Current Affairs Quiz - January, 2021

Notes:
The Ministry of Electronics and IT (Meity) is to select an agency that will do an impact assessment of the UMANG application.
UMANG (Unified Mobile Application for New-age Governance) app was launched in 2017. It aimed to provide over 2000 government services on a single platform. The Government wants to analyse why some citizens are not using the application.

Notes:
The Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) has announced that subscribers can now use online mode also to exit from the National Pension System (NPS).
The National Pension System (NPS) was implemented with effect from the 1st January, 2004. It was extended to all citizens of the country from 2009 on a voluntary basis. PFRDA regulates the National pension system (NPS) as well as the pension sector.

Notes:
Private sector bank of India, IDBI Bank has completed the sale of 23 per cent stake in IDBI Federal Life Insurance Company Ltd (IFLI) to Ageas Insurance International.
With the deal amounting Rs 507 crore, Ageas will hold 49 per cent stake in the insurance company, while IDBI will hold 21 per cent. The company is now rebranded as Ageas Federal Life Insurance Company.

Notes:
Soma Mondal has recently taken charge as the new Chairman of Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL). Prior to this, she was the Director (Commercial) of the Public Sector enterprise. She replaces the incumbent Chairman Anil Kumar Chaudhary
Soma Mandal also had served as the Director (Commercial) at another CPSE, the National Aluminium Company Limited (NALCO), before her venture in SAIL.

Notes:
The US Congress has recently passed the “Malala Yousafzai Scholarship Bill”.
The bill makes it mandatory for U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to award 50% of scholarships to Pakistani Women under a Pakistan-based higher education scholarship programme. The scholarships are to be awarded from 2020 to 2022.

Notes:
Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the ‘National Atomic Timescale’, during the inauguration of the National Metrology Conclave.
With this move, the Indian Standard Time is aligned with the International Standard Time, only by less than 3 nano seconds. The Prime Minister also laid the foundation stone of the ‘National Environmental Standards Laboratory’.

Notes:
The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research-National Physical Laboratory (CSIR-NPL) has adopted an international practice for production of Indian Certified Reference Material (CRMs).
The CRM, which is branded as ‘Bhartiya Nirdeshak Dravya’, supports the testing and calibration of laboratories, for assuring quality at par with international standards.

Notes:
The Government of India has launched a new initiative called the ‘Toycathon’, to promote indigenous toy industry and reduce imports.
Six Ministries, including Education, Women & child development, Textile, Commerce and industries, MSME, I&B and AICTE are collaborating for this initiative. Students, Teachers, Design experts and start-ups will work together to develop indigenous toys and games.

Notes:
As per the World Health Organisation’s Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE), the two doses of the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine should be administered within a period of 21 to 28 days.
However, the United Kingdom is said to have extended the gap between the first and second dose of Pfizer’s vaccine by more than the prescribed interval.

Notes:
An international team of researchers led by the University of Oxford has developed a new method to survey the African Elephants.
In the paper published in a leading academic journal, the survey uses satellite imagery and artificial intelligence (AI). A satellite captures over 5,000 square kilometres of imagery, from space, which can eliminate double counting.