Current Affairs Quiz - January, 2021

Notes:
The Indian Government has approved the construction of over 1.68 lakh houses in urban areas under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana- Urban.
As per the Union Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry, the total number of houses sanctioned so far stands at 1.1 crore. Under PMAY-U, 41 lakh houses have been completed so far and over 70 lakh houses are under construction.

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:
The UT Government of Puducherry has decided to sell Government securities of 4 years maturity, through which it aims to raise a capital of Rs.250 crore.
The sale would be conducted by the Reserve Bank of India – Mumbai. The securities would be in the denomination of Rs.10,000 and multiples thereof.

Notes:
AMPEX 21 is India’s tri-service joint amphibious exercise which was conducted in the Andaman & Nicobar group of islands. It involved the participation of Naval vessels, Army’s amphibious troops and flying machines of the Air force.
The aim of conducting this exercise is to validate the security force’s capabilities to safeguard the territorial integrity and enhance interoperability among the three forces.

Notes:
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has recently launched the ‘Union Budget Mobile ahead of the Union Budget 2021.
As this year’s budget will be completely paperless, the mobile application will enable members of the parliament and general public, to access budget documents. It has been developed by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) under the guidance of the Department of Economic Affairs (DEA), Finance Ministry.

Notes:
The Netherlands government played host to an online international Climate Adaptation Summit (CAS Online) on 25 January 2021, under the leadership of Prime Minister Mark Rutte. It aims to help the countries build a climate-resilient ecosystem back after the pandemic
Indian Prime Minister participated in the virtual conference and addressed the members. The Global Center on Adaptation (GCA) released a “State and Trends in Adaptation 2020”, which said global funding must be increased ten-fold, to meet the UNEP’s climate risk mitigation data.

Notes:
Estonia’s two biggest political parties – the Reform Party and the Centre Party have agreed upon a deal to form a new government, which would be headed by Kaja Kallas.
If approved by the law makers, she would become the first women Prime Minster of Estonia. Earlier, the previous Government collapsed on charges of corruption scandal.

Notes:
The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA) released the World Economic Situation and Prospects 2021.
As per the report, India’s economy is projected to grow at 7.3 per cent in 2021 while it is estimated to contract by 9.6 per cent in 2020. According to the UN, the reasons for the contraction are the lockdown and the fallen domestic consumption.

Notes:
A new School of Public Health (SPH) has been launched in the state of Rajasthan, to aid in healthcare management in the post-COVID-19 situation.
The school will provide technical support to health systems and help the State government in adopting new technologies. It will work on technology and surveillance mechanisms to help the policy makers.

Notes:
Union Bank of India announced that it has raised Rs 1,000 crore by issuing Basel III-compliant bonds on a private placement basis.
The bank issued perpetual bonds in the nature of debentures, which qualify as the Additional Tier 1 Capital of the bank. The public sector bank also announced that it will raise Rs 205 crore by issuing Basel III compliant bonds later this week.