Current Affairs Quiz - January, 2021

Notes:
The 17th Ministerial Meeting of Asia Cooperation Dialogue (ACD) was recently organised under the theme, “The New Normal and Safe and Healthy Tourism” virtually.
Riva Ganguly Das, Secretary of the Union Ministry of External Affairs represented India at the meeting. She highlighted about the Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative (IPOI), announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2019.

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.

Notes:
Reserve Bank of India recently released a discussion paper on revised regulatory framework for Non-Banking Financial Companies (NBFCs).
As per the paper, the regulatory and supervisory framework of NBFCs shall be based on a four-layered structure namely Base Layer, Middle Layer, Upper Layer and a possible Top Layer. RBI also recommended more power for the NBFC Boards on capital and risk management.

Notes:
The Union Ministry of Road Transport & Highways (MoRTH) and Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Roorkee has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to continue the MoRTH Professorial Chair focusing on research and development.
The Chair focusses on teaching and training in the field of Development of Highway Infrastructure. The Ministry aims to develop indigenous technologies to lower cost of construction and reduce construction period of transport projects.

Notes:
US President Joe Biden has recently proposed a five-year extension of New START Treaty with Russia.
The treaty limited the United States and Russia to 1,550 nuclear warheads each. It expires on February 5 this year since the former President Donald Trump stopped negotiations and tried to include China in the treaty.

Notes:
A new draft ‘Arctic’ policy has been released recently by the Government of India. The draft policy would be available for public opinion till Jan 26, 2021. It has been prepared after deliberations with several Ministries.
The policy aims to expand India’s scientific research, sustainable tourism and mineral oil and gas exploration in the Arctic region.

Notes:
The report titled “The Inequality Virus” has been released recently by Oxfam International. The report has found that the Covid pandemic has deepened the existing inequalities.
The report has made a comparison that during the national lockdown in India its top 100 billionaires saw their fortunes increase by Rs 12.97 trillion while 70,000 people lost their jobs every hour in the month of April 2020.

Notes:
The Maharashtra government is launching a new initiative named Jail Tourism in the state.
As a part of the programme, jails where many freedom fighters were jailed will be developed as Tourism sites. From January 26, 2021 the state has launched the programme starting with the 150-year-old Yerawada Jail. It will also include Nagpur, Thane, and Ratnagiri Jails.

Notes:
The report, titled ‘Ageing water infrastructure: An emerging global risk’ was compiled by United Nations University’s Institute for Water, Environment and Health.
As per the report, over a thousand large dams in India will be almost 50 years old in 2025. It also warns about the threat posed by the aging structures across the world. As per the UN report, a large concrete dam begins to express signs of ageing at 50 years.

Notes:
The second edition of the International Conference on Gender Equality (ICGE-II) is to be hosted in February, 2021, at the Gender Park Campus, Kozhikode, Kerala.
The Chief Minister is also set to inaugurate a Gender Park at Kozhikode. It was established in 2013 under the Department of Women and Child Development. It has partnerships with various global organisations like UN Women.