Current Affairs Quiz - January, 2021

Notes:
Indian Railways has introduced the technology of “Push-Pull mode” in Central Railway’s Rajdhani Express that connects New Delhi with Mumbai.
The train will be run with one engine at the front and one in the rear. This setup saves time and fuel by eliminating the need to attach and detach bankers in the ghat section.

Notes:
The Union Ministry of Road Transport & Highways (MoRTH) has stated that, a record length of 534 km of national highways has been constructed in the country, in a period of one week beginning January 8th 2021.
The Ministry also released a data which states that 8,169 km of National Highways has been constructed in the current financial year from April 2020 to 15 January 2021, at a rate of 28.16 km per day.

Notes:
The Brisbane Cricket Ground, is a major sports stadium in Queensland, Australia. The name of the stadium is received from the location of ‘Woolloongabba’ town.
Recently, the Indian Cricket team won and retained the Border-Gavaskar Trophy by winning the test series. The Australian team have not lost for the last 32 years in the Brisbane Ground. This is also the second test series in Australia, after the first series win in 2018-19.

Notes:
The first group of Indian military experts is set to attend the training to operate the S-400 air defence systems.
India and Russia signed the USD 5.4 billion deal for five S-400 systems in October 2018 and Russia is to deliver the first batch by the end of 2021. Earlier, the US had imposed sanctions on Turkey, for procuring the systems from Russia.

Notes:
Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways has organised a three-day Ports Review Meeting named ‘Chintan Baithak’ at Kutch, Gujarat.
Chairpersons of Major Ports and Officials of the Ministry will participate in the brainstorming conference. The resulting ideas from the meeting will be used to finalise the Maritime Vision-2030. Improving Port performance, infrastructure and Ease of Doing Business are focus areas.

Notes:
State Bank of India (SBI) has recently executed two inter-bank money market deals with pricing linked to SOFR (Secured Overnight Financing Rate).
SOFR is a replacement for London Inter-bank Offered Rate (LIBOR), which is global reference rate for unsecured short-term borrowing in the interbank market.

Notes:
The United States of America (USA) has rejoined the Paris Agreement on climate change. The new President Joe Biden reversed his predecessor Donald Trump’s order to exit the agreement.
The Paris Agreement on climate change is an international treaty under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), that came into effect in 2015

Notes:
Namrup is a town located in the southeastern part of Assam state. Recently a meeting was held by the Ministry of Chemicals & Fertilizers regarding the upcoming urea plant at Namrup.
The 12.7 lakh MMTPA capacity project is to be implemented jointly by the National Fertilizers Limited (NFL), Oil India Limited (OIL), Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilizers Limited (RCF), Brahmaputra Valley Fertilizer Corporation Limited (BVFCL) and Assam government.

Notes:
‘Society of Indian Defence Manufacturers (SIDM)’ is a Not-for-Profit Association, which aims to facilitate the indigenous production in Indian Defence industry.
Recently, an MoU between the Indian Army & Society of Indian Defence Manufacturers (SIDM) was signed to boost use of indigenous spare parts. This took place on the occasion of the 25 years of partnership of the Indian Army with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

Notes:
Nikhil Srivastava, a young Indian mathematician, has been named winner of the prestigious 2021 Michael and Sheila Held Prize.
He has been named the co-winner of the USD 100,000 award, along with two others for solving long-standing questions on the Kadison-Singer problem and on Ramanujan graphs. The mathematician is Associate Professor of Mathematics at the University of California, at present.