Current Affairs Quiz - January, 2021

Notes:
The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) is set to raise Rs 1 lakh crore through asset monetisation.
As per the Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari, NHAI would monetise highways under the toll-operate-transfer (TOT) mode in the next five years, for the process.

Notes:
Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal inagurated 25 pink buses for free and dedicated service to women and senior citizens.
Named as the ‘Bhraman Sarathi’ scheme, this free transport service has been introduced by the Assam State Transport Corporation (ASTC), for the first time in Guwahati.

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 market capitalisation of Tata Consultancy Services has recently touched Rs 12 lakh crore, after the company poster its strongest growth in third-quarter.
The profits of the company increased by 7.1 per cent on a year-on-year basis. Reliance Industries (RIL) became the first Indian company to achieve this feat of Rs 12 lakh crore m-cap, in July 2020.

Notes:
Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), Ministry of Commerce and Industry, is to organise ‘Prarambh’ – Startup India International Summit, on 15 and 16 January 2021 in a virtual format.
The summit is expected to bring together top policy makers, academia, industry, start-ups and innovators from around the world.

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:
After a six-year study conducted by ‘The Nature and Butterfly Society (TNBS)’, the Siruvani hills in the state of Tamil Nadu has been identified as a butterfly super-hotspot.
240 out of the total 325 species found in Tamil Nadu, are from the hills between 2015 and 2020. As per TNBS, if 25% of the state checklist species are found in a single area, it can be identified as a hotspot. Here around 74 per cent of the total species is found in the hills, from six families.

Notes:
Atal Innovation Mission of NITI Aayog and Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) jointly announced that ISRO will adopt 100 Atal Tinkering Labs across the country.
This step aims to provide mentorship, promote education in the field of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) and Space Education among the young students of the country.

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:
The Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) of the Union Agriculture Ministry has recently completed 5 years since its launch.
It is a crop insurance scheme that was launched on January 13, 2016. The Ministry has stated that claims worth Rs.90,000 crore have so far been disbursed to farmers since the launch.