Current Affairs Quiz - February, 2021

Notes:
Theodore Baskaran, a leading Writer, historian, naturalist, and activist has been awarded with the Sanctuary Nature Foundation’s “Sanctuary Lifetime Service Award 2020”.
This award has been conferred upon him for his dedicated works in wildlife conservation and for his writings in Tamil – English regarding the same.

Notes:
S. Chinny Krishna, the co-founder of Blue Cross of India, has been conferred with the prestigious ‘Prani Mitra’ award for 2021 by the Animal Welfare Board of India.
Union Minister for Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying Giriraj Singh presented the award to Mr. Krishna in New Delhi, for his lifetime service to animals. It is the country’s highest award for animal welfare.

Notes:
Social Justice and Empowerment Minister Thaawarchand Gehlot released the third edition of the Indian Sign Language (ISL) Dictionary.
This edition has 10,000 terms of daily use and technical terms including academic, legal, medical terms. The second edition of the dictionary released in 2019 had 6,000 terms and the first edition released in 2018 had 3,000 terms.

Notes:
Global E-commerce giant Amazon has announced that it is set to begin manufacturing devices in India. This is the first Amazon manufacturing line in India.
Amazon will begin manufacturing with Cloud Network Technology, a subsidiary of Foxconn, in Chennai. Beginning later this year, the programme aims to manufacture several lakhs of Fire TV Stick devices every year, generating additional jobs in the country.

Notes:
The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved a set of amendments to the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015.
This was the proposal of the Ministry of Women and Child Development. The amendments include empowering the District Magistrates (DM) and the additional DMs to monitor the functioning of agencies, which are implementing the act.

Notes:
The Union Cabinet has approved signing of the Comprehensive Economic Cooperation and Partnership Agreement (CECPA) between India and Mauritius.
This is the first trade Agreement to be signed by India with any country in Africa. The agreement aims to liberalise norms covering Rules of Origin, Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT), Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) measures, Dispute Settlement, Telecom, Financial services and Customs Procedures among others.

Notes:
India is set to host a virtual South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) meet to discuss on management and response of Covid-19 pandemic.
This health secretary-level meet virtually with other SAARC countries, will be conducted as a virtual workshop to exchange best practices amid the pandemic. In 2014, Nepal hosted a SAARC leaders’ summit, which was the most recent meeting of the countries.

Notes:
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to launch the Mahabahu-Brahmaputra initiative in the state of Assam. It aims to improve connectivity in the eastern states.
Ro-Pax vessel operations would be inaugurated between Neamati-Majuli Island, North Guwahati-South Guwahati and Dhubri-Hatsingimari. The Prime Minister would also launch the foundation stone of two bridges, an Inland Water Transport Terminal at Jogighopa and various tourist jetties on Brahmaputra.

Notes:
While addressing a high-level meeting of the UN Security Council, United Nations chief Antonio Guterres said 130 countries have not received a single dose of vaccine.
As only 10 countries have administered 75 per cent of all vaccinations, the UN slammed the uneven and unequitable distribution of coronavirus vaccines. He also called for a global effort to get all people vaccinated as soon as possible.

Notes:
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and the Australian Space Agency signed an amendment to the Memorandum of Understanding, for space cooperation with Australia.
The Comprehensive Strategic Partnership between the two countries was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison last year.