Current Affairs Quiz - February, 2023

Notes:
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced a new initiative for empowering the Vishwakarma community.
The PM VIKAS (Pradhan Mantri Vishwakarma Kaushal Samman) yojana will provide support by providing skills training to artisans and craftsmen people engaged in traditional and skilled professions. The special package will help integrate them with MSME value chain.

Notes:
Bengaluru -based start-up, Beta Tank Robotics, has developed a robot which can operate in oil tanks in petroleum refineries.
It was incubated at IIT Guwahati, and the project was funded by State-owned Oil India Limited. The robot does the job similar to a vacuum cleaner and thereby eliminates risks to human beings.

Notes:
Reserve Bank of India (RBI) releases the Digital Payments Index (RBI-DPI) twice a year, to measure the adoption of online transactions, digital payments across India.
As per the recent data, the digital payments registered a growth of 24.13% in a year through September 2022. RBI-DPI stood at 377.46 in September 2022 against 349.30 in March 2022 and 304.06 in September 2021.

Notes:
Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said that the US has emerged as India’s top destination for merchandise exports during April-December this fiscal at USD 59.7 billion.
The US was followed by UAE (USD 23.31 billion); Netherlands (USD 14.1 billion); China (USD 11 billion); Singapore and Bangladesh (about USD 9 billion each).

Notes:
Ricky Kej is an Indian musician and environmental activist. The Indian music composer recently won his third Grammy Award for the album ‘Divine Tides’.
He is the youngest person to win this award and only the fourth Indian to achieve this feat. He recently made another history by becoming the only living Indian to win the Grammy Award thrice.

Notes:
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the earthquake that hit Gaziantep in southern Turkey was the country’s worst disaster since 1939 Erzincan earthquake.
The 1939 Erzincan earthquake resulted in the deaths of around 33,000 individuals. It was caused by the movement of the North Anatolian Fault Zone, which resulted in a quake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale. This earthquake caused damage to the Erzincan Plain and the Kelkit River Valley.

Notes:
The eXperiential Technology Innovation Centre (XTIC) is a newly established research institute in IIT Madras.
It is India’s research and product innovation centre focusing on extended reality and haptics technology. An MoU was signed recently between ISRO and the IIT Madras to develop a training module for the Indian spaceflight programme at the XTIC. It will be developed using the augmented reality, virtual reality and mixed reality.

Notes:
The Union Budget 2023-24 has allocated Rs. 2,516 crore for the computerization of 63,000 PACS over the next 5 years.
Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (PACS) are village-level cooperative credit societies that act as the last link to the 3-tier cooperative credit structure, which is headed by the State Cooperative Bank or SCB. Credit from the SCB is transferred to the district central cooperative banks (DCCBs), which will then transfer the credit to the PACS.

Notes:
The Trade Receivable Discounting System (TReDS) is an electronic platform that facilitates the financing or discounting, trading and settling invoices of the MSMEs.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has decided to expand the scope of the TReDS to allow the use of insurance facilities. This will facilitate secondary market operations on the TReDS.

Notes:
The ‘zero-draft’ of the pandemic treaty was launched recently by the World Health Organization’s Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB).
The international treaty is expected to be presented at the World Health Assembly in 2024. The aim of the pandemic treaty is to strengthen national and international-level preparedness against future pandemics.