Current Affairs Quiz - February, 2021

Notes:
Union Minister for Mines, Pralhad Joshi and Chief Minister of Odisha, Naveen Patnaik jointly inaugurated the production in two new iron ore mines of Odisha namely Jiling-Langlota Iron ore Block and Guali Iron ore Block.
These mines will generate approxiately Rs 5000 crores of annual revenue for Odisha and a wide variety of employment opportunities.

Notes:
Perseverance is the name of the rover sent by NASA to the Mars. The rover, which has been a nearly 300-million-mile journey since it left the Earth over 6 months ago, safely landed at the Martian surface.
The rover is set to experiment a series of activities for the first time: the search for signs of ancient life on Mars, the first helicopter fly on another planet and yhe first recordings of sound on the Mars, etc.

Notes:
The Arbor Day Foundation and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) have recognised Hyderabad as the 2020 Tree City of the World.
This is the only city in India to have earned this honour, along with 51 cities globally. Haritha Haram is the tree plantation drive of the Telangana state, which made the city to grow and maintain urban forests.

Notes:
The state Government of Maharashtra has recently approved a ‘caravan tourism’ policy. This aims to promote tourism in the state and incentivise travel operators.
The Policy promotes travel enthusiasts to visit the state’s remote areas using caravans thereby providing a different touring experience and at the same time creating more job opportunities in the state.

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.

Notes:
The Alaknanda is a Himalayan river flowing in the Indian state of Uttarakhand. It is one of the two head streams of river Ganga.
The recent landslide and glacial lake outburst in Uttarakhand caused flooding in the Alaknanda river. This led to huge volume of debris in the river that is being carried downstream. The presence of huge debris volume has changed the colour of the river.

Notes:
India has signed a USD 50 million line of credit (LoC) agreement with the Maldives to facilitate maritime capability building of the island nations.
The agreement was signed between the Government of Maldives and EXIM Bank India, during the visit of External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar to the Maldives.

Notes:
State Bank of Sikkim was established in 1968, five years before Sikkim acceded to the Indian Union. The state-owned bank provides treasury operations for the state government of Sikkim.
Recently, the Reserve Bank of India has brought the State Bank of Sikkim under its regulatory purview. Though the bank will be regulated on par with other banks, the bank’s ownership structure will not change.

Notes:
The Indian Institute of Drones has inaugurated a Centre for drone pilot training and Service and maintenance of drones in Guwahati, Assam.
The centre has been inaugurated in association with the Electronics Sector Skill Council of India. This is the 15th Centre of the Indian Institute of Drones, which is headquartered in Noida. It trains the drone pilots as per the DGCA CAR (Civil aviation requirements).

Notes:
The Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO) has successfully conducted two launches of VL- SRSAM: Vertical Launch Short Range Surface to Air Missile.
This missile has been specially designed by the DRDO for deployment in Indian Navy. This missile has been developed to combat various aerial threats at close ranges.