative and Sustainable Development’.  Discussions will take place throughout the year in various regions of India.

Notes:
The Maharashtra Assembly unanimously passed the Maharashtra Lokayukta Act, 2022, which will give additional powers to the Lokayukta to direct state agencies to probe public servants, including the chief minister and state ministers.
The government has accepted all the recommendations made by the committee led by social activist Anna Hazare. The Act will now be presented in the Legislative Council for approval.

Notes:
The Election Commission of India has developed a prototype of a remote electronic voting machine (RVM) for domestic migrant voters.
It has invited political parties for a demonstration. If implemented, migrant voters do not need to travel to their home district to exercise their franchise and this will be a major move to increase voter participation.

Notes:
Brazil football legend Pele recently passed away due to cancer at the age of 82. His funeral is set to be held at the stadium where Brazilian soccer legend Pele played some of his best matches.
The legendary player led Brazil to World Cup victory in 1958, 1962 and 1970. He remains one of the team’s all-time leading scorers with 77 goals. Brazil’s Neymar tied Pele’s record during this year’s World Cup in Qatar.