Current Affairs Quiz - January, 2021

Notes:
A new species of fruit fly which was discovered from Coimbatore district, Tamil Nadu has been named after Siruvani.
Siruvani is considered as an ecological hotspot in the Western Ghats. The fruit fly ‘Euphranta siruvani’, which is the new addition to the list of 104 known species across the world and 14 species across India. The new fruit fly has a unique ‘V’ shaped black band on the wing.

Notes:
The ‘Digital Evolution Scorecard’ is developed by Fletcher School, Tufts University in partnership with Mastercard.
In the recently released third edition of the index, India is ranked fourth among the ‘Break Out Economies’, which means the countries that are digitalising very fast. China leads the index with high demand and innovation.

Notes:
Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change Prakash Javadekar released Management Effectiveness Evaluation (MEE) of 146 National Park and Wildlife Sanctuaries as well as that of the zoos in the Country.
At present, India has 903 Protected Areas, which covers about 5% of the total geographic area of the country. 10 best National Parks, 5 coastal and Marine parks and top five Zoos in the country will be ranked and awarded every year.

Notes:
As per the ‘2020 Hurun Global 500’ list, Apple is the world’s most valuable company with a value of USD 2.1 trillion followed by Microsoft and Amazon with USD 1.6 trillion each.
The 2020 Hurun Global 500 is a list of 500 most valuable non-state-controlled companies in the world. 11 Indian firms are a part of the list, which is led by Reliance Industries worth USD 169 billion.

Notes:
The Indian Army has signed a contract with ideaForge to procure the high-altitude version of SWITCH unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).
The UAVs, also called as Drones are expected to be delivered to the Indian Army within a year, at a cost of approximately USD 20 million. ideaForge is a Mumbai-based private company, which has been working on Research and Product Development.

Notes:
Technology major Google has reviewed hundreds of personal loan apps in India that were flagged by users and government agencies.
It has also removed those apps which were found to violate its user safety policies. Earlier, the RBI had warned the public not to fall prey to the unauthorised digital lending platforms and mobile apps. Google mandates the developers of financial services app to disclose all key information.

Notes:
The Mars Digger probe named the ‘Mole’ was deployed on the Mars by NASA’s InSight Lander. The probe has been recently declared dead by the Scientists, as it failed to burrow deep into the Mars.
The heat probe was developed and built by the German Aerospace Center (DLR). It has been trying since 2019, to dig deep and find the internal temperature of the Mars. The InSight lander will continue working till 2022.

Notes:
The Pakistan government has issued special permits to Dubai Ruler and six other members of the ruling family to hunt the internationally protected bird Houbara bustard.
As per media report, the permit was issued to hunt during the 2020-21 hunting season. Among the large terrestrial bird typically found in parts of Asia, the Middle East and Africa, the Asian houbara is related to great Indian bustard.

Notes:
India and Japan have recently entered into a MoU in the field of Information and Communications Technology (ICT), including 5G standardisation.
As per the terms of MoU, both the countries will enhance cooperation in 5G technologies, telecom security, submarine optical fibre cable system to islands, spectrum management, smart cities etc.

Notes:
The Government of Russia has recently announced its decision on pulling out of the Open Skies treaty.
The treaty came into effect in 2002, which permits a member country to spy on any part of the host nation, with the latter’s consent. As per the treaty, any signatory country can make aerial imaging over the host nation after giving a notice of 72 hours and sharing the exact flight path.