Current Affairs Quiz - February, 2021

Notes:
Ethiopian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Demeke Mekonnen Hassen arrived in New Delhi.
He inaugurated the new Chancery and Residence at Ethiopian Embassy in New Delhi along with External Affairs Minister of India Dr. S. Jaishankar. They also discussed on various bilateral and global issues of mutual interest.

Notes:
Pradhan Mantri Kisan Sampada Yojana (PMKSY) is a flagship scheme being implemented by the Ministry of Food Processing Industries.
The Union Food Processing Industries Ministry cleared 20 projects worth Rs 363.4 crore for two schemes under Pradhan Mantri Kisan Sampada Yojana (PMKSY). The government will provide a grant-in-aid of Rs 102.91 crore for these projects.

Notes:
According to the Institute of International Finance, the total amount of global debt stood at USD 281 trillion at the end of 2020.
It also revealed that the countries, companies and households raised USD24 trillion last year to tackle the economic crisis created due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The total debt was over 355 per cent of global GDP.

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.

Notes:
The International Solar Alliance (ISA) has proposed to launch World Solar Bank (WSB).
This is proposed to be launched at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow that is scheduled to be held in November 2021. The ISA is an intergovernmental treaty-based organization headquartered in India.

Notes:
The Commonwealth High Level Law Ministers Meeting on the Legal aspects of COVID-19 was chaired by the Law Minister of Sri Lanka. It was organised in virtual mode by Commonwealth Secretariat.
Anoop Kumar Mendiratta, Secretary, Department of Legal Affairs, Ministry of Law & Justice represented India on behalf of Union Minister for Law & Justice Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad. He said that India used video-conferencing to dispose the cases in a timely fashion during the pandemic.

Notes:
India’s leading investment professional, Usha Rao-Monari, has been appointed by the UN chief Antonio Guterres as Under-Secretary-General and Associate Administrator of the UNDP.
She has served in several senior positions in the area of infrastructure investment, including Director of the Sustainable Business Advisory Group at the International Finance Corporation, part of the World Bank Group.

Notes:
Ministry of External Affairs has recently inaugurated the “DigiLocker” platform for the “Passport Seva Programme” of the Ministry.
Under the Passport Seva Programme V2.0, the citizens can submit the documents required for passport services in a paperless mode. DigiLocker is an initiative of the Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY). The issued documents in the system are deemed to be at par with original physical documents.

Notes:
In a land mark move, the state government of Uttarakhand has passed an ordinance, which gives co-ownership rights to women in their husband’s ancestral property. This ordinance amends the Uttarakhand Zamindari abolition and land reforms act.
This ordinance has been moved in view of large-scale migration of male members of the state to other regions of the country.

Notes:
The country’s largest lender – The State Bank of India has recently launched a dedicated app named YONO MERCHANT to provide low-cost digital payments infrastructure to merchants. The app has been launched by the Bank’s subsidiary SBI Payments.
This is a part of SBI’s plan to employ low-cost digital payments infrastructure to 20 million merchants in the country for next 2 year.