Current Affairs Quiz - January, 2021

Notes:
Two new species of a rare ant genus have been recently discovered in Kerala and Tamil Nadu by a team of scientists from Punjabi University.
One of the two species which was discovered found in the Periyar Tiger Reserve of Kerala has been named Ooceraea Joshii, to honour the veteran biologist ‘Amitabh Joshi’.

Notes:
Punjab is implementing a scheme named ‘Shagun’ under which financial assistance is provided for the marriage of daughter who belongs to the low-income family. It aims to prevent child marriages.
Recently, the Punjab government hiked the grant for the marriage of daughters of construction workers from Rs 31,000 to Rs 51,000.

Notes:
Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Ishtaye was seen in the news recently as he had a discussion with the new UN envoy on reviving the stalled peace process.
The UN envoy Tor Wennesland, is the Special Coordinator for Middle East Peace Process. He also highlighted the openness of the country on any political process sponsored by the Quartet, comprising of the US, the UN, Russia and the European Union.

Notes:
‘National Girl Child Day’ has been celebrated in India on January 24 from the year 2008. To mark National Girl Child Day, the Indian Government organises awareness campaigns under Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao scheme.
This Day is an initiative of the Ministry of women and child development. It aims to focus on solutions for gender bias and the challenges faced by girls in Indian society. It also aims to create awareness on girl education, health and nutrition of girls.

Notes:
The central Government has recently stated that, Geological Survey of India (GSI) is in the process of expediting some of its important national level surveys. The GSI has proposed to complete its National Geochemical Mapping (NGCM) programme by 2024.
The GSI has also commenced an initiative named National Geoscience Data Repository (NGDR) for collecting all the geoscience data of the country.

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 DRDO’s Integrated weapons system design centre has been inaugurated by the Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu at Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Missile Complex – Hyderabad.
This centre would set an all-new platform for enhanced design – development for surface to air missile (SAM) systems and ballistic missile defence (BMD) systems.

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.

Notes:
Every year, the 27th of January is observed as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. It is a Memorial Day that commemorates the victims of the Holocaust, the genocide of European Jews by Nazi Germany, which took place between 1941 to 1945.
This date has been so chosen, because Auschwitz concentration camp was liberated by the Red Army on this date in 1945.

Notes:
The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) has recently released an index named “’Asia-Pacific Personalised Health Index”.
India has ranked 10th out of 11 Asia Pacific countries in the index. This index measures the readiness of 11 countries – Australia, China, Japan, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and New Zealand in adopting personalised healthcare.