Current Affairs Quiz - January, 2021

Notes:
The Reserve Bank of India constituted a High-Level Committee on Deepening of Digital Payments under the Chairmanship of Nandan Nilekani in January 2019.
This committee recommended various measures to strengthen digital payment including the idea of National Common Mobility Card. Recently, the Prime Minister launched the NCMC service for the Delhi Metro’s Airport Express Line.

Notes:
The United States’ space agency National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has announced that it has given approval to two Sun exploration heliophysics missions.
Under these missions, researchers study the Sun and relate them to the events taking place in the solar system. The missions include NASA-led Electrojet Zeeman Imaging Explorer (EZIE) mission and Japan-led Extreme Ultraviolet High-Throughput Spectroscopic Telescope Epsilon Mission (EUVST) mission.

Notes:
The first three sets of a 10-metre short-span bridge, designed and developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), were inducted to the Indian Army.
The bridges are manufactured at the Larsen & Toubro facility at Talegaon in Pune. The bridges were developed by the Research and Development Establishment (Engineers), DRDO in Pune. The DRDO has also developed five metre and 15 metre types of the bridge.

Notes:
The Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi announced the annual awards for excellence in implementation of Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana – Urban (PMAY-U) Mission.
In the best performing states category, Uttar Pradesh bagged the first place, followed by Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh. In the North East region and Hilly states, Tripura bagged the first place. Vishakhapatnam was named the best performing Municipal Corporation.

Notes:
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has developed the Digital Payments Index (DPI), to record the expansion of digitisation of payments across the country.
The index has been constructed with March 2018 as the base period. As per the RBI, the DPI for March 2019 and March 2020 stand at 153.47 and 207.84 respectively. The index includes 5 parameters with the highest weightage for Payment Performance.

Notes:
The National Statistical Office under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation conducts and releases the Periodic Labour Force Survey. The first PLFS was released in 2019. Since January 2025, PLFS provides monthly estimates for key labour indicators nationwide. Quarterly survey estimates now cover rural and urban areas. PLFS is India’s primary source of labour market statistics.

Notes:
The annual waterbird census is to be conducted in the state of Andhra Pradesh, by the state forest department.
The regions included are the Coringa Wildlife Sanctuary, areas near Godavari estuary, Kolleru Lake, Atapaka Bird Sanctuary and Krishna Wildlife Sanctuary in Krishna estuary. Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) and Wetland International will provide technical support.

Notes:
Deepor Beel is the only Ramsar site of the state of Assam. It is located in the south-western edge of Guwahati.
The site, which houses of a variety of aquatic life forms along with 219 species of birds, was designated a Ramsar site in the year 2002. The District officials has banned Community fishing at the site.

Notes:
Britain became the latest nation that has eliminated taxation on women’s sanitary products. These taxes were called “tampon tax” has been completely abolished in the country.
This decision was earlier announced in the country’s annual budget by its Treasury chief, but has been implemented only now, when Britain has left the European Union.

Notes:
Over 200 Google engineers and other employees have recently formed a Union in the United States, which is seen as a rare move in the Silicon Valley.
After the increasing demands by Google employees for policy changes on pay, harassment and ethics, the “Alphabet Workers Union” has been formed. It is affiliated with the US-based leading union, the ‘Communications Workers of America’.